Road Trippin’ with Jazz, Part II

Next day we woke up in downtown Canada and it was Canada day. For some reason it seems like whenever we go up to Canada in the summer there’s record-breaking temperatures. It got up to 37 degrees that day (99 Fahrenheit), and the major activity was walking around the city. We passed some impressive, official-looking stone buildings and made our way out to the waterfront, and then to a district of shops like a street fair. The whole atmosphere was like a giant street fair.

We went into a touristy gift shop, and it was the most Canadian store ever. They sold art prints and sculptures from Inuit artists, very nice stuff, plus a large collection of antlers, Narwhal tusks, furs, taxonomically stuffed wolves, polar bears bobcats, etc., bear- and wolfskin rugs, fur coats and wraps.

Eventually we made our way back to the jazz fest. Tired from the heat we stopped for lunch at a sports bar. They had a publicly accessible walk-in refrigerator room where they kept their beer cold. So I stepped inside and hung out for a minute or two. Ah, great relief. Inside the bar a World Cup game was going on, already in overtime. We had poutine for the first time, to see what all the buzz was about. Yum yummy dish, but probably better on a cold wintry day.

In the evening we got back to listening to jazz. The main drag of the festival is several blocks of streets closed to traffic full of kiosks selling food, drinks, records, t-shirts and other stuff, with four public bandshells with near-continuous free music. In addition, all the local clubs and theaters and the big arts center have ticketed live acts. We wandered around for a while taking it all in, and eventually settled into up at a small bandshell in one corner of the festival. It looked like it was set up on the lawn and parking lot of the church next door. We had seats at the bar and the gin & tonics went down smoothly.

A succession of bands came on, including an English lady that wasn’t exactly jazz, since she sang songs and there wasn’t much improvisation, but it was pretty much a trio with piano bass and drums, and they used some jazz chords. Reminded me of Kate Bush. The next group was a horn-section jazz band consisting of trumpet, trombone, alto sax, bass and drums. They started off playing mainly Dixieland, but did some interpretations of rock tunes, including Closer to the Heart and Stairway to Heaven (modeled after Frank Zappa version). Needless to say they were very good.

By nighttime it still hadn’t cooled off very much. The headlining act on that stage was the Low Down Brass Band from Chicago. They featured seven horns, a drummer and a percussionist. The horns were bari and tenor sax, two trombones, two trumpets, and a tuba in lieu of a bass. The music was kind of a cross between funk soul, hop-hop and jazz. A bunch of guys in the band could sing, and they had a rapper too. But they also took alot of solos and all of the guys could really play. All in all a great group. And it turned out they were staying at our hotel, so we met some of them after the show.

Next day we toured around Montreal. We went up to the mountain in the middle of the city with giant cross and hiked around. Then we checked out the giant geodesic dome where they had Expo ’67. We would have liked to hang around longer but it was brutally hot again. We headed back into the States, to Lake Placid area. We met up with our friends Mark and Kelly and spent the afternoon at a swimmin’ hole on Lower Saranac Lake, where we found some much needed relief from the heat. Next morning we climbed up Mount Whiteface, which was totally epic, and the temperature was actually temperate on the mountaintop. Then finally home. A totally epic and awesome vacation.

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