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| Philippe Bertaud At The Montreal Jazz Festival |
Jazziz - Montreal |
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Airy, lyrical and redolent of his Mediterranean home, the music of this Nicean guitarist travels well. Bertaud takes inspiration from his well-thumbed passport, expressing in his fine playing an understanding of the inter-realationship between cultures as diverse as the Côte d'Azur, the Orient, Eastern Europe and Brazil. Dreamy. On day two of my stay (July 6rd), I made sure to check out my fellow Classical man (by ethnicity, anyway), France's Philippe Bertaud, who, while pigeonholed as a "New Guitar Player", has managed throughout his recorded career to stay away from the genre's more obvious musical pitfalls. As it turns out, he provided my first taste of true Montreal inspiration, and believe me, it was musical "inspiration through perspiration" as Philippe's athletic moves and alternate tunings produced not only a very enthusiastic response from the audience, but a noticeable puddle of liquid on the stage floor. Like Kawasaki the previous afternoon, Philippe performed on the aptly named "Contact" stage, which is indeed the most intimate of the festival's free stages, giving the audience full opportunity to closely observe the intense concentration and subtlety of the coordination of the (sweaty) right and left hand techniques needed to pull off his percussive brand of guitaristic wizardry. As Philippe pandered to what turned out to be a partisan crowd (Montreal is heavily populated with Frenchies), by playing his version of "O Canto de Ossanha", a pleasant melancholia ensued on my part. I found my thoughts drifting to the early departure of a Bertaud's former contemporary, Michael Hedges, whose spirit is carried on between the hearts, hands, wood and steel of standard-bearers like Bertaud. While he remains somewhat underrecognized, Philippe is easily that good. |
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