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There was a time in my life when I tried to make it to Montreal every summer for at least a smidgen of their International Jazz Festival. It’s a tradition that started in the mid-to-late-’80’s when the fest coincided with a Bob Dylan concert that was the centrepiece of my first-ever trip to the city. When I moved to Ottawa to attend university in 1989 a nearly-annual trek to the festival became a lot more feasible and consistent.
Which is what brought me to the (now defunct) Spectrum on Ste. Catherine’s on July 3rd, 1993. Well, I guess what brought me to the Spectrum was the fact that British blues legend John Mayall was going to be playing a concert and I had a ticket, though if I was being a literalist I would be forced to concede that what had actually brought me to the Spectrum that night was my 1985 Toyota minivan, a beautiful beast I called The Big Red Tomato.
Anyways, I walked in the door with my good friend Jojo and we sidled up to the bar and ordered a pitcher of beer. Surveying the room I could see a sea of cocktail lounge tables complete with flickering candles set up behind a sizeable dancefloor with a plush balcony above and twinkling lights everywhere. At the front of the room was four-foot high stage all set up with gear, but otherwise barren. “Let’s go,” I said.
We walked across the empty dancefloor straight to the middle of the stage, where we set our pitcher near the base of Mayall’s mic stand and set up shop for the evening. Quite a few fans in the general-admission venue took notice and within about ninety seconds we were surrounded; the entire length of the stage had been staked out as had the first few rows of standing room at centre-stage…right behind Jojo and I and our pitcher of beer (or was it two?).
Soon enough the show started and it was completely blissful from top-to-bottom*. John Mayall sang and played keyboards mostly, with a few saxophone solos thrown in too, and all of it just a few feet from us. For one, single song in the evening Mayall played an electric guitar, and when it came to solo-time he dropped to his knees directly in front of me and tore that guitar a new one.
I had anticipated this and had reached into my pickpocket (the rest of the world would call it a “watch pocket” or generally wouldn’t call the small secondary pocket on the right-hand side of their bluejeans anything at all) and plucked out a plectrum, gripping one of my guitar picks in my hand. At precisely the right moment, just as Mayall took a moment between blistering phrases in the middle of his solo I held out my plectrum and yelled, “Trade picks?!?”
I remember John looking at me with a flicker of astonishment before smiling and saying “Sure!” He reached over and grabbed my pick, deftly dropping his own sweaty plectrum into my palm at the same time, and then he immediately dug into another monstrous pentatonic phrase on his guitar. It all happened so fast and I was thrilled. I tucked my new souvenir into my pickpocket, accepted a few high-fives from the more astute of those around me, and went on to enjoy the rest of the show. It was so good.
Unfortunately, by the time we got back to…whoever’s place we were staying at (I wouldn’t have even thought about booking a hotel back in that era) I had somehow lost John Mayall’s guitar pick. I am flummoxed as to how it happened, and to this day it remains a burning hole in my celebrity guitar pick collection (which includes Kim Mitchell, Marillion, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rick Neilson, Ted Nugent, and many others). Alas. But like I say, it was a great time, and I certainly don’t go to concerts specifically to collect guitar picks.
These Montreal trips continued for just a few more years, until either a) I finally discovered the Ottawa Jazz Festival, or b) the Ottawa Jazz Festival finally stepped up their game and started booking basically the same acts as Montreal’s festival. Most likely it was a little bit of a) and a little bit of b).
As are most things.
(In the service of completion, I’ll add that earlier in the day we took in a concert on the free outdoor stage on Rue Sainte-Catherine starring a French group [as in: from France] called Le Paname Jazz Quartet. Of course I went to a free outdoor show; I always went to free outdoor concerts at Montreal Jazzfest. Heck, John Mayall might have been the first show I ever saw at Jazzfest that wasn’t free and outdoors.)
*Somehow, some way I don’t recall Mick Taylor playing with the band at all, but he did. And I’m not only saying that because I just now noticed his name on the ticket stub. In fact, his very own website confirms it, stating that on this date and in this venue John Mayall performed “With MT guesting on one or more songs.” MT…err…Mick Taylor’s website also tells me that the Bluesbreakers played an early show and a late show at The Spectrum that night. Both revelations came as news to me.
And trust me, I knew very well who Mick Taylor was at the time. For not only was I a huge Stones-head by then, but the first time I ever attended Montreal’s International Festival de Jazz, you know, that time I was in town to see Bob Dylan? The headlining free outdoor concert on the final day of the fest was none other than MT, the very same Mick Taylor that I somehow don’t recall sitting in with John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers at this show. Astounding, the things I forget**.
Geez, for all I know I made out with Sissy Spacek behind a poutine shack on the way home from the show.
**Holy. I just thought to check that most reliable of resources: my ticket binders. And wow. I have Mick Taylor listed as the opening act and Oh My Gawd! I remember now!!!!! Mick was dressed in a black suit. Yeah…that’s it! I really do remember it now. Wow. Amazing that I had forgotten. In my defence, I was swayed by the misinformation on MT’s website (though I suppose Taylor probably did sit in for “one or more songs” in addition to opening the show.
I sure am glad I write these things.***
***I hope you are too.
Todd Man Out 
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