Posted by 
On July 11th, 2009 the magical weather-bubble that had been hovering over the Ottawa Bluesfest finally broke, dumping occasional brief downpours upon a Saturday afternoon chock-full of awesome programming. But what do I know about it? I watched the storm clouds from my own back door, safe from the rain. But come hell and/or high water I wasn’t going to miss The Punch Brothers, so as the evening approached I cycled slow and gently through bike-path puddles to LeBreton Flats.
Despite their cliché instrumentation, The Punch Brothers are to bluegrass as Tom Waits is to folk music. With twenty-seven strings divvied up between five fabulous pickers, The Punch Brothers barrelled through manically tight arrangements that touched on several styles without bowing to any of them. Bandleader/phenom Chris Thile – who looked like a cross between James Dean and Justin Timberlake – wowed the crowd on both sides of his mandolin bridge, tearing through arpeggios, flailing riffs, and doublestops on material diverse enough to easily include a cover of Radiohead’s Morning Bell/Amnesiac without sounding out-of-place. What an excellent band. So good that it’s hard to believe that the best of the fest was still to come.
After The Punch Brothers came what would prove to be the final drenching of the day. I found myself inside the War Museum munching a samosa and drinking a coffee (at $2.75 and $2 respectively these were the two cheapest options onsite) while I waited for the doors to open for the Bluesfest’s first-ever show inside the LeBreton Gallery.
The LeBreton Gallery is my favourite part of the War Museum. It’s the huge room full of tanks and other military vehicles that can be seen through the tall, angled windows at the front of the museum. To describe it as a unique atmosphere for a concert would be a dramatic understatement. Imagine hundreds of antiquated armoured vehicles, fighter jets, submarines, motorcycles, jeeps and who-knows-what-else crammed into a large scalloped concrete room, and on a small stage flanked by enormous tanks on either side stood the amazing Ornette Coleman (1930-2015), flanked himself by two doublebass players along with his son backing him up on drums.
The vibe bordered on eerie as Coleman reached to the edges of the free jazz universe alternatively on sax, trumpet and (surprisingly) violin. The sound of his genius was sometimes noisy, and this was never more apparent than when Coleman danced on the fringes of tonality – from the outside looking in, not the other way around – exploring every modal dark corner he could reach. I was taken by the musical variety and by how the band could play so freely and yet be so tight at the same time. It was without a doubt one of the most interesting sets of music I had ever heard at the Bluesfest and if I’m not mistaken it was the only time I saw a show in that room, which is a shame.
All of these points make it hard for me to believe that I somehow managed the impossible and walked out on the ethereal Ornette Coleman, and though I will always regret not seeing his set through to the very end you just can’t be in two (or, as it happens, three) places at once. I have always admired Brian Setzer’s guitar playing and I just couldn’t bear to miss seeing him fronting his sixteen-piece band, the Brian Setzer Orchestra. I split my time between watching him play Stray Cats hits like Sexy + 17, Stray Cat Strut, and the set-closing Rock This Town (amongst a pile of other rockabilly big band music) and checking out the amazing Matisyahu over on the Subway Stage.
If you want upbeat, super-positive music you will find none higher than Matisyahu (yes, he could even elevate a Michael Franti crowd). An orthodox ascetic Jewish hip-hop singer who famously won’t begin performing until at least three stars are visible in the night sky, Matisyahu is an act not to be missed even if you have only the most pedestrian interest in this style of music, as I do. If his stuff doesn’t get your body moving you probably need a holy intervention, in which case you’d be in the right place either way.
Damn the Bluesfest and their heart-wrenching booking conflicts! I would have loved nothing more than to have seen the entire Ornette Coleman set, the whole Brian Setzer set, and all of Matisyahu too but alas, ‘twas temporally impossible. I suppose if the biggest complaint of the festival is that there’s too much good music happening then I guess I have little to complain about, but still.
I consoled myself with a second consecutive trip down to the Market for the Bluesfest’s downtown aftershow component, a fun and short-lived feature of the festival. Just like the previous night, Ottawa’s own Louisiana swamp band Mumbo Jumbo Voodoo Combo opened up for true-blue Louisiana Zydeco legend C.J. Chenier and together they kicked every butt in attendance and had the entire patio on their feet throughout. Aside from the enormously talented C.J., his band was quite astounding too, including a simply unreal bass player and a young cousin of Dickie Betts on guitar (or was he Dickie’s nephew?). M’lady and I had made friends with the band the night before and we spent the following afternoon showing C.J. and Tim Betts around town.
It was very late when I finally called it a night (morning?) and made my way home. It had been a wonderfully long and exhausting Saturday at Bluesfest, even with the day-shortening weather. But that’s Bluesfest, and I still had a full week to look forward to.
Woo.
Todd Man Out 