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Just like every festival that dares to step outside of their professed genre (I’m looking at you, every festival in the world that has “Blues”, Jazz”, or “Folk” in your name) the Ottawa Jazz Festival isn’t immune to the inevitable feeble complaints of being too eclectic. “Oh, it’s not even a jazz festival,” they wail (seriously).
But you couldn’t say that about June 27th, 2016, when the festival dished up a Norwegian sax trio, Dave Brubeck’s son leading his own band from behind his drum kit, and a giant modern jazz experiment led by some American saxophonist (all of which I missed, busy as I was eying the darkening sky and tending to my barbecue), and headlining the evening was the current reigning heavyweight champion of the New Orleans jazz scene – and we all know that New Orleans knows it’s shinola when it comes to jazz – ladies and gentlemen Mr. Trombone Shorty!
Long and lean like the instrument he wears like a limb, Shorty is anything but. He led his band through a string of neo-swamp make-ya-dance jazz tunes that sounded just like Bourbon Street while I stood-boogied under the jazz tree with all my friends, sipping beers and dreaming that I was back in Lafayette Square. Trombone Shorty is just a world-class singer, musician, and all-around entertainer, and you can hear it all the way from the first note to the last.
And after that last, totally professional leave-you-wanting-more-but-still-walking-out-happy note I booked it straight out of there and went home. The late night tent had some DJ in it that I could care less about.
What the heck are DJ’s doing at a jazz festival? Sheesh.
Todd Man Out 