Leonard Cohen is the third artist to receive the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award. With this award, created especially on the occasion of its 27th edition, the Festival wishes to showcase quality and musical innovation, as well as the author-composer-performer’s undeniable influence on the international pop music scene. At 73, Montreal poet, novelist and singer Leonard Cohen-inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2007-is a true living legend: a music icon as well as literature, he is considered one of the most important and influential singer-songwriters of our time! Through 40 years of classics, he has forged a singular, inimitable musical signature. A Festival prelude with three pre-opening concerts, from June 23 to June 25, 7:30 p.m., Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, PdA.

Gilberto Gil is the 5th winner of the Antonio Carlos Jobim Award, created for the Festival’s 25th anniversary to honour artists distinguished in the field of world music whose influence on the evolution of jazz and cultural crossover is widely recognized. A national hero to Brazil and the country’s current Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil has led a brilliant career for over four decades, redefining Brazilian popular music and becoming its global ambassador. With over 30 albums and 5 million in sales to his credit, Gil remains a man of conviction, and a gifted singer-guitarist, weaving rhythms as complex as they are deeply seductive. Les Grands concerts TD Canada Trust series, June 26, 9:30 p.m., Théâtre Maisonneuve, PdA.

Aretha Franklin is the 10th artist to receive the Ella Fitzgerald Award, established in 1999 for our 20th anniversary and conferred in recognition of the versatility, improvisational originality and quality of repertoire of a jazz singer renowned on the international scene. First woman to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she’s a true icon of American music… or let’s just say “music”, because this is one name that transcends any genre, and because Aretha Franklin brings Soul with a capital ‘S’ to everything she touches, be it gospel, rhythm and blues, soul-funk or even, most recently, hip hop. July 3 and July 4, 7:30 p.m., Salle Wilfrid‑Pelletier, PdA, as part of Pleins feux General Motors series.

McCoy Tyner will be the 15th recipient of the Miles Davis Award, created for our 15th anniversary in 1994 to honour a great international jazz musician for the entire body of his or her work and for that musician’s influence in regenerating the jazz idiom. To say the destiny of the pianist and genuine musical genius McCoy Tyner was stamped by his experience in John Coltrane’s legendary quartet is a masterpiece of understatement. The last living member of that legendary group, Tyner, at 70, remains in glorious musical form. His lyrical, crystalline play and his style, at once fluid and poised, rank him among the greatest names in jazz. Tuesday, July 1 (7 p.m.) Wednesday, July 2 and Thursday, July 3 (9:30 p.m.), Théâtre Jean Duceppe, PdA (série Invitation).

Dave Young is the 20th artist to receive the Oscar Peterson Award, created on the 10th anniversary of the Festival in 1989 to salute a Canadian musician who’s made outstanding contributions to jazz in this country and for the quality of his art. Double bassist Dave Young has collaborated with the greatest names in jazz, including Cedar Walton, Tommy Flanagan, Ellis Marsalis, Cyrus Chestnut, Oliver Jones and especially his friend Oscar Peterson (from 1975 to 1995). His warm tone, agility, impeccable intonation and graceful swing illustrate a flexible talent and capacity to embrace a large stylistic range of jazz. His twin careers as a classical musician and jazzman have taken him around the world, forging an international reputation with his bow.