2009 Festival awards
The Festival International de Jazz de Montréal honours Stevie Wonder, Toots &
The Maytals, John Pizzarelli, Ornette Coleman and Susie Arioli and creates the new
Bruce Lundvall Award
2009 Bruce Lundvall Award: Bruce Lundvall
In keeping with a
tradition dating back to the 10th edition and repeated every fifth year with
the addition of a new prize, the Festival marks its 30th anniversary with the
creation of the Bruce Lundvall Award, to be presented annually
to a non-musician who has left a mark on the world of jazz or contributed to the
development of music. And who is better to be the first recipient of this prestigious
distinction than Bruce Lundvall himself, president of legendary
EMI Music label Blue Note!
Bruce Lundvall has nothing but friends in the world of jazz. An
astute administrator gifted with a pair of ears directly connected to his heart,
he has reached universal respect, from his peers as much as the innumerable musicians
and journalists he's met or collaborated with.
This exceptional man has the honour of being the first recipient of the award that
will bear his name. Bruce Lundvall, we congratulate you!
2009 Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award: Stevie Wonder
Stevie
Wonder is the fourth artist to receive the Montreal Jazz
Festival Spirit Award. With this award, the Festival wishes to showcase quality
and musical innovation, as well as the singer-songwriter/performer's undeniable
influence on the international pop music scene.
Twenty years have already passed since Stevie Wonder was inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame... and over 45 since his first hit in 1962, when the pop world
knew him as "Little Stevie Wonder"! A peerless icon of American black music and
a virtual human jukebox, Stevie Wonder's concerts celebrate his songbook with a
string of hits that have defined our lives and live forever in our memories.
All the Montreal
Jazz Festival Spirit Award recipients
2009 Antonio Carlos Jobim Award: Toots & The Maytals
Toots & The Maytals
are the 6th recipients 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.
As the '60s opened, Frederick Nathaniel "Toots" Hibbert and friends Jerry Mathias
and Raleigh Gordon released their first ska album on Studio One. By the close of
the decade, their group The Maytals would be considered one of Jamaica's greatest
vocal ensembles. They are credited with the first use of the word "reggae" in the
title of their song Do the Reggay in 1968.
All the Antonio Carlos Jobim Award recipients
2009 Ella Fitzgerald Award: John Pizzarelli
John
Pizzarelli is the 11th 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.
With almost 40 albums to his credit, veteran singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli
honours us once again with his presence. A past master in the art of reinventing
jazz classics, zinging them with accents of swing or pop, he is often compared to
legends Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.
All
the Ella Fitzgerald Award recipients
2009 Miles Davis Award: Ornette Coleman
Ornette
Coleman will be the 16th 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 thatmusician's influence in regenerating
the jazz idiom.
Fifty years into his career, this peerless jazz titan insists that we consider him
not simply as a saxophonist and artist, but as a composer who confounds and obliterates
every boundary. When you practically invented free jazz, when you alternate at will
between sax, trumpet and violin, when you've established a "Sound Grammar" and shared
the stage with the Grateful Dead, all without compromising your technicolour personality,
no label would even dare stick to you!
All the Miles Davis Award recipients
2009 Oscar Peterson Award: Susie Arioli
Susie
Arioli is the 21st artist to receive the Oscar Peterson
Award, created on the 10th anniversary of the Festival in 1989 to salute a Canadian
musician who has made outstanding contributions to jazz in this country and for
the quality of his art. She's back by popular demand, after her fabulous success
at Théâtre Outremont!
After a country detour with Learn To Smile Again, Susie Arioli returns
to the Festival for the 11th time with Night Lights—a 5‑star
review in ejazznews.com, 30,000 copies sold
in a few months, and recently released in Europe to a particularly warm Parisian
welcome! Renowned for her authentic jazz, blues and western swing interpretations,
Susie Arioli has sold over 190,000 copies of her 6 albums (5 CDs
and 1 live CD/DVD) in her career, in twenty countries!
All the Oscar Peterson Award recipients
2009 General Motors Grand Jazz Award: Amanda Tosoff Quartet
The Festival International
de Jazz de Montréal, in collaboration with General Motors Canada, presented the
General Motors Grand Jazz Award to the
Amanda Tosoff Quartet, which was deemed the best of 10 other jazz
artists and ensembles that took part in the 2009 pan-Canadian competition.
At age 25, the British Columbia pianist Amanda Tosoff has already earned numerous
distinctions and grants. From an early age, this talented musician and composer
was influenced by the greats – Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, Branford Marsalis
– and was taught by some of the most impressive figures in Canadian jazz. We were
reacquainted with this promising musical revelation on her latest album, Wait and
See, accompanied by her critically acclaimed three-piece band: Evan Arntzen
(saxophone), Sean Cronin (double bass) and Morgan Childs (drums).
All
the Grand Jazz Award recipients