Montreal International Jazz Festival spotlights local acts for 40th edition

What does the largest jazz festival in the world do to celebrate its 40th anniversary? It turns down the volume and gets back to its roots.

There's no big name headliner to draw a cross-section of music lovers to Quartier des Spectacles on the Montreal International Jazz Festival's opening night — instead, homegrown talent is bookending the festival.

"For this anniversary, we want to put Montreal artists at the beginning and end," said Laurent Saulnier, vice-president of programming.

On Thursday, Charlotte Cardin launches the festival with a free performance on the main stage.

Saulnier said the Montreal-born artist started her career during the Jazz Fest and serves as "proof that we're really taking care of the Montreal music scene."

Local folk singer Matt Holubowski closes the festival with a free show on July 6.

A soft opening to the festival takes place Wednesday night for a 40th anniversary celebration. It includes three acts performing a musical retrospective.

Blockbuster to neighbour

The festival is already known as a huge tourist draw and welcomed almost two million people to its 25th edition in 2004.

Some of its outdoor shows can attract more than 200,000 people.

With nothing to prove, making local artists and areas the focal point this year just made sense to Saulnier.

The local spotlight will shine on the borough of Verdun as well, where the festival's first satellite site is set up.

"It's the first of, we hope, a couple more in the years to come," Saulnier said. "The idea was, if you don't want to come to the Jazz Fest, the Jazz Fest will come to you."

He said if the site in Verdun goes well, there could be another expansion next year.

But one of the reasons Montreal's large festivals take place in the Quartier des Spectacles is because their former sites — peppered through mixed residential and commercial areas like the Latin Quarter — often drew the ire of longstanding residents.

Saulnier said this won't happen in Verdun because the festival has worked so closely with the community.

"We talked to a lot of people in Verdun, not only to check on the noise, but what they like," Saulnier said.

He said that the move out of the downtown core is, in part, just keeping with the changing face of Montreal tourism.

For example, tourists to New York City will sometimes avoid Manhattan altogether and stay in Brooklyn, and he said that in the past few years, visitors to Montreal are doing the same — avoiding the downtown core to focus on its surrounding neighbourhoods.

For people who are overwhelmed by the number of artists to choose from, Saulnier recommends going to the main site at 5 p.m. any day of the festival and just walking around.

There are at least three free outdoor concerts daily: "For sure, you will see something that you will like," Saulnier said.