Jazz: Bourgie Hall

This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en: Francais (French)

A Chick Corea Rarity

Chick Corea and Claire Marchand in 2019.

Since its opening in 2011, Bourgie Hall has become an indispensable venue for Montreal concertgoers. Situated within the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the concert hall—a beautiful, converted 19th-century Romanesque Revival-style church—has presented, within its walls, such renowned performers as Víkingur Ólafsson, Alexandre Tharaud, The Tallis Scholars and Andreas Scholl.

While such a setting is ideal for chamber music and singers, jazz also plays a growing part in the hall’s programming. In the 2024-25 season, no fewer than nine jazz concerts are featured.

For Olivier Godin, the venue’s artistic director for three seasons, the hall’s added value for jazz fans lies in the way the music is featured. “we offer a more quiet, reflective listening experience,” he says, “compared to many other venues where jazz is presented in the city”—like jazz clubs or noisy bars. For this season, Godin and Executive Director Caroline Louis have chosen a 5 à 7 formula, where people can gather at the hall’s bar after work before enjoying an early evening of jazz. So far, Godin says the series has been very successful, with at least one recurring event, the “Charlie Brown Christmas” concert (celebrating its 10th edition this year), becoming a seasonal family tradition. “It’s always sold out in October,” says Godin, who already plans to add performances for this event next year.

As he emphasizes, it is crucial to create an experience that brings together people from different backgrounds: “We try to put on concerts that will please the public first and foremost,” he says. It is no surprise, then, to find a few events on the program that speak both to the discerning jazz fan and to the classical music enthusiast, such as American pianist David Chesky’s trio (with his versions of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Johann Strauss, on Jan. 23) or a rare performance of Chick Corea’s chamber pieces for septet on Feb. 6 (more on that below).

The hall’s programming also includes for at least 50 per cent local artists, so Godin has called upon some of Montreal’s foremost jazz musicians, namely pianist Lorraine Desmarais (presenting her Street Beat Suite with her long-standing trio on April 3), saxophonist Rémi Bolduc (with French pianist Baptiste Trotignon, on April 24), and pianist Marianne Trudel (with a program of Jobim pieces, on May 15) “that should soothe the soul after the winter!”

While Godin cannot yet reveal any of his future jazz projects, he sees the potential for growth with the jazz public. One thing is certain: featuring more international artists and bringing back evening concerts is part of his plans.

Chick Corea’s album “Septet”, released in 1985 on ECM Records.

Chamber Corea

Forty years ago, Chick Corea released quite a unique album titled Septet. For his followers, the title might have signalled a backward look to his hard bop years. Instead, the album offered an intricate, multipart work for flute, French horn, piano and string quartet. One couldn’t help but recognize his signature style with its distinctive Latin flourishes, very rhythmic and virtuosic. However, with its absence of a rhythm section and almost impressionistic language this was, for all intents and purposes, “chamber Corea.”

“It’s not really jazz,” admits flutist Claire Marchand, who will bring the work to the Bourgie stage on Feb. 6, along with pianist Matt Herskowitz, hornist Gabriel Trottier and the Andara Quartet. For her, this is a project that was initiated nearly 10 years ago. “I met Chick Corea twice,” she says. “The first time in 2016, and then in 2019. I told him I wanted to play the septet. ‘Great,’ he answered, ‘who do you have in mind for the piano part?’ Why, you, of course!” Marchand exclaimed.

But the project would take many more years to put together as neither the Septet (in five movements) nor the remaining piece on the original album (Temple of Isfahan) had been published as sheet music. Marchand obtained a copy of the manuscript for the first work, but there were no individual parts available. Furthermore, after Corea’s death in 2021, she had to find the resources to transcribe the score and extract the parts. For Temple of Isfahan, she had to do some more detective work. “I even contacted some of the musicians from the original album,” she says. When she thought she had at last found the score and parts for that piece, she realized she had gotten a different arrangement, for electric guitar.

Montreal audiences will, therefore, get to hear a true rarity when Marchand and her associates take the stage at Bourgie Hall, since Septet has almost never been played since the release of the original album. The flutist is visibly proud to finally be able to present this almost forgotten chapter of Chick Corea’s work, especially Temple of Isfahan: “I think it is a very endearing piece,” she says. “The Septet is quite a vigorous work, but Temple is more relaxed, almost Zen-like, and the ending, with its delicate decrescendo, is very different, without any obvious big ‘boom’ to finish.”

To round out the one-hour program, pianist Matt Herskowitz will play a few of Corea’s miniature Children’s Songs (from the same period), and the ensemble will also perform a version of Armando’s Rhumba, a classic from Corea’s 1976 eclectic Latin jazz opus, My Spanish Heart.