Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Brian Jungen and the Jazz Festival

Last two weeks have been pretty rich in culture, at least according to my own standards.

First there was the Jazz Festival. I tried to cover it and failed miserably (see the Jazz pages here), but because of that failed initiative I did end up going to festival much more than I have ever did in the past. And this year's edition was a special one for me; there was a big gypsy/Balkan music theme, probably because the closing concert was Goran Bregovic. There were bands like Kaba Horo, Gadji Gadjo, a band called Balkan Beat Box. It felt good to see music from my culture being broadcasted at such a level in Montreal, to people from here and everywhere.

Goran's closing concert was the climax of that pro-Balkan cultural brainwashing. There were these English speaking men next to me at the show who asked me questions about the music, and during the last songs there were thousands of people dancing, enjoying themselves: all innocent people invaded by the Balkan spirit without their knowledge.

I made a lot of videos during the festival; they will be up soon on my brand new UTube account (yet again I am jumping on a new web band-wagon).

Also, I went to the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, in the heart of the Jazz Fest, to see the exhibit of Brian Jungen. That was my other cultural activity, a quick and fulfilling one, because Jungen has a few but impressive pieces. Well, the most impressive ones are obviously the plastic chair whales. They are stunning through the imaginative use of regular household items. On display were also the Jordan Nike Air shoes native masks made by Jungen. They were beautiful, and Jungen's ability to use the features of the shoes to make features of masks was unbelievable.

Talking about Goran, three days latter I am still singing his songs at work. I loved the show. I'll write about it on my Jazz pages.



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