The first time I heard the honey toned voices singing along with an acoustic guitar, I was a block away sitting in a small Jazz lounge called Le Jazzons. Very low key place it was where I sat next to Victor Vogel as he jammed with other musicians after hours during the Montreal Jazz Festival. As I walked out the bar I heard the music coming from rue St Denis and saw a crowd at the front of a bar I was about to soon visit and fall prey to its charm.
The closer I got, I could hear why there was a crowd where they were singing along, most swaying and moving their hips to the music inside.
Blues is the type of music that I personally feel has no discrimination. I suppose Jazz is the same but in Montreal, I noticed more people of all walks of life packing into this small Bistro à JoJo on rue St Denis every night of the week. Oh, you can sit in afternoons too to listen to open jamming but after ten in the evening the place is hopping. It holds less than 100 patrons, so it is not rare to see people on the sidewalk listening to the music. This was a place I heard so many French and English people singing and talking together savouring the blues here.
posée au comptoir
sirotant une Maudite
le Blues m’apaisent
Manhattan reminds me a bit of Montreal (on a much smaller scale) in that it is an island, drivers are aggressive and honk their horns a lot and it is a city of music and food. Well to me anyway. Driving off the island to get on any bridge is similar to Montreal when there are twelve lanes that merge onto three lanes and they do it day in, day out as we do here too. So on a much smaller scale I do see similarities…I think NY has a better nightlife in all areas and that is where we differ here. We have a slower pace lifestyle and unlike our Canadian mega city, Toronto who follows more NY style rush rush rush…we have kept a bit of our ancestor’s mode de vie, vivre et laisser vivre.
weekend gig
island of many lights
stringing the blues
serenade on the Hudson
under midnight blue skies
© Tournesol ’15
* La Maudite is one of many beers brewed in Chambly, Québec by UniBroue. Chambly is the town where my children were raised. La Maudite is a stronger beer at 8% alcohol and Unibroue has other beers up to 10% however my favourite is La Blanche de Chambly at 5%; it is a wheaty beer tasting more like a Belgian beer.
Tournesol dans un Jardin 
I don’t know why this factoid just came to me, but:
Did you know Canadian rock legends Rush started out as a Blues Band?
LikeLike
Yes I heard that, he started in Toronto. I am trying to remember the name of a famous blues guy who stared in Montreal,jamming in Verdun ( a poorer section) and cannot remember his name.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 I dunno… but let me know if you think of it! 🙂
LikeLike
I will try to find an email a guy sent me about that last year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love this post … it was almost like walking with you and your ku and tanka are inspirational .. I’ve seen Chambly beer in Italy btw .and never realized that it was Canadian beer!
LikeLike
My home town….well the kids. The fort you see on many photos is by the rapids where I used to sit to diffuse many a time. The first owner of this brewery was Robert Charlebois a Quebecois folksinger.
LikeLike
Interesting … guess even a singer needs to have a steady income 🙂 … nice info!
LikeLike
He was sort of the Bob Dylan of French Quebec
LikeLike
Cool!
LikeLike
Oh! Thank so much for the comment I thought I was way off on this one but wanted to fit in NY blues as well as Montreal blues:)
LikeLike
Well for me it’s right on … 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
This post conjured so many delightful memories. I lived in Burlington, VT for many years, and I always considered it a suburb of Montreal. I was also in school at U of T in the 60’s before the city got too big for its britches. We used to call it “Toronto the Good.” Thanks for the lovely poetry and the warm memories.
LikeLike
Ah I grew up about 20 minutes from the border and camped with the kids 5 mins…my daughter still does her groceries in Plattsburgh and I listen to radio from there as well. They always announce the weather in Montreal as well. It is the burbs of Montreal for sure:) I lived in TO 97 to 2009 and it was no longer Toronto the Pure…haha but Yorkville is no longer Bob Dylan territory although Hemmingway has his pub. Talking of blues and jazz, one of the greatest jazz places in TO is called Montreal Bistro equivalent to Biddles in Mtl when Oscar Petersen used to perform.
LikeLike
OMG,now the memories are flooding. You might have noticed that I play decent jazz piano. In the late 70’s I had a couple of gigs with Big Joe Burrell who worked for many years with B B King. The gigs were at Bistro Jo Jo. And then back in the 60’s I worked one night at George’s on Dundas St. with Ed Thigpen, Oscar Peterson’s drummer. He brought me way beyond myself with his kindness and incredibly tasty swing.
LikeLike
Oh wow! such great memories! I wrote about Bistro a JoJo on my other blog under my nom de plume for all haiku at CP Blue prompt. Serendipity!
LikeLike
i will google translate the haiku, meanwhile i enjoyed the haibun tet and the tanka
much love…
LikeLike
Cheryl-Lynn, – you are very correct in your information – I was in Canada many times and I performed live Blues and Jazz…well done!!
LikeLike
Thank you so much! Do you still travel to perform?
LikeLike
I like the idea of there being no discrimination in the blues.
Fragmentary Blue
LikeLiked by 1 person