June 26 - During the FIJM

[Tchocolatl]

Darling, the expectation provides a state of bliss as well. Great.

Chubi, "Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
Fremde, étranger, stranger.
Gluklich zu sehen, je suis enchantée,
Happy to see you, bleibe, reste, stay.

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome
Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret"

Thanks for the info.

BuUut we won't see it during the tribute.

Well, maybe it is all for the best, I wonder how long I can survive in such a HUGE crowd, a sauvage like me. Even if the atmosphere is always so smooth and pleasant during the FIJM.

[Darling]

Since the list seems to keep changing, here is the last one as of today (June 21st) from the FIJM site.

Lhasa de Sela
Michel Pagliaro
Steven Page
Adam Cohen
Joe Lovano
Katie Melua
Madeleine Peyroux
Garou
Chris Botti
Serena Ryder
Buffy Ste-Marie
Zachary Richard
Thomas Hellman

The following were announced on the ARTE.TV (French) site which will be broadcasting the event but are not confirmed on the Jazz Festival site. I am very sceptical because it seems to me that if such people would be showing up the Jazz Fest would certainly advertise it! Perhaps it's a bad translation from the German and that they are just naming people who have participated in previous events?

Michael Bublé
Damien Rice
Kate & Anna McGarrigle
Martha Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Win Butler /Regine Chassagne (Arcade Fire)
KD Lang
Jennifer Warnes
Regina Spektor

[Tchocolatl]

Sometimes websites are not up-dated regularly. Virtual reality .

Good luck with this, Darling!

[Chubi]

Chubi, "Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
Fremde, étranger, stranger.

Danke, merci, thank you, Tchocolatl.

I intend to bleiben, rester, stay, at least for a while.

[Tchocolatl]

We are here only for a while, all of us.

Chubi, I see that you are following (a bit) the bird on the wire in nice places in Europe. What a summer this is!

[Darling]

Definitely no chance of him being there for the tribute.

The following article from La Presse says that LC sent a very long and very kind email where he says these things make him uncomfortable and that he is too old to start doing things he doesn't feel like doing.

Got to love the man! And of course he is right, and we wouldn't want him to be there if he doesn't enjoy it even though we would have!

Woody Allen et Leonard Cohen au Festival de Jazz

Le chanteur qui a créé une certaine aura de mystère ne participera ni n'assistera au spectacle hommage en son honneur, ont indiqué les organisateurs.

«M. Cohen n'assistera pas à son hommage parce qu'il déteste ça. Il nous a fait parvenir un très long et très gentil courriel nous expliquant qu'il avait toujours refusé de faire ça, que ça le mettait très mal à l'aise et comme il le disait: ce n'est pas à mon âge que je vais commencer à faire des choses qui ne me tentent pas», a expliqué à l'AFP M. Saulnier.

[Tchocolatl]

Alors ma Chérie, here is your sweetest Tchocotte than ever (diabetics take care)
How did you like it, Darling?

I must say that I was not waiting for the miracle after the strong emotions the concert of the 25 gave me.

It was not bad. It began with a clip of Cohen singing Hallelluia and all the feeling of the last evening (and more) came back in force. I was in a transe up in the crowded dark street. But the rest was agreable but not more. Buffie Sainte-Marie gave an exquisite performance. Garou surprised me, really. The setting of the tribute with pictures of The Man on the buildings around was pleasant.

I hope that you are well and alive and that you enjoyed!

[Darling]

Hi Sweetie,

I am still alive and well and back home since yesterday. I had a great time in Montreal, the weather was perfect, just hot enough to feel like summer but not too much.

Although it was far from the Master's performance (as expected), I liked the tribute, my favorites were Steven Page, Madeleine Peyroux and my Buffy. She sang 'The Partisan' again at her (great) show the night after, this time with a touching introduction about how she felt when LC sang it to her for the first time. I also really liked the little speech by Lhasa who was clearly touched by grace after seeing the LC show, Katie Melua, Pag and Serena Ryder who was obviously nervous but did a great job once she started to sing.

I guess my friend and I were the only ones really not impressed with Garou, I will leave it at that to preserve my karma. Let's just say that it was probably better in his case to be far away from the stage.

And yes, the best was of course our Lenny, even a virtual one...

So it was a little methadone, but now what? How are we to survive the withdrawal from the real thing? Any idea? The DVD won't come out for a while...

[Tchocolatl]

Poor Garou has no fan here with you and me. I said that he surprised me because my expectations were so low but he had interesting moments in the voice.

I love Madeleine Peyroux. She has a strong charism (despite that some people are saying that she is a new Billy Holliday, no, she has a blues of her own, yes). She can create strong original MP atmosphere so special that it was out of space in this tribute. Whatever she is doing it's Peyroux not anybody else, because her artistic personality is too strong. She was like a parenthesis in this tribute for me. All the other artists seem like a pale copy of the real Cohen to me, so. Well. It is me, not them the "problem".

Buffy sang in French - Montréal (et noblesse) oblige! - Le Chant des Partisans, which is not exactly an original by Cohen, so she managed to give a tribute to Cohen while staying herself in every way. I did feel a great artist and a sensitive and brilliant woman while she was on the stage.

[EricHiggins]

I'm watching this concert right now on a French/German TV (Arte) and it is very good.
Leonard's son Adam sings a bit like his father. The other artists are good too, and there are interesting pieces of Leonard's biography inbetween songs, with old archive pictures of his childhood and throughtought his career since 1965.
As I doubt you can get this programme live now, I hope you can get it through the web or on dvd some day!

[Tchocolatl]

Thanks Eric,wow, I hope so too for the interested fans, that sounds even better than the real thing.

[EricHiggins]

you're welcome, Tchocolatl.
To come back to what you said abour Buffy Sainte Marie, I guess you know "The Partisan" has always been in her repertory: she recorded it on her 1971 album "She used to wanna be a ballerina" (alongside with another LC song: "Bells") and the way she sang this song at the FIJM gig sounds quite the same as on the album, with only 2 verses in French, the rest in English. Interestingly, the lyrics in French are different from LC's version (she says "J'ai le ciel entier" instead of "j'ai la France entière").
Anyway, Buffy was very moving in her performance. (I recommend your listening to her album "She used to wanna be a ballerina" if you liked her)

[Tchocolatl]

Wunderbar! Danke!

[Darling]

Another Buffy fan, youppee!

The Tribute will be showed in Québec on ARTtv but they don't know the date yet.

[Tchocolatl]

I knew that Darling could come here any time and dance little steps of joy à la Snoopy around that Buffy Sainte-Marie's fanship.