Last night I finally felt like I had become one of those rare "fams" who can claim to have seen a legendry Prince show (like, Small Club). At the Montreal Jazz Festival Prince performed for almost three and a half hours. But the most amazing part was for the first hour and twenty minutes he didn't dance, hardly touched his guitar and only sung three or four songs.It was the most daring set hes ever "officially" performed, the one wew've all been pleading for for years. It was jazz. And it left all breathless. On a sparse set the show opened with a long John Blackwell drum solo, after about 4 minutes he was joined by Najee on flute. At this stage it was more like St Etienne than Prince. Prince joined on keyboards dressed very low key and facing slightly away from the audience. They opened with a 15 minute instrumental! And right now you're all checking to see if its April 1st. No. It really happened, and it gets better. Prince starts playing on a vocoder (like French disco king Mirwais) chanting "Montreal, get it on". This soon lead into Dorothy Parker (for two verses) and into 4, 4 became another instrumental jam Prince playing keyboards and scatting! I have seldom seen him so relaxed, he'd get up and walk around just watching the rest of the band as all were spotlighted. Finally after 30 minutes he picked up Habibi, blazed an exuberant effortless solo. Enter Larry Graham. My heart sank. I'm an idiot, Larry did a 10 minute bass solo that was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in a concert, he slapped and picked every part of his bass had it squealing like it was a living entity that wasn't happy with the way it was being treated,, got toweled off by Prince and kept on going, wandering into the crowd and staning atop a chair. The crowd went nuts! So how does P follow that? He breaks it down, just sits at the keyboards playing and sampling himself as he went building all these loops to play over - incredible!

Then he Mike and larry just all jam on their guitars ... heaven! We're 50 minutes in and finally he sings again, a jazzy blusesy version of Girls and Boys that just has to be bootlegged and sent to me ASAP! Then Najee solos for a while and Prince switches to the bass and they just groove, I think it was old Madhouse but I'm not sure. During this Jam P starts yelling "Talkin' loud" at the band, (easily audible even from my nose bleed seats, great huh, I pay $100 for Premium membership and I end up with the worst seats I've ever had to one of his shows, still mustn't complain ... I was there!)then he starts applauding the crowd and the band, seemed to be a very sincere expression of joy about what he was doing. Finally this groove ends, Prince sits back down at the keyboards (didn't bring the Piano with him) and asks "Montreal, how late can you stay up?" Then plays over a series of pre-recorded loops starting with a phenomenal jazz lounge version of Forever In My Life, followed by a track I didn't know, and then Joni's A Case of you.

Finally after an hour and 20 he announces they'll be taking a short intermission.

After 15 minutes they return, staright into Uptown,Controversy, Lets Work, during which he remarked "who was that on the stage 10 minutes ago? We didn't come to do that, we came to rock and roll" Into The Work Pt 1, Cream, Little Red Corvette, with P in an armchair watching geneva dance (she wasn't in the first part of the show at all). Then I Wanna Be Your Lover and Sexy Dancer, during which a trumpeter from the festival, Roy Hargrove guested, fuunky! Mike Scott grooved on guitar for a while as P played his effects pedal. Housequake, ICNTTPOYM which evolved into Najee playing Summertime. Do me baby, Scandalous, Diamonds and Pearls, The Beautiful Ones, Nothing Compares 2 U. They left the stage for 5 minutes, returned with Larry and did the "Dynamite" jam with Larry introducing the band. Off again and then back to close with Purple Rain.

Wow what a night, especially the jazz set, unbelievable and totally unique, order the bootleg now (not that I'm endorsing that sort of thing .. I'll take 3).
The crowd response was fantastic with long standing ovations for him and the band who were all incredible, yes even Larry and kirk Johnson.

In recent years I must admit to having my interest in Princes work wain a little, but this reaffirmed for me all the reasons I loved his work in the first place, hes a genius and theres no one else remotely like him, so frankly he can do whatever he pleases and I'll be happy to take the ride with him.

I wish you could all have been there!
Wow, Now I have to sleep.

[Sounds awesome! Thanks for the report! -Ben]