New Zealand’s Connan Mockasin once told me in an interview he asked Wellington University for a degree certificate for jazz because there were so many rumours floating around that he had a jazz degree (he didn't go to any university). They didn’t give him one. So to see Mockasin swan in at the world’s most prestigious and biggest jazz festival tonight (4 July) is another small victory and perhaps Wellington University ought to think about changing their mind. His guitar playing is transcendent – effortless. He has the same qualities he sees in his friend and collaborators James Blake: it’s almost like he’s not playing. On stage tonight, Mockasin only breaks this effortless dexterity when, for a moment; he starts finger tapping in a purposefully self-conscious way, and points his guitar back towards his band mates and murmurs something with the words jazz festival and he holds a bit of a grin.
Mockasin’s unique sense of humour is what drives the fans, who are completely packed in to the intimate – by his standards – environs of Club Soda in downtown Montreal, to be as shamelessly loud as they are tonight. It’s great watching him swirl his arm in the air whilst whistling – creating an effect a bit like a singing tube – to tap even more nectar from his life giving source: the crowd. Mockasin gives it back with love heart hand gestures. But it’s not soppy there’s quite a rowdy vibe in the Club Soda.
The early part of the set mostly features material that's related to his melodrama Bostyn n' Dobsyn. A melodrama he wrote as a child and then filmed in L.A last year to take as companion material for the 2018 album Jassbusters. As well as being the album title, Jassbusters are a band of music teachers in the melodrama, and so those characters’ personality seeps into the songs on the record – he plays how he imagines this band in his head would play.
Because they don’t dress up as Jassbusters exactly tonight it’s not clear where the borders between Jassbusters and the Connan Mockasin band are tonight. But the feeling is that he channels the former for a lot of the set: The band sit back and play with the sort of restraint you imagine music teachers would. The band let the easy listening nature of the spectral clean guitar and sublime hazy falsetto and Mockasin's surreal lyrical tales take precedent. It’s an intoxicating, flowing listen.
The biggest break in atmosphere hits when Mockasin decides to switch costume on stage – getting wolf-whistled along the way – out of his bucket hat and into a bad cop persona with a t-shirt tux, mod scarf and glam studded belt. “You’re all under arrest!” he shouts, getting fully into the hybrid character he’s crafted. And he’s stood up, giving it some like a rockstar for the first time tonight and plays an incredible version of the epic ‘Forever Dolphin Love’, which completely takes you out of your body and able to inhabit the music. And when you think that would be a decent enough end to the set, the band keep on going offering up what ends being over 90-minutes.
But there is nothing ordinary about the encore. Connan Mockasin won’t base it on a model that he’s seen before and make a spoof out of it somewhat. So when Mockasin and band do leave the stage just after joking about coming back on for two or three more hours, the band’s second guitarist, an Englishman, starts play acting: Taking the role of compere, he says the band lack confidence and so he needs to hear compliments to tell them in the dressing room. The guitarist pretends he’s been around the crowd collecting phrases and so pretends to run downstairs and fakes being out of breath over the mic. Taking a big gulf of air he says thanks to the compliments they think they’re ready. It’s just a little thing, right. But it adds to the existing sense that we’re not seeing just another band. Connan Mockasin and band seem born to do this and long may they keep doing so.
