Guitar night was notable for the sim-
patico duo of Bireli Lagrene and the
young whiz from Bayonne, in the French
Basque area, Sylvain Luc; and John
McLaughlin with Remembering Shakti.
McLaughlin, at his best and really enjoy-
ing himself, was surrounded by the inim-
itable Zakir Hussain, tabla; V. Selva-
ganesh, percussion; and an inspiring
string partner in Padmoshari Shrinivas on
electric mandolin. Like some other music
in the festival, you couldn't call it jazz but
it was much closer in spirit, invention,
and the way it balmed your soul.
Marciac, situated in the countryside of
Gascony in southwest France (about two
hours from Toulouse) is normally a town
of around 1.000. Then for 11 days in early
August it becomes "jazz City" as thou-
sands more pour in from nearby cities
and towns, as well as Paris, London and
Amsterdam. An overall foreign turnout,
however, is not in great evidence.
In any event,jazz is omnipresent. The
town square is a focal point, where a
bandstand is home to various French
groups who hold forth in unticketed con-
certs from 11 a.m. to early evening play-
ing to a sea of listeners. Ringing the
square are the permanent buildings: ho-
tels, restaurants, and shops. Then there
are the booths where clothing, CDs, LPS,
art, crafts, and local products such as
foie gras, pate, duck confit, cheese, Saint-
Mont wine, Armagnac, and Armagnac
beer(!) are sold. one such booth, set up
outside a butcher shop and extolling the
merits of the excellent Charolais beef,
displayed a real cow in an adjacent stall.
Each night at nine o'clock the main
concerts take place at the "chapiteau," a
huge tent imported every year from
Paris, erected over Marciac's rugby field,
and capable of holding between five and
six thousand people. It is invariably well
populated, but despite the jazz atmo-
sphere generated by JIM (shorthand for
jazz in Marciac) it, too, does not survive
on jazz alone.
Wayne Krantz's trio opened guitar
night, specializing in distorted guitar
sounds, muddy electric bass, and the
overloud, overbusy drumming typical of
rock. It was an insult to the guitar artists
who appeared after intermission. Bireli
Lagrene played duets with Christian Es-
coude, Philip Catherine, and Sylvain Luc.
Then all four conferenced on a blues and
"All the Things You Are, " passing around
the inspiration and rising high to the occasion.
John McLaughlin was supposed to play
in trio with Joey Defrancesco and Elvin
Jones but was taken ill. Joey and Elvin did
a couple of duo numbers and when Bireli
joined them we were able to witness a
trio cohering before our eyes. By the time
Philip, Christian, and Sylvain joined them
for the encore Elvin, that force of nature,
was a trio unto himself. It became a
true festival happening. Elvin elevated
everyone's performances-the rapport
was tangible-through two more encores
before throwing his last pair of sticks to
the adoring crowd.