Quebec Summer Festival

Festival Location: Quebec, Canada

Festival Type(s): Summer Festivals, Varied Music Festivals, Community Festivals

Quebec Summer Festival

By: © Michael Schuman 2009

We loaf like cats on a sunny windowsill, sprawled out on the grassy Plains of Abraham where some two and a half centuries ago the Brits defeated the French in the name of the King. The live music we are hearing, however, is anything but regal. It's French-Canadian hip hop (yes, there is such a thing), and wholly representative of the diversity of the city of Quebec's ten-day-long annual Summer Festival, known locally as Festival d'Ete de Quebec.

Oh, yeah, the politically relevant rap we hear is in French, which can be a bit unsettling, like the same disorientation we feel flipping on the tube in our hotel room and finding Homer Simpson berating Bart in the Gallic tongue. Yes, I am aware it is my own fault, since I should have worked harder in high school French class while I was busy being lazy. But although we miss out on the messages, music is music and we realize why this hip hop band, Loco Locass, has been creating a buzz in the Quebec music scene.

Not far away from the hallowed plains, we sit in folding chairs and take in the intricate guitar work of Holland's Stochelo Rosenberg, reminiscent of Django Reinhardt in his prime. Rosenberg is joined by his two cousins on standup bass and rhythm guitar and as the Rosenberg Trio they let loose in the old city a fiery jazz.

Summer Festival's events are dominated by but not limited to live music. By the towering statue of Samuel de Champlain near the even more towering Chateau Frontenac (now officially Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac), we park ourselves on bleacher seats to watch the street performances of an acrobat who flings himself through a ring girded with knives and a contortionist who slides a clothes hanger around his body and juggles flaming torches -- but not at the same time. And at the family tent, our kids try their hands at space travel via a mini-bungee, practice juggling sticks and attempt to spin plates on sticks like that guy on The Ed Sullivan Show did ages ago; it was all part of an exercise area for young wannabe street performers.

With most prime events beginning at 2 or 4 p.m. (or 14 or 16 hours in local vernacular), Summer Festival attendees have plenty of time to explore what is arguably, with stone slab buildings cuddling cobblestone roads along with Gallic cuisine and language, the most Continental city in North America. Indeed, Old Quebec is the only city north of Mexico City with its original walled fortifications, replete with sentry paths and arched gates. Stand atop the ramparts on St. Jean Gate and look down rue Saint- Jean and you will swear you are on the other side of the Atlantic, just with friendlier people who will -- with nothing in it for them -- actually seek you out and ask if that stray cap resting alone on the wooden bench is something you might have accidentally left behind.

Quebec is a city made for getting lost, where wandering the streets is a pastime, and during Summer Festival there is no telling what performance you may encounter just by rambling. For those who would rather plan their musical stops there is an official program which can be gotten at any information booth.

We try a bit of both, and while walking atop the 4.6 kilometer-long circle of walls we hear the tones of a ten-piece Italian band fronted by its sax-playing namesake Marco Zurzolo, playing on a stage at Place D'Youville. "A soundtrack for a Fellini movie," reads the festival program, and with its mix of American jazz, European cabaret and Mediterranean roots music, Zurzolo emits a singular sound. Sitting on the ramparts, we are surrounded by a contingent of Quebec's youth, looking like relics from late 1960s counterculture and soaking the air with a pungent scent of pot and tobacco. Actually we are cheating, since purchase of a button is required for admission to the stage area, but we can hear the sounds gratis.

Such freeloading is not an option for all performances. Inside the cozy Cabaret du Capitole just outside Saint-Jean Gate, Belgium's kings of improvisation, Les Discjoncteurs mix comedy and music, and this show costs some big bucks: CAN$40.00 per seat. A staff person surmises that the show will be in both French and English, but after an opening number in English, we soon learn that the Marx Brothers of musical improv, as the program tags Les Discjoncteurs, speak mainly en francais and not even the best of our franglais is even the slightest help. Unlike listening to hip hop, the language difference at this show is a barrier. The audience is convulsed in laughter at these guys' performances as we sit like children who showed up at the wrong birthday party.

However, there are during the fest performers whose first language is English. Slated to perform later in the week we visit are R&B performer Joe Turner, veteran British folk rockers Fairport Convention and former Jethro Tull keyboardist and arranger David Palmer. The best way to discern the language a show will be presented in is the nationality of the artist, listed in the official schedule. Even then, one cannot be certain, but then again jazz and hip hop sound like jazz and hip hop in any language.

Our time away from concert stages is spent seeing the city, and to get bored in Quebec is like getting bored in Paris. There is too much beauty and too much to do. We do everything. We watch period -- and bilingual -- living history performers in Place Royale, the center of Old Quebec's lower town, then sit in a high tech multi-theater sound and light show called the Quebec Experience before eyeballing the city's caricaturists and artists at work near the landmark Chateau Frontenac.

And we take a requisite guided bus tour, the first I had taken in ages and livelier than I had expected. The bus driver/guide Francois rattled off more one-liners than Robin Williams on speed. There are the standard jokes at the government's expense ("How many people work in the Parliament building? About fifty percent.") and about the weather ("We have two seasons here -- winter and construction."), but also handy tips. We are informed about a restaurant called Aux Anciens Canadiens, on 34 rue Saint-Louis, located in the oldest building in Quebec and in my opinion, the best place to go for traditional and reasonably priced regional cuisine.

The restaurants on Grande Allee are the hot places to eat, ranging from four-star restaurants to fast food. For a taste of Quebecers' favorite fast food treat, our guide says, try sampling a dish of poutine, sold at area Burger Kings and McDonald's restaurants. However, the best place for poutine is Quebec's own fast food emporium Chez Ashton, (even fast food restaurants sound ritzy in French), at 54 Cote de Palais, near the corner with rue Saint-Jean. Poutine is a mixture of French fries and cheese curd topped with a brown gravy; don't expect it to lower your cholesterol level, but do anticipate it tasting pretty yummy.

So there we are, chowing down a dish of poutine while taking in a bit of raucous French-Canadian hip hop played live on the outer side of the centuries-old stone walls. If this isn't a pure taste -- both culturally and gastronomically -- of Summer Festival in the city of Quebec, then I don't know what is.

by Michael Schuman

Quebec Summer Festival Dates and Location

The Quebec Summer Festival takes place each July in, yep, you guessed it, Quebec, Canada. For up-to-the-minute dates and deets check out the Quebec Summer Festival website.