The Montreal International Jazz Festival (FIJM) had to revise its closing show in extremis following the cancellation of the performance that American singer Macy Gray was to give on Saturday evening at the Place des Festivals.
The FIJM made the announcement on its social networks on Tuesday evening, without specifying the reasons. “It’s only a postponement,” added the organization on its Facebook page. Joined by The dutyÉquipe Spectra, which is responsible for the FIJM, could not provide the exact reasons for the cancellation of the show.
“It is not a question of health problems, but of a problem of agenda”, specified by email the department of the communications of the organization. Thus, “Macy Gray will not be from the 43e edition of the FIJM for reasons beyond our control”, adds the Spectra Team.
The soul and R&B singer, who has sold over 25 million albums since the release of her debut album On How Life Is in 1999, will be replaced on the main outdoor stage of the festival by the Canadian funk group The Brooks, founded in 2013 in Montreal. The group will be accompanied on stage by singer-songwriter Dominique Fils-Aimé, who will release a fourth album this fall, and Montreal singer Hanorah, who draws her influences in particular from Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse.
It’s not the first time that a Montreal performance by Macy Gray, who in 2001 won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance for her title I Tryis cancelled.
On June 30, 2022, a show she was to perform alongside Joss Stone at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The singer had also canceled a performance she was to give on the stage of L’Olympia in August 2013, this time because the plans surrounding the launch of her next album remained unresolved.
The singer’s upcoming shows are scheduled for July 8 in Lincoln, California, and October 8-10 in New York and Norfolk, Virginia.
