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Jun 29, 2014 For The Record: Tarantino in Concert By Laura Studarus Photography by Laura Studarus

Shortly after seeing For the Record: Tarantino in Concert I ran into the troop’s publicist, who chuckled when I admitted that I was a journalist tasked with writing about the show. It’s a tall order—the mix of cabaret style tunes interspersed with scenes from Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, Death Proof, and Pulp Fiction, defies explanation. Even those intimately involved with the show’s creation have a hard time boiling down what they do to an elevator pitch. It’s not a traditional concert. It’s not a play. It’s not a linear story. And yet…it works. Who doesn’t want to live in a world where Django holds congress with The Bride?

The show is by far Festival International de Jazz de Montréal’s edgiest offering. In theory, jazz fans shouldn’t necessarily flock to a show that opens with a dick joke, and goes on to include sex, violence, and humor in equal parts. But try to tell that to the full house at Cinquième Salle on Thursday.

Obviously it’s a difficult task putting on any kind of show based on such loved source material. In lesser hands, such a high-risk performance could come across as bad high school theater. However, the Los Angeles troupe seems to be made up exclusively of MVPs. (Of particular note: Maiya Sykes, who brought the house down as Jackie Brown.) Both iconic songs from the director’s soundtracks (“Chick Habbit,“Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” “Stuck in the Middle With You”), and iconic moments are fully covered. (Yes, Mia Wallace gets a needle through the heart, and yes, it’s still a cringe-worthy moment.) Is it weird that torture scene from Reservoir Dogs becomes a duet between the victim and torturer? Well yeah. But For the Record proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that weird works.

Check out a full gallery of For the Record shots here.

(www.fortherecordlive.com)

(www.montrealjazzfest.com)