by RUPERT BOTTENBERG | More Jazz Fest: FIJM & OFF highlights

The free shows at the outdoor stages of the Jazz Fest, clustered around Place des Arts, aren't simply a brief chance to quaff beer on the street without getting the hairy eyeball from the cops. Amid the usual annual spread of crappy blues and corny Dixieland, the festival programmers have sprinkled a fair amount of interesting music on these stages.

The biggest outdoor show of each fest is the Grand Événement General Motors on the big GM Stage at Ste-Catherine and Jeanne-Mance, and this year's main attraction is Champion and His G-Strings. Backed by four guitars, bass and vocals care of Betty Bonifassi, DJ Maxime "Champion" Morin returns to his rock roots - sort of. Wicked guitar riffs get looped and layered live over Morin's ambling, downtempo grooves, adding up to a comfy party vibe that'll have the whole Place des Arts plaza, from blues hounds to beat freaks, swinging and swaying on Tuesday, July 5 at 8 p.m.

Brass-band fans have a pair of interesting digressions from the familiar New Orleans template to choose from this year. Tonight, June 30, at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., the GM Stage is the place to catch the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band from the Rajasthan region of India. Their music and outfits are outrageously colourful and ornate, their lineup drawn from the best brass bands in the area (and there are tons - can't have a wedding without one), and their repertoire made up of folk songs, filmi sangeet (Bollywood soundtrack hits) and a touch of North Indian classical music. The same stage hosts the punchy brass, polyrhythms and call-and-response vocals of the Gangbé Brass Band from Benin, Africa, on Saturday, July 2, same hours (they're also on the Stella Artois Stage at Parc des Festivals on July 1 at 7:30 p.m.).

Deep dub and devil music

"The piano, guitar and violin have all been exhausted... not much new can be done with them." So claims Janusz Wojtarowicz, founder of Poland's Motion Trio, who squeeze new ideas out of their three accordions. But dissonant avant-garde excess isn't on the menu - grounded in a populist sensibility, the trio draw not only on baroque and Balkan folk but on techno, metal and "disco polo," their nation's contribution to the dubious Euro-dance sweepstakes. Fast and fun, complex yet catchy, Motion Trio is at the Carrefour GM (Jeanne-Mance and deMaisonneuve) at 9 p.m. on Friday, July 1.

Message to some guy named Dave: this kid of yours is an odd one. Son of Dave is Benjamin Darvill, a former Crash Test Dummy who hightailed it to the U.K. With little more than a harmonica, some renegade beatboxing skills, a dimestore bowtie and a head full of impure thoughts, Darvill conjures up a blues all his own, dirty and demonic one moment, angelic (but still dirty) the next. He's on that GM Stage on Saturday, July 2 at 6:30 p.m.

Lovers of dub reggae will dig the deep, delicious grooves of Montreal's own the Dub & the Restless. The live dub band is on the Loto-Québec stage (President-Kennedy and St-Urbain) on Sunday, July 3, at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., with bonus turntablism care of DJ Skeptik and brass backup from the Souljazz Orchestra. And if you like what Toronto's New Deal did with techno and drum & bass in the live-band setting, check out what NYC's Tortured Soul are doing with house, disco and modern soul. A trio of bass, drum and keyboards, they nail a lush, layered vocal-house sound right off the floor, no fancy machines involved - find out what folks like Marques Wyatt, Osunlade and DJ Spinna have been flipping over at the Stella Artois Stage on July 3 at 10 p.m.

Desert blues and bolero brothers

He may look an awful lot like Saruman in Lord of the Rings, but Israel's Avshalom Farjun is the kind of wizard who uses his powers for good. The founder of the Nada world-music label and the band Bustan Abraham, Farjun is a self-taught player and composer on the qanun, a thousand-year-old, zither-like "psaltery" with 90 strings, precursor to the piano. The instrument has a storied tradition, but Farjun expands on that with his improvisations and unexpected influences. He and special guest Eyal Sela are on the Carrefour GM stage on Thursday, July 7 at 6:30 p.m. The moment that's down, scurry over to the Stella Artois Stage at 7:30 p.m. for an absolute highlight of the festival, Mali's Tinariwen. The breakout act at Robert Plant's Saharan adventure in 2003, the Festival in the Desert, these Touareg tribesmen are survivors of civil war and exile. The harshness of both their native Sahara and their recent history comes through in the raw, hypnotic rhythms and guitar licks that are the backbone of their deep-desert blues rock.

French guitarist Sébastien Martel made his mark on efforts by M, Camille, Enrico Macias and DJ Medhi, but the project he's bringing to the Jazz Fest is Las Ondas Marteles. It sees he, his actor/dancer brother Nicolas and Spanish bassist Sarah Murcia putting their spin on vintage bolero, a spare, sexy sound the Martels picked up on separately, during trips to Cuba and Mexico. Their excellent debut Y Después de Todo is a collection of tunes penned by the late Miguel Angel Ruiz, a Cuban sculptor, poet and bon vivant whose rum-soaked ruminations so inspired the impressionable Martel. Tune in to their waves at the Club Jazz TD Canada Trust stage (Ste-Catherine and Clark) on Friday, July 8, at 7 p.m and 10 p.m.

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