The Belgrade Jazz Festival
The 24th Belgrade Jazz Festival will be held from the 24th to the 29th of October, in the Belgrade Dom Omladine, the Dom sindikata main hall, Kolarčeva zadužbina, Bitef Art Café and other venues. Along with gigs of numerous international visiting musicians (including Gianluigi Trovesi Ottetto, Saxofour, Dave Stapleton Quintet, Maria Joao, Brad Mehldau, Avishai Cohen Trio…), the festival includes a midnight program, jam sessions, photo exhibitions, a film program, and jazz workshops. The Belgrade Jazz Festival’s program is merely a good example of what any good festival should be about: a celebration of jazz’s natural plurality.
The Belgrade Jazz Festival’s program:
Wednesday 24 Oct 2007 at 8.00 pm • Terazije Theatre (venue) - Euro Jazz
• Gianluigi Trovesi Ottetto (ITA) - is an Italian jazz saxophonist, clarinetist and composer. Since 1991 he is a member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, the aggregation of the best "advanced" Italian jazz players; with the Instabile he performed in the most prestigious European festivals, as well as in USA, Canada and Japan, recording for Leo, ECM and ENJA, giving a major contribution as a composer. He has won various Italian jazz awards...
• Saxofour (AUT) - Casanova dances with Miss Marple. Walk out of the cinema and whistle the title melody. Four musicians come out of the cinema. 16 times they come out of the cinema and remember the title song: the four are Wolfgang Puschnig, Klaus Dickbauer, Florian Bramböck, Christian Maurer. The four are Saxofour, Austria’s Nr. 1 saxophone quartet.
• Marko Đorđević Sveti (SRB/USA) - Marko knew at 13 that his calling was to be a world class drummer, as well someone who writes music and leads his own band; lofty goals for a teenager from Belgrade, Serbia. At 16 years of age he began his studies at Berklee college of music, on a scholarship which turned into a full ride after 2 years. By the time he was eighteen he had already toured the United States, by his graduation at 22 he had performed on 4 continents with a multitude of great musicians.
Thursday 25 Oct 2007 at 9.00 pm • Bitef Art Café - All That Jazz
• Eivind Aarset Trio (NOR) - is a guitarist with a unique musical vision that absorbs and reflects all manner of music while retaining an enviable individualism and high quality craftsmanship that can span from quiet intimacy to searing intensity. His debut as a bandleader on Jazzland Recordings was described by the New York Times as “One of the best post-Miles electric jazz albums,” setting a high benchmark that Aarset has consistently met and exceeded, both in the studio and in live performance.
• Dave Stapleton Quintet (WAL)
Friday 26 Oct 2007 at 8.00 pm • Dom sindikata - World Fusion
• Maria Joao (POR) - is a Portuguese Jazz singer. While she is typically lumped with the Jazz moniker, her music incorporates an eclectic mix of various ethnic musics, modern jazz, and the avant-garde. Depending on the thematic slant of a release, electronica, symphonic and other genres have been thrown into the mix as well. She has worked with many topline musicians, including Manu Katche, Trilok Gurtu, Wolfgang Muthspiel and Kai Eckhardt but her main collaborator is pianist Mário Laginha.
• Vasil Hadžimanov Band - Vasil’s (born June 23rd, 1973, Belgrade) classical training began at the age of 5, and included attendance at one of the oldest music high schools in South East Europe, Stevan Mokranjac in Belgrade (prof. Ljubinka Hadzi-Jovancic). He moved to Boston in 1992 to study piano and arranging at Berklee College of Music on a scholarship. He graduated in 1995 and his piano teachers were Ray Santisi and Lazslo Gardony. In September 1996 Vasil moved to New York, where he continued his work with some of the best young musicians like: David Gilmore, David Binney, Cris Cheek, Marko Djordjevic, Danny Sadownick, Adam Deutch, Antonio Sanchez, Reuben Rogers, Rodney Holmes, “Ultranate”… After spending a year in the Big Apple he decided to move back to Yugoslavia and finish what he started with his own VASIL HADZIMANOV BAND. His ideas of mixing Balkan traditional, folk rhythms and melodies with the western, modern musical styles (jazz, funk, world music…) in his own music is completely authentic and a new approach to jazz music…
Saturday 27 Oct 2007 at 8.00 pm • Kolaračeva zadužbina - The Art Of The Piano
• Brad Mehldau - plays original compositions, jazz standards and jazz arrangements of popular music, having a particular liking for the music of Radiohead, Paul Simon, Nick Drake, The Beatles, and Elliott Smith. He has also played and recorded solo and with co-leaders Peter Bernstein, Mark Turner, Charlie Haden, Charles Lloyd, Pat Metheny and others. In 2004, Mehldau toured with Kurt Rosenwinkel and Joshua Redman.
• Bobo Stenson Trio - Stenson's approach to the melody is spacious, pensive, and utterly sympathetic. He removes the melodrama and instead replaces it with empathy and understatement. That he's not a flashy player should not be held against him, but celebrated in an age of pyrotechnic musicianship that often leaves emotion and nuance out of the creative and technical mix. Stenson is an awesome pianist with his choice, haunting, harmonic shades in his performances of Argentinean composer Ariel Ramirez's "Alfonsia," or in Henry Purcell's "Music for a While." This trio plays democratically, as well; there are no imbalances... Stenson's approach to the melody is spacious, pensive, and utterly sympathetic. He removes the melodrama and instead replaces it with empathy and understatement. That he's not a flashy player should not be held against him, but celebrated in an age of pyrotechnic musicianship that often leaves emotion and nuance out of the creative and technical mix. Stenson is an awesome pianist with his choice, haunting, harmonic shades in his performances of Argentinean composer Ariel Ramirez's "Alfonsia," or in Henry Purcell's "Music for a While." This trio plays democratically, as well; there are no imbalances.
Sunday 28 Oct 2007 at 8.00 pm • Kolaračeva zadužbina - Modern Jazz
• Avishai Cohen Trio
• Ravi Coltrane Group - tenor and soprano saxophonist, bandleader, and composer - has fronted a variety of jazz lineups, recorded critically... Of "In Flux", Ben Ratliff of the New York Times writes, "Mr. Coltrane avoids tired song structures and doesn't want to bore you. He's fascinated on one hand by miniatures and on the other by the idea of longer songs that sound like collective improvisation from start to finish. It's a record that you can point to and say: This is what jazz sounds like now in New York." Coltrane has played with Geri Allen, Kenny Barron, Gerry Gibbs, Steve Coleman, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Stanley Clark, Branford Marsalis and others.
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