# Jazz Festival Season - where do you go?



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

The festival season is starting. Maybe we can exchange about festivals and who'll be playing, also because that is a nice way to keep in touch with the thrilling new stuff.

A famous festival starting in 3 days is Jazz sous les Pommiers in Coutance (Lower Normandy, France). Famous acts are Charles Lloyd & Jason Moran, David Sanborn, Christian Scott and René Urtreger and many, many lesser known, mostly French jazz bands. I wish I lived closer.

http://www.jazzsouslespommiers.com/programme/

Then you have the Whit weekend (pentecostal weekend). From where I live I have three festivals to choose from, within a 100 km's, all in the same long weekend alas. The Nijmegen Music Meeting (world music), Jazz in Duketown in Den Bosch and the Moers Jazz Festival (German Ruhrgebiet). A whole lot of interesting, mostly lesser known stuff: Dawn of Midi, Lage Lund Trio, Ahaddaf Quartet, Plaistow, Quartet Diminished, Kenny Garrett, Island Jazz. There is so much going on you have a job to keep track of it.

http://www.musicmeeting.nl/nl/programma/2016/volledige-lijst

http://www.moers-festival.de/programm/hauptprogramm.html

http://www.jazzinduketown.nl/artiesten/

What's happening with you?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

My hometown of Syracuse has a jazz fest every summer since 1982. I don't know who's playing this year other than Larry Coryell.

But the major festival is 90 miles west in Rochester. The line-up is incredible very year. Hundreds of artists performing for nine days. http://www.rochesterjazz.com/


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Casebearer said:


> The festival season is starting. Maybe we can exchange about festivals and who'll be playing, also because that is a nice way to keep in touch with the thrilling new stuff.
> 
> A famous festival starting in 3 days is Jazz sous les Pommiers in Coutance (Lower Normandy, France). Famous acts are Charles Lloyd & Jason Moran, David Sanborn, Christian Scott and René Urtreger and many, many lesser known, mostly French jazz bands. I wish I lived closer.
> 
> ...


No North Sea ( Rotterdam) for you?


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Pugg said:


> No North Sea ( Rotterdam) for you?


I've been there a lot in the recent past. Although the line up of interesting bands is often unsurpassed it is more difficult to enjoy the music each year. It's getting more and more overcrowded, it's expensive and I hate the way they program: concerts by interesting bands with overlapping time slots so you are guaranteed to miss out on parts of concerts (if it's possible to get in at all at a later stage). They also killed another festival 'by contract' in the past (bands weren't allowed to play there if they wanted to sign at North Sea Jazz). So in spite of the great music, the festival setup and management are very unsympathetic. So called professional management and marketing will kill it in the end for music lovers like myself.

This is in big contrast to the festivals I mentioned. These are very sympathetic and all about the music.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

starthrower said:


> My hometown of Syracuse has a jazz fest every summer since 1982. I don't know who's playing this year other than Larry Coryell.
> 
> But the major festival is 90 miles west in Rochester. The line-up is incredible very year. Hundreds of artists performing for nine days. http://www.rochesterjazz.com/


The Rochester line-up is impressive. You should go there. I saw one of your favourites on the list: Scofield. He's performing with Joe Lovano (!) in a quartet. I also tip you on Mammal heads. Check them out please, you might like them. Finally I saw Simin Tander on the list. I've seen her. She's a German/Dutch-Afghan singer. Very beautiful both in appearance and in performance.











There's also a trailer for a new ECM-release:






In reality it's not all slow jazz. I've heard her singing some quite up tempo 'Afghan flamenco jazz' with nice gestures.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Casebearer said:


> I've been there a lot in the recent past. Although the line up of interesting bands is often unsurpassed it is more difficult to enjoy the music each year. It's getting more and more overcrowded, it's expensive and I hate the way they program: concerts by interesting bands with overlapping time slots so you are guaranteed to miss out on parts of concerts (if it's possible to get in at all at a later stage). They also killed another festival 'by contract' in the past (bands weren't allowed to play there if they wanted to sign at North Sea Jazz). So in spite of the great music, the festival setup and management are very unsympathetic. So called professional management and marketing will kill it in the end for music lovers like myself.
> 
> This is in big contrast to the festivals I mentioned. These are very sympathetic and all about the music.


That's true, however it's in my home town, so even it's a bit late, don't have to travel that much


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Found some other ones:


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I've finally made my mind up. I'll be going to the Moers Festival on Saturday and Jazz in Duketown on Sunday. Both have a nice line up. It's a pity though the extremely nice weather we have since a week is about to end just before we have this wondeful festival weekend. We'll be back to 13 degrees Celsius...


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

During the summer I was in Slovenia in the town of Bled. Near the beautiful lake, where Josip Broz Tito had his summer residence during the Yugoslavian communist period, there was an ethno festival called Okarina Festival. The Okarina is a flute made of baked clay or other materials. You may know it. It is a traditional instrument of folk music from the Alps.

I only attended the last 15 minutes of the last evening of the festival and saw the Turkish band Baba Zula performing. It was not all to my liking but they have a very interesting sound. I remembered them tonight and found this video on YT. From what I've heard so far (first 25 minutes) it's much more interesting than the last part I heard myself at the scene that had too much of a party element going on. In fact the video is really worthwhile to listen to after the first 5 or 10 minutes.

From Wikipedia: 
BaBa ZuLa is a Turkish alternative musical group, founded in Istanbul in 1996. With a wide variety of influences and a wide range of instruments, they create a unique psychedelic sound. Group started performing internatıonally with Kumanova Jazz Festival in 2003 and gradually started building an international audience as well as a cult following in Turkey.
Described as "Turkey's most beloved alternative music purveyors" Baba Zula create a unique psychedelic sound, combining Traditional Turkish instruments, electronica, reggae and dub. The core of their sound is the saz, a Turkish bouzouki-like stringed instrument with a bright, high-pitched sound. They use a revolutionary approach to electric saz combining it both with retro and hi end electronic effects that creates an original sound that was not present before them.

They've played with people like Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare and Bugge Wesseltoft.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

This weekend there was an International Jazz Festival in Nijmegen in cooperation with the city of Rotterdam. I was only able to go on sunday but it was great. Top act was the new Dave Holland band called Aziza. Chris Potter (sax), Lionel Loueke (electric guitar), Dave Holland (double bass) and Eric Harland (drums). Aziza means Inspiration in the language of Benin where Loueke comes from. The concert was sold out stiff and the audience was completely in awe and very enthousiastic.

I bought their cd at the concert of course.


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

We have the Skopje Jazz festival. I think this is the second of the most famous (cultural) event in the country after Ohrid Summer Festival, but Ohrid Summer Festival is more classical oriented when it comes to music. Biggest stars that we've seen here are Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland, Rabih Abou-Khalil, Al Di Meola and others. This year Joss Stone was the biggest star, or, at least, it was the public perception. Others were Marcin Wasilewsi Trio with Joakim Milder, Evana/Dahl/Dunkelman - Pulverize the Sound, Made to Break, Julian Lage Trio etc. 
http://www.skopjejazzfest.com.mk/programme.asp


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Ah, you're from Macedonia. I know something about your country you probably don't know (unless you're a lepidopterologist). There is a very small butterfly (a so called leafminer) that lives inside the leaves of chestnut trees as a larva, named after Lake Ohrid in your country. It's called Cameraria ohridella. It was discovered as a species not so long ago (in 1985) and then dispersed all over Europe in record time. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse-chestnut_leaf_miner


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