Festivals Talking
Martin Longley anticipates festival performances around the globe, tracking down artists to quiz them on their advance strategies, observing their set-list mulling processes, assisting them in their wardrobe decisions and suggesting ridiculous backstage rider requests...
Moers Festival Interviews: Bart Maris
by Martin Longley
Bart Maris is a heroic Belgian trumpeter, deeply committed to the art of improvisation, treading a wilder jazz path, and possessing a mighty appetite for road-life, gigging prolifically and always seeking out unfamiliar collaborators, knowing that this act will force his own playing into a continual sense of vital change. Therefore, he is a fine choice for this year's Improviser In Residence, a position that's been connected to the Moers Festival for nearly two decades. The concept involves an artist ...
Continue ReadingJazzkaar Interviews: Kristjan Randalu
by Martin Longley
The Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu gave one of the best performances at the 2021 Jazzkaar festival in Tallinn. It was the premiere of a work-sequence for the New Wind Orchestra, and it blew the audience on a wayward journey. Once again, Randalu will be delivering a premiere piece for Jazzkaar, opening up this year's 36th edition with his “Marginaalid ja Dividendid" (Margins And Dividends). Your scribe and this keysman ended up with a most unusual interview setting: Longley ...
Continue ReadingMoers Festival Interviews: Zeena Parkins
by Martin Longley
The harpist Zeena Parkins is one of the key players on the New York City improvising and composing fronts, and indeed on the global scene generally. Most of her upcoming gigs are happening around Europe, although her 2024 datesheet is relatively sparse compared to her 2025 plans. She probably became known to most folks when playing with John Zorn in the late 1980s and beyond, particularly as part of his “Cobra" performances. Subsequently, she has developed her active solo trajectory, ...
Continue ReadingMoers Festival Interviews: Virginia Genta
by Martin Longley
There is a tradition in the small German city of Moers, although its aims are far from traditional in orientation. Unless we consider the already sixty-year history (at least) of jazz-derived free improvisation. The Moers Festival has run since 1972, originally bent on exploring the vitality of free jazz, and still resolved towards that direction today, although now acknowledging the input of rock, folkloric, electronic and moderne new music elements. Since 2008, the city of Moers has ...
Continue ReadingJazzkaar Interviews: Mingo Rajandi
by Martin Longley
The Estonian composer and acoustic bassist Mingo Rajandi has created a body of work that includes jazz, free improvisation, moderne art music and scores for theatrical productions. She moved to Brussels nearly four years ago, but still retains resilient links to her old Tallinn scene, with its regular roster of musicians who arrive from varied stylistic quarters. Rajandi is regularly invited by the Jazzkaar festival to write brand new conceptual pieces each year, taking a key place in its programme. ...
Continue ReadingJazzkaar Interviews: Kirke Karja
by Martin Longley
Estonian pianist Kirke Karja has regularly appeared at the Jazzkaar festival in Tallinn, customarily performing in surprising settings, always delivering a fresh band combination, or a new set of music, or altering ratios between improvisation and composition, acoustic or electric palettes. During the last two years she has a.) been discovered by the rest of the European jazz circuit and b.) formed a touring trio with a stable line-up. This band also features the French bassist Etienne Renard and the ...
Continue ReadingMoers Festival Interviews: Kenny Garrett
by Martin Longley
The release of Kenny Garrett's Sounds From The Ancestors album (Mack Avenue, 2021) has reinvigorated his live performances, as the saxophonist tours heartily with an expanded band that's heavy on the Afro-Latin percussion. In recent times, multi-instrumentalist Garrett has been gigging with this dedicated Sounds From The Ancestors line-up, heavily devoted to the album, but not averse to making key tune selections from past decades. Garrett likes to pair up the instruments, with Melvis Santa and Rudy Bird playing percussion ...
Continue ReadingMoers Festival Interviews: Brandon Seabrook
by Martin Longley
Brandon Seabrook cultivates a forked assault on the guitar and the banjo, amplifying both of them, and negotiating their strings at high speeds, filling his playing with hyper-detailed improvisations, or constructing complex compositional strategies, frequently referred to as 'riffs.' Seabrook has long been a crucial presence on the New York City scene, whether leading his own bands, or collaborating with a variegated host of artists on the jazz, rock and improvisational scenes. Often within the same unit. He's ...
Continue ReadingEnjoy Jazz Interviews: Tania Giannouli
by Martin Longley
Along with fellow pianist Nik Bärtsch, the other Artist In Residence of this year's Enjoy Jazz festival is Tania Giannouli, from Athens. Like Bärtsch, she has also become a regular at the EJ concerts in Heidelberg, Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, although Giannouli has been appearing in more recent years. In 2020, your scribe caught her set at the Kunsthalle art gallery in Mannheim, during the lockdowns era. This was a physical space that was ideal for virus-avoidance spacing, as well as ...
Continue ReadingEnjoy Jazz Interviews: Nik Bärtsch
by Martin Longley
The Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch has become a virtual fixture of the Enjoy Jazz festival, which customarily inhabits at least three cities in southern Germany. It sprawls across all of October and half of November, presenting at least one performance each night in Heidelberg, Mannheim or Ludwigshafen. Sometimes there will be two or even three gigs on certain days, in different cities, and occasionally the town of Schwetzingen is used, famed for its Rococo Theatre. In 2020, Bärtsch ...
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