Outstanding weather, a fantastic atmosphere, good reviews and plenty of happy audiences...
The 32nd edition of Copenhagen Jazz Festival has drawn to a close, and already it stands as an artistically very cohesive festival. Audiences have turned out in hitherto unseen numbers--which of course has a little something to do with meteorological factors.
That the weather has been so kind to this year's festival has given a boost to the small clubs' evening concerts, with plenty of people in town each evening, as well as the many outdoor arrangements, like “Jazz By the Sea" at Kulturhuset Islands Brygge and the new venue at Ofelia Beach, both of which have drawn exceptionally large crowds. New initiatives at more secretive and less cultivated locations like the DSB grounds in outer Nørrebro and the red rooftop in DGI-byen have presented urban jazz--including jazz and street basket, jazz remixed and “Jazz For Kids"--and have also drawn big (and perhaps totally new) audiences.
The same can be said of this year's “Giant Jazz" concerts that got straight down to business with Herbie Hancock at Operaen and ended Friday evening with a magical presentation by Canadian singer Martha Wainwright and her fascinating interpretations of Edith Piaf songs. The audience simply didn't want the concert to end and Wainwright responded with a dazzling encore of “Stormy Weather." Two evenings earlier it was Marcus Miller who turned on the audience with an incredible power display where all funk preconceptions regarding the super bassist were definitively laid to rest. Before Miller took the stage, bassist Esperanza Spalding proved that Miller need not worry about who will follow in his musical footsteps. The “Giant Jazz" program also included Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso, who, to the surprise of many, had rearranged his songs in a more “rocked-up" style. This was a conscious artistic choice and Veloso exuded the confidence necessary to win over his audience.
Major names performed at Copenhagen JazzHouse, thanks to a new, close partnership with the festival.
The public was offered an internationally oriented series of concerts that several jazz critics claim was the best line-up at JazzHouse in years. High points were the concert with the Vijay Iyer Trio, the two evenings with Joshua Redman's Double Trio and the next-to-last evening delicacy of a concert with American vocal discovery Gretchen Parlato and her fantastic sidemen. “The goal was to put together a program that took the temperature of the international, modern jazz scene, and we feel we succeeded totally--to the great benefit of the festival, JazzHouse and clearly also the public," says the festival's musical consultant, Kenneth Hansen.
JazzHouse' original predecessor, Jazzhus Montmartre, was resurrected a few months before the festival and--equipped with solid names like Kenny Barron and Martial Solal--the little club successfully made it through its first festival in its new incarnation. “It's going really well, as it has ever since we opened in May. We've had a fantastic festival with sold-out concerts and full houses at our night-time jam sessions, all week long. Copenhagen Jazz Festival is completely unique if you compare it with other international jazz festivals that are totally incapable of presenting such diversity, where both the scene's undergrowth and more popular forms of music go hand in hand on a high artistic level," says Jazzhus Montmartre's Rune Bech.
In Prøvehallen in Valby, Benjamin Koppel played for high stakes this year in presenting a great program with plenty of international soloists, including Kenny Werner, John Abercrombie, Al Foster and Chris Potter. The result, according to Koppel, was beyond all expectations as he succeeded in drawing an audience from all over town to this cozy Copenhagen suburb.
Also Niels Christensen and the township of Frederiksberg had pulled out all the stops in Haveselskabs Have, where big names like Dianne Reeves, Richard Bona and Bill Frisell could be heard in lush, green surroundings. Bill Frisell also took part in Jakob Bro's critically acclaimed “Balledeering"--concert in Den Sorte Diamant.
For the first time Charlottenborg's courtyard provided the beautiful framework for the festival's “Something Else" concerts. This year, the theme--which was created to challenge the conceptions of jazz--included a new collaboration between Lars Møller and Bjørn Svin, a totally exceptional Efterklang concert and this year's winner of the P3 Prize, I Got You On Tape. The series of concerts illustrated in fine fashion how jazz elements can be found in music that few people would consider jazz.
The “Jazz For Kids" festival planted itself firmly in Østre Anlæg, next to Statens Museum for Kunst, where thousands of children and their grown-ups were in attendance to enjoy the extensive program that included lots of live jazz, circus performances and group sing-alongs. In addition, for the second year in the days prior to the festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival JazzCamp was held for talented music school students from all over Zealand. For three days the students were inspired and guided through an intense course in improvisation and ensemble playing that culminated in five concerts on the Østre Anlæg stage.
All in all, this festival has presented more themes than ever before, including “The Latin Side of Jazz" at Pressen, “Meetings" at Statens Museum for Kunst, “Classic Jazz Tributes" at Carlsberg Brewery, “Something Else" at Charlottenborg, plus old favourites like “Jazz for Kids," “Jazz By The Sea" and “Giant Jazz." “Our themes mean a lot, both to first-time festival guests as well as the more experienced public, and they are practically indispensable in navigating the more than 1,000 concerts over ten days," states festival leader Signe Lopdrup. “The themes are also tools by which we can constantly renew the festival. 'Avantgarde Afternoons' and 'The Latin Side of Jazz' are excellent examples. All these themes have meant that this year we have had a record number of working partners and in general we can sense a growing interest to be part of the festival, which is very positive. But it is precisely the festival's size, the number of collaborators and participants that we will also be looking closely at when, as usual, we evaluate this year's festival after summer holiday," concludes Signe Lopdrup.
So thanks for yet another fantastic festival to all our partners, to all those who attended and to our many volunteers--and all the musicians, for so many great musical moments.
Last, but not least, a special thank-you to our main sponsor, the Nordea Foundation, and our other contributors and sponsors for their support, without which it would never have been possible to present such an extensive, multitudinous and artistically distinctive music event in Copenhagen.
The dates for next year's Copenhagen Jazz Festival: 1--10 July, 2011.
The 32nd edition of Copenhagen Jazz Festival has drawn to a close, and already it stands as an artistically very cohesive festival. Audiences have turned out in hitherto unseen numbers--which of course has a little something to do with meteorological factors.
That the weather has been so kind to this year's festival has given a boost to the small clubs' evening concerts, with plenty of people in town each evening, as well as the many outdoor arrangements, like “Jazz By the Sea" at Kulturhuset Islands Brygge and the new venue at Ofelia Beach, both of which have drawn exceptionally large crowds. New initiatives at more secretive and less cultivated locations like the DSB grounds in outer Nørrebro and the red rooftop in DGI-byen have presented urban jazz--including jazz and street basket, jazz remixed and “Jazz For Kids"--and have also drawn big (and perhaps totally new) audiences.
The same can be said of this year's “Giant Jazz" concerts that got straight down to business with Herbie Hancock at Operaen and ended Friday evening with a magical presentation by Canadian singer Martha Wainwright and her fascinating interpretations of Edith Piaf songs. The audience simply didn't want the concert to end and Wainwright responded with a dazzling encore of “Stormy Weather." Two evenings earlier it was Marcus Miller who turned on the audience with an incredible power display where all funk preconceptions regarding the super bassist were definitively laid to rest. Before Miller took the stage, bassist Esperanza Spalding proved that Miller need not worry about who will follow in his musical footsteps. The “Giant Jazz" program also included Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso, who, to the surprise of many, had rearranged his songs in a more “rocked-up" style. This was a conscious artistic choice and Veloso exuded the confidence necessary to win over his audience.
Major names performed at Copenhagen JazzHouse, thanks to a new, close partnership with the festival.
The public was offered an internationally oriented series of concerts that several jazz critics claim was the best line-up at JazzHouse in years. High points were the concert with the Vijay Iyer Trio, the two evenings with Joshua Redman's Double Trio and the next-to-last evening delicacy of a concert with American vocal discovery Gretchen Parlato and her fantastic sidemen. “The goal was to put together a program that took the temperature of the international, modern jazz scene, and we feel we succeeded totally--to the great benefit of the festival, JazzHouse and clearly also the public," says the festival's musical consultant, Kenneth Hansen.
JazzHouse' original predecessor, Jazzhus Montmartre, was resurrected a few months before the festival and--equipped with solid names like Kenny Barron and Martial Solal--the little club successfully made it through its first festival in its new incarnation. “It's going really well, as it has ever since we opened in May. We've had a fantastic festival with sold-out concerts and full houses at our night-time jam sessions, all week long. Copenhagen Jazz Festival is completely unique if you compare it with other international jazz festivals that are totally incapable of presenting such diversity, where both the scene's undergrowth and more popular forms of music go hand in hand on a high artistic level," says Jazzhus Montmartre's Rune Bech.
In Prøvehallen in Valby, Benjamin Koppel played for high stakes this year in presenting a great program with plenty of international soloists, including Kenny Werner, John Abercrombie, Al Foster and Chris Potter. The result, according to Koppel, was beyond all expectations as he succeeded in drawing an audience from all over town to this cozy Copenhagen suburb.
Also Niels Christensen and the township of Frederiksberg had pulled out all the stops in Haveselskabs Have, where big names like Dianne Reeves, Richard Bona and Bill Frisell could be heard in lush, green surroundings. Bill Frisell also took part in Jakob Bro's critically acclaimed “Balledeering"--concert in Den Sorte Diamant.
For the first time Charlottenborg's courtyard provided the beautiful framework for the festival's “Something Else" concerts. This year, the theme--which was created to challenge the conceptions of jazz--included a new collaboration between Lars Møller and Bjørn Svin, a totally exceptional Efterklang concert and this year's winner of the P3 Prize, I Got You On Tape. The series of concerts illustrated in fine fashion how jazz elements can be found in music that few people would consider jazz.
The “Jazz For Kids" festival planted itself firmly in Østre Anlæg, next to Statens Museum for Kunst, where thousands of children and their grown-ups were in attendance to enjoy the extensive program that included lots of live jazz, circus performances and group sing-alongs. In addition, for the second year in the days prior to the festival, Copenhagen Jazz Festival JazzCamp was held for talented music school students from all over Zealand. For three days the students were inspired and guided through an intense course in improvisation and ensemble playing that culminated in five concerts on the Østre Anlæg stage.
All in all, this festival has presented more themes than ever before, including “The Latin Side of Jazz" at Pressen, “Meetings" at Statens Museum for Kunst, “Classic Jazz Tributes" at Carlsberg Brewery, “Something Else" at Charlottenborg, plus old favourites like “Jazz for Kids," “Jazz By The Sea" and “Giant Jazz." “Our themes mean a lot, both to first-time festival guests as well as the more experienced public, and they are practically indispensable in navigating the more than 1,000 concerts over ten days," states festival leader Signe Lopdrup. “The themes are also tools by which we can constantly renew the festival. 'Avantgarde Afternoons' and 'The Latin Side of Jazz' are excellent examples. All these themes have meant that this year we have had a record number of working partners and in general we can sense a growing interest to be part of the festival, which is very positive. But it is precisely the festival's size, the number of collaborators and participants that we will also be looking closely at when, as usual, we evaluate this year's festival after summer holiday," concludes Signe Lopdrup.
So thanks for yet another fantastic festival to all our partners, to all those who attended and to our many volunteers--and all the musicians, for so many great musical moments.
Last, but not least, a special thank-you to our main sponsor, the Nordea Foundation, and our other contributors and sponsors for their support, without which it would never have been possible to present such an extensive, multitudinous and artistically distinctive music event in Copenhagen.
The dates for next year's Copenhagen Jazz Festival: 1--10 July, 2011.
