Re-Convening The Convention: jazzahead's Bold Comeback Plan

A delicate, operational balance between sophistication, jazz cultural advocacy and marketwise boosterism has been in place since the inception of the ambitious adventure known as jazzahead!. One can sense that balance in the convention/showcase festival's very branding, with its title stylized as in coolly lowercase composite word festooned with an emphatic exclamation point, and in the bold green arrow emblazoned on its logo. The mission and implications are all about moving jazz ahead, on various levels.

Each spring, the event magnetically pulls musicians, booker's, agents and managers, festival directors, journalists, record labels, and any other parties linked to jazz to the city of Bremen, Germany. Thus far, the American presence has been minimal, but jazzahead! remains an important rallying point for jazz activities in Europe and beyond. Stalwart observers of the dense showcase set schedule can take in up to 30 or more 30-and 45-minute sets, hoping for discoveries in the mix.

From the list of 29 showcase sets I caught this year, a rough guide of highlights would include Norwegian guitarist/world music-tripper Lilja, minimalist Swiss punk jazz foursome Sc’ööf, enchanting Brazilians Amaro Freitas, fascinatingly visceral-cerebral Estonian piano trio Karja/Renard/Wandinger Trio, and captivating Belgian pianist Alex Koo, a muscular minimalist and textural-ist with a fresh vision. Liun + the Science Fiction Orchestra, from Germany, was a venturesome little big band project with the ever-entrancing vocalist Lucia Cadotsch stage front but weaving in from the sides of the musical structures, her Annette Peacock-meets-Marianne Faithfull charisma intact.

From other corners, geographical and stylistically, my best-of list also includes the German headbanger jazz trio Malstrom, with melodies tucket into the maelstrom and featuring the spidery meta-guitar sensation Axel Zajac in taut cahoots with drummer Jo Beyer and saxophonist Florian Walter. Swiss trio Uassyn also made a potent impression, with its unified ensemble agenda, feisty-free-ish intensity and ethereal asides.

From the Netherlands, and a calmer, more chamber-seasoned sonic place came the Wolfert Bredorode/Matangi Quartet/Joost Lijbaart, and music from the ECM album Ruins and Remains." On a relevant Bremen-related note, pianist Brederode's album was recorded in the pristine, former radio haven of the Sendesaal venue, which was revived and long directed by jazzahead! co-founder Schulze and has often hosted an "ECM night" program during past jazzahead! sessions. All in all, this year's jazzahead! had a discernibly bolder sense of self and mission, not to mention a higher concentration of visitors/audience members. This was, after all, a return to full-fledged action after a pandemic-deflated three-year period, involving a cancellation, a noble if mostly ineffectual streaming year, and last year's strangely spaced-out re-entry program. Come 2023, jazzahead! came roaring back, regaining its exclamation pointillism.

This was also a year of transition. The intrepid founders of the project, Peter Schultze and Uli Beckerhoff, have nurtured the event into its current strong and promising position, and will hand over artistic directorial operations next year to Götz Bühler who has been a part of the machinery and also headed up the Elbjazz Festival in nearby Hamburg. Director Sybille Kornitschky remains as a point of continuity for the conference. As she declared, post-event, "the main reason to feel good about this year's jazzahead! is that the participants clearly enjoyed it. Compared to last year, there was a marked change in the mood—it was almost euphoric."

There may have been some poetic justice attached to the timing of the founders' departure and the appointment of Germany herself in the annually-shifting "partner country" designation. Whereas German artists have conventional been granted a Saturday afternoon focus, in the mix of jazz from other countries, this year's schedule found more German acts interwoven into the overall showcase map. Thursday night's "off-campus" Big Event was the Deutsche Jazzpreis ("German jazz prize") gala at the Metropol theater, in downtown Bremen.

As part of this year's Germanic concentration, four newly-commissioned works were premiered under the specific rubric of "Building Bridges," granted to German musicians living and working away from Germany. Saxophonist-composer-bandleader Ingrid Laubrock was a ripe candidate for this commission sidebar, as a highly-respected player on the scene who has made Brooklyn home for many years, and has successfully bridged artistic projects on both sides of the Atlantic. Her rangy and creatively fruitful 40-minute suite Lilith featured the strong young trumpeter David Adewumi and, as she pointed out, a Biblical reference point via the presence of an "Adam and Eve" in this band—accordionist Adam Matlock and bassist Eva lawitts. Drummer Henry Mermer helped define the work's fluid and flexible sense of rhythm and ambi-structure. The trans-cultural angle became a witty point of creative departure in the case of France-based tenor saxophonist Daniel Edrmann's commissioned piece, Thérapie de Couple, proposing a tongue-in-cheek marriage therapy session between French and German musical sensibilities. In this sturdy sextet, cellist Vincent Courtois stood out as an expressive powerhouse. French musicians stood to the leader's right, Germans to the left, and all got along famously and collaboratively, tying into a general theme in European jazz, which often crosses and networks over borders.

Saturday night's commissioned music GPS moved over to Austria, for the relatively mainstream but impressive new composite of tunes, Alpine Air, solidly played by an octet led by partners Heinrich von Kalnein (reeds) and trumpeter Jakob Helling. And to cap off Saturday evening—and the overall event—the final commission came courtesy of a German-Netherlander septet, led by German-born drummer Felix Schlarmanns in his engaging song set Tree House. One of the tunes was called "Semantic Confusion," vis a vis Schlarmanns' comment about "what happens to Germans in Holland."

As it happens, the finale also included speechifying from Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth concerning the emotional change of the directorial guard at jazzahead! and an official unveiling for next year's "partner country" in Bremen—the Netherlands. It's official: jazzahead! is going Dutch in 2024. Another point on which it is official: pandemic stasis is over, and jazzahead! is fully back in business.

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