Half a century of major league jazz
Dave Brubeck opened Barcelona's jazz festival 50 years ago, which kicks off on October 1 with a strong offer of young and established talent under the sponsorship of Voll-Damm
After thanking the Damm beer company for sponsoring the 48th Festival Internacional de Jazz de Barcelona, the director of TheProject, Tito Ramoneda, talked about organising a festival of more than a hundred events with a budget of a million euros as a miracle. Ramoneda went on to announce that the festival would award its gold medal to Jack DeJohnette –drummer of jazz legend Miles Davis. Ramoneda presented the event as a “festival made with the local public in mind, but also with great international standing. We play in the major league of world jazz festivals.” The director also said that this year's festival would be one of the “strongest of the past few years.”
The line-up for the 2016 edition confirms it: Chucho Valdés & Joe Lovano Quintet, the trio made up of the aforementioned Jack DeJohnette alongside the sons of two jazz legends in Ravi Coltrane and Matt Garrison, Madeleine Peyroux, James Rhodes, Hiromi, Bill Frisell, James Vincent McMorrow, Robert Glasper, Barbara Hendricks, Michel Legrand, Asaf Avidan, Michael Nyman and Avishai Cohen, all in a programme that takes place in different venues in the Catalan capital, and Sant Cugat. Poblenou's Centre park will host a 12-hour jazz session on October 1, with food from all over the world. Meanwhile, the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Auditori, the Conservatori del Liceu, the Luz de Gas and BARTS concert halls, Montjuïc's Font Màgica, the Harlem Jazz Club, Monvínic and the Silken Gran Havana Hotel are some of the main venues. What's more, this year sees the return of the Festival Flamenc de Barcelona, De Cajón!, now organised jointly with Time Out magazine, which has recently become fee and is distributed all over the city.
Half a century
Ramoneda also pointed out that while it is the 48th edition, the fact that the festival was suspended for two years in the 1970s, it is actually 50 years since “Dave Brubeck sounded the festival's first notes.” In the meantime, some of jazz's greatest figures have come to the event that has attracted 50,000 paying customers and more than 100,000 to the different events included in the festival, such as master classes, sessions in the Filmoteca and the participation of numerous restaurants and hotels.
Meanwhile, artistic director, Joan Anton Cararach, highlighted “the thrilling offering from the Barbara Hendricks Monvínic Experience, which will serve as a tribute to the mythical Vega Sicilia winery, as well as new venues in the festival, such as the Wittmore Club and Casa Bonay, which will have food accompanying each of the musicians who perform there.” Cararach stressed some of the debuts at the festival, from the young Cuban singer Daymé Arocena to that of the octogenarian, Michel Legrand, the celebrated composer of many soundtracks going back to the 1950s, such as those for the films Yentl, with Barbra Streisand, or The Umbrellas of Cherbourg by French director, Jacques Demy. Youth and experience are two of the main key to this year's Voll-Damm Festival.