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14th Tarragona Dixieland Festival (Catalonia, Spain)

The 14th International Dixieland Festival of Tarragona will take place between the 24th March and the 1st April 2007, although most of the activities will be between the 28th and 31st March. Thirty bands with 180 musicians and 16 plastic artists will participate, coming from Germany, the Balkans, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cuba, the USA, France, The Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine.

122 concerts and activities will be offered -twenty more than last year- in theatres, concert halls, rooms, cafes, clubs, bars and in the streets, squares and markets of Tarragona. The music hours last all day, from the school sessions early in the morning, to the late and jam sessions that finish off every day.

One of this year's main points will be brass bands and the connections between the same kinds of band, born basically in the streets to go with family ceremonies -from weddings to funerals- and with traditional festivities, and which have spread all over the world. For this reason the Festival of Tarragona will make a trip from the very New Orleans, with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, probably the most representative band of the city devastated by the hurricane Katrina, to the Balkans, with one of the most outstanding bands lately: the Hadouti Orkestar. In fact, New Orleans will be the guest city at the Festival, as they are sending us not only musicians, but also plastic artists and cinema works.

The Festival stresses the area of production with three performances, two for adults and one for children. The Fumanch Jazz Servants will devote the opening performance to the music in Woody Allen's films. Thanks to the support of the Government of Catalonia and the Regional Council of Tarragona, this production starts with a tour under contract. The local band Don Candido's String Band will offer a special vision of the most classical jazz without using any woodwind instruments, but stringed. Finally, the Vella Dixieland's formation addressed to children, the Jazz Classic Quintet, will make it clear, with dancers on stage, that jazz was born also as dance music.

The Festival has also wanted to pay double homage: the first, to one of the great Catalan jazzmen, Tete Montoliu. This is why the graphic image of the festival has been dedicated to him, on the tenth anniversary of his decease. The second, to one of the omnipresent men in our festival, Angel Hernndez. His drum kit will sound more emotional than ever during all the festival.

On the other hand, one of the most attractive sections this year is the Emergent Section. Called the Fringe Section until today, it is now stronger than ever and it includes bands formed exclusively by young players. This year it includes The Chicken's Band from Blanes, the Jove Dixieland Band from Valencia and the Portuguese Cottas Club Jazz Band.

If the festival grows it is thanks to the complicity of the pub Highland or the bar La Pea, which offer their own programme. Other venues that open their doors to the festival for the first time are: the Canals House, the Trono Room, or the Anap Restaurant. Others repeat their previous experiences, like the renewed El Candil. There are fresh initiatives, like dixie&tripe, scheduled for breakfast at Bar El Cortijo, or dixie&school, that for the first time links secondary education to the festival.



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