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| JazzFest Berlin 07 This year's JazzFest Berlin will take place from 31 October to 4 November. As in past years, the main attraction of the festival will again be the programme itself and again its abundance will require that we fall back on the Wednesday as the starting day. This is why: Obviously, the Berlin audience is well versed when it comes to “reunifications”. With El Gusto we will present a major Algerian-French project uniting Muslim and Jewish musicians playing Chaabi music which, especially during the 1940s and 50s, used to reverberate from the narrow Kasbah walls of Algiers, played by Muslims and Jews alike. After Algeria became independent and due to the increasing islamization of the country, many Jews did no longer see a future for themselves and their families in the Maghreb and emigrated, mostly to Marseille. After years of separation, Haus der Berliner Festspiele will stage a reunion, rendered possible thanks to an initiative by Irish-Algerian director Safinez Bousbia and Blur singer Damon Albarn as producer of the CD. Alongside the mostly involuntary exile of Jewish-Algerian musicians, JazzFest will present a number of voluntary expatriates who let themselves be inspired by their new homes but also inspired the musical scenes in the countries of their choice. Among them are American clarinettist Michael Moore, living and working in the Netherlands, German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, who chose London as her new place of residence, keyboarder Django Bates and Austrian trumpeter and composer Michael Mantler who went to Copenhagen, or Finnish guitarist Kalle Kalima who came to live in Germany. All these musicians stand for an every-day European creativity. By way of example, Kalle Kalima will illustrate his musical past and future in four projects. A broad stylistic diversity will also be reflected in Michael Mantler's Berlin compositions of last year. The pieces are almost tailor-made for the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin and a number of musical friends, among them Roswell Rudd, Majella Stockhausen and former Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. What is true for the musicians also applies to the instruments: instruments like the harmonica, the tuba or the accordion that in the past were rarely played in the context of Jazz and were listed under the heading miscellaneous instruments in DownBeat magazine, nowadays have become a natural part of the musical base of groups like e. g. Hazmat Modine. With Howard Levy, JazzFest will present a noted virtuoso on the diatonic harmonica. On the other hand, Jazz improvisations on the Armenian duduk, like those presented by Didier Malherbe of Hadouk Trio, are still something quite unheard of. Brasileirinho will add the musical digits of Mika Kaurismki's second documentary about Choro - an literally breathtaking musical genre, older than jazz but “not unlike it”. With Ao Vivo, a kind of seleco of the best virtuosos will step down from the screen and straight into Saturday's jam session at the heart of the festival, led by Trio Madeira Brasil and featuring exceptional guitarist Yamandu Costa. Apart from Haus der Berliner Festspiele, this year's venues will include the Quasimodo and A-Trane clubs as well as Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg. For the complete programme and further information please see website www.jazzfest-berlin.de. Advance booking from 13 October 2007. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |