The 27th edition of Jazz em Agosto once more brings to Lisbon the other side of jazz

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

The 27th edition of Jazz em Agosto once more brings to Lisbon the other side of jazz by presenting musicians who, by having an attentive eye on the social and technological transformations going on all around the world, reflect the innovative tendencies of contemporary jazz.

It is in this space of independence and resistance that Jazz em Agosto 2010 presents, in the open-air amphitheatre, two historic figures of contemporary jazz who establish a peculiar and rare dialogue, the saxophone and clarinet player John Surman and the drummer and pianist Jack DeJohnette, a veteran duo that takes us to the sonic ambience of electronics.

The British saxophone player Evan Parker gets on stage with his Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, through which along the last decade he has ventured to explore the limits of electronic music and of improvisation. This time, the band is bigger than ever – 18 musicians – with solo musicians like Peter Evans, Agustí Fernández, Paul Lytton, Richard Barrett and Ikue Mori taking part in a multimedia concert where images and music establish a dialogue.

The quintet of the French clarinet player Louis Sclavis presents us their most recent project, Lost on the Way, inspired by Homer’s Odissey, a musical journey that highlights Sclavis’ uniqueness and approaches us of the universes of Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy, revealing us a new generation of French jazz.

Circulasione Totale Orchestra, founded by the saxophone and clarinet player Frode Gjerstad and featuring musicians like Louis Moholo, Paal Nilssen-Love, Sabir Mateen, Bobby Bradford and Kevin Norton, forms a multinational and multidimensional orchestra that has gone through two decades in continuous evolution, congregating generations and celebrating a libertarian and festive improvisation.

Still in the open-air amphitheatre, the trio Steamboat Switzerland and Luc Ex’s sextet Sol 6 will showcase peculiar developments in the ways of contemporary jazz: the first evolves around a formula called power trio as it evokes free rock alongside with jazz on a Hammond B-3 organ complemented by a rhythm section; the latter combines jazz and radical improvisation with punk and groove, syncopated with non-conventional songs.
 
Jazz em Agosto 2010 is completed by the presentation of the following concerts and complementary activities:
 
Open Speech Trio, a formation dominated by the distinguished flutist Carlos Bechegas, pioneer of Portuguese musical improvisation with a vast projection abroad, who in his most recent project pushes the limits of his instrument.

The pianist Guus Janssen and the drummer Han Bennink, legendary figures from the Amsterdam jazz scene, in an intimate yet extraverted dialogue.

From Lisbon, Red Trio, piano/contrabass/drums, a classic jazz formation of recent notoriousness that explores a less conventional way, based on the prepared piano.

Establishing possible contrasts, a second piano/contrabass/drums trio, Pat Thomas / Raymond Strid / Clayton Thomas, improvisers of repute, emphasizes creative interactions.

The documentary film Hazentijd by Jellie Dekker, on the universe of the drummer Han Bennink, who has dedicated his life to music and painting, emphasizing the duality of the world he inhabits between Nature and Metropolis.

Die Posaune des Jazz [The Trombone of Jazz] by Thorsten Jess, a movie that remembers one of the major trombone players in European jazz, Albert Mangelsdorff (1928-2005), in a document that reveals the new ways inaugurated by this musician, consecrated by the new instrumental techniques he explored.

European jazz and American jazz; a never interrupted dialogue is the motto of a lecture given by the Italian journalist, critic and theoretic Francesco Martinelli on the nature of this year’s programming.
 
06/08, friday 6 August 2010, 21:30 — Anfiteatro ao Ar Livre
John Surman (uk)

Jack DeJohnette (eua)
Two historic figures of contemporary jazz who along the two last decades have been cultivating the introspective form of duet. The impression left behind by both in various celebrated contexts, past and present, makes this dialogue peculiar and rare, confirmed on only two records and sporadic public appearances. Two organic musicians whose imagination runs through the legacy of jazz while subtly transforming and boosting it in an electronic spider web.

07/08, saturday 7 August 2010, 18:30 — Auditório 3
“Hazentijd” on Han Bennink
In a movie its authors want to be a bird’s eye view on the artistic growth of this unique drummer, banner of an aesthetics, besides his relevant musical beginnings, we also get acquainted with his visual oeuvre, which emphasizes the duality of the world he inhabits, in counterpoint between Nature and Metropolis.

07/08, saturday 7 August 2010, 21:30 — Anfiteatro ao Ar Livre
Steamboat Switzerland (switzerland / greece)
Adept of Brute Art, this provocative and torrid trio is nonetheless meticulous in its progression, catalyzed by the characteristic Hammond B-3 organ and complemented by a herculean rhythm section. Perambulating along the boundaries of rock, the austere music of the trio evokes memories of four decades of jazz deviations.
 
08/08, sunday 8 August 2010, 15:30 — Auditório 2
Open Speech Trio (portugal / austria)
A prime musician on the Portuguese national scene of improvised music and one of its pioneers, a prolific flutist, detonator of landmark international events, Carlos Bechegas finds in this intimate association a vehicle to convey his vision, where electronics and experimentation are preponderant.
 
08/08, sunday 8 August 2010, 18:30 — Auditório 2
Guus Janssen (netherlands)

Han Bennink (netherlands)
Two landmarks of the lively improvisational scene from Amsterdam, called New Dutch Swing, who boast consumed empathy of a strong jubilatory sense and wisely balance standstill with explosion. An encyclopedic knowledge of jazz percussions allied to a prodigiously played piano, producing swing as well as spontaneous composition, tending towards abstraction and even satire, are some of their main assets.
 
08/08, sunday 8 August 2010, 21:30 — Anfiteatro ao Ar Livre
Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, (uk /usa /japan /spain /netherlands /italy)
Evan Parker’s innovations in the field of electro-acoustics keep on expanding ever since his premonitory sextet of 1997. In this concert, the recent version of the EAE reaches its paroxysm of 18 per se superlative musicians and a video dimension. The plethora of sounds of the collective marries technology and conventional instrumentation with clarity, the saxophonist conceptual exhibition.

13/08, friday 13 August 2010, 21:30 — Anfiteatro ao Ar Livre
Louis Sclavis Lost On The Way france
Complex, cerebral, angular melodic lines define Sclavis’ language on the clarinet, endowing him with a recognized musical identity, not far at all from the American patterns. Following others, the recent project, inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, which has Ulysses as its central figure and reveals a new generation of French jazz, proves that its relentless aspirations keep on proving their validity.

14/08, saturday 14 August 2010, 17:00 — Auditório 3
“Die Posaune des Jazz” The Trombone of Jazz
Albert Mangelsdorff
An icon to European and world jazz by his definitive contribution to the expanded trombone techniques, Albert Mangelsdorff (1928-2005) was an active party of the most prominent avant-garde jazz performances starting back in the 1960s. This movie documents rigorously the splendorous artistic career of a paramount musician.
 
14/08, saturday 14 August 2010, 18:30 — Auditório 2
Red Trio (portugal)
A Portuguese trio, recently arrived on the scene, exploits with a mix of invention and audacity the consecrated formula piano/contrabass/drums, while doing which it maintains evident ties with jazz and cultivates non-orthodox instrumental techniques; the exploits, boasting a solid balance, reveal new sonic horizons.
 
14/08, saturday 14 August 2010, 21:30 — Auditório ao Ar Livre
Sol 6 (netherlands / germany / uk / australia)
The new project signed Luc Ex synthesizes a vast experience of musical situations lived all along his career and materializes in a hybrid chamber music group where various genres cohabit: cabaret, punk, groove, jazz and improvisation. With an unusual instrumental organization, the sextet is singular with its astringent lyricism which is constantly fractured by incursions on the outside of norms.

15/08, sunday 15 August 2010, 17:00 — Auditório 3
European jazz and American jazz; an uninterrupted dialogue lecture by francesco martinelli. (italy)
A journalist, a historian, a producer and a promoter, Francesco Martinelli, born in Pisa (1954), where he graduated in Chemistry, has a vast record of published texts on ways of thinking contemporary jazz in a more profound manner. This lecture, based on a permanent exchange between two continents, lays out and justifies the conception of the programming of Jazz em Agosto 2010.

15/08, sunday 15 August 2010, 18:30 — Auditório 2
Pat Thomas (sweden)
Raymond Strid (uk)
Clayton Thomas (australia)
Three notorious and recognized improvisers for whom jazz is not far away and who, by way of the classic trio, in profound interaction and driven by a continuous creative stimulus, assume their marked personalities as a whole.
 
15/08, sunday 15 August 2010, 21:30 — Anfiteatro ao Ar Livre
Circulasione Totale Orchestra (norway / sweden / south africa / usa / uk)
Founded in 1984 by Frode Gjerstad, CTO is a multinational and multidimensional collective that reunites generations and thrives under the sign of permanent free evolution. The excellence of its musicians, among whom we find historic figures side by side with an already recognized young generation, gives form to a body which is thoroughly organized, yet capable of all transgressions, whilst its powerful and expansive character gives form to an adequate closing event for Jazz em Agosto 2010.
fundação calouste gulbenkian (bookstore), Av. de Berna, 45A, 1067-001 Lisboa, Tel.: +351 21 782 3627 - Monday to Saturday, 10h00 to 17:45; open until 18h30 on concert days at Auditório 2