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Home , Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Danish jazz, Danish Music Awards, Jazzhouse, John Tchicai, Marilyn Mazur

June 11 – 19, 2010 www.rochesterjazz.com Ninth Edition

For Immediate Release June 7, 2010

Notice of Press Event - June 15th

Rochester One of Only Three Cities in the World to Preview Festival Experience

WHEN & WHERE Tuesday June 15th 5:00 – 5:30 p.m. at Max of Eastman Place Hospitality Tent, adjacent to the restaurant on Jazz Street

WHAT The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival is pleased to welcome the Experience to Rochester. Rochester is one of only three cities in the world – the others being Berlin and London - to be selected to give people a preview of Copenhagen Jazz Festival. Three artists from the Copenhagen Jazz Festival Experience are performing at this year’s Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival: at Lutheran Church on June 17, Little Red Suitcase at Xerox Auditorium on June 18, and Ibrahim Electronic at Montage on June 19.

With close to a hundred venues and close to a thousand concerts over ten days in July, the Festival transforms the Danish capital into a European jazz capital. Americans can check out the festival when it goes “on tour” in the United States with a selection of the best of the scene. The other cities

WHO Kenneth Hansen, artistic director of Copenhagen Jazz Festival RSVP Please RSVP to Jean Dalmath at [email protected] if you plan on attending the press event. Sponsors Xerox, City of Rochester, M&T Bank, Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, the Democrat and Chronicle, Eastman School of , Rochester Plaza Hotel, Brooklyn Brewery, Michelob, Spaten Beer, Verizon Wireless, The Community Foundation, 13WHAM TV, Rochester General Health System, Visit Rochester, Mercury Print Productions, SUNY Brockport, ADMAR, Presentation Source, AirTran, DownBeat Magazine, Constellation, Max of Eastman Place, House of Guitars, MidTown Athletic Club.

About the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival (XRIJF) The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival presented by M&T Bank was founded in 2002 and is produced by John Nugent, Artistic Director and Marc Iacona, Executive Director. The 2009 Festival drew more than 133,000 music lovers to hear some of the finest artists in the world perform.

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Media Contacts Dalmath Associates Inc.

Jean Dalmath 585-755-6911 [email protected]

Amanda Dalmath 585-729-7533 [email protected]

PRESS RELEASE

Americans Due to Experience Copenhagen to the Sound of Jazz With the Copenhagen Jazz Festival Experience project, the international marketing of Copenhagen Jazz Festival is being intensified to attract more visitors from abroad to Copenhagen and strengthen the city’s image as a cultural metropolis. The campaign is being supported with 250.000 USD from The Branding Fund, and has a total budget of 500.000 USD, and will run until 2011.

Copenhagen Jazz Festival has launched the targeted campaign in selected jazz markets in Europe and the US. It is a unique opportunity to strengthen and develop the marketing of the festival in Germany, England and the United States.

Under the name “ Copenhagen Jazz Festival Experience ”, we have entered into a partnership with three international jazz festivals and festival producers, namely Rochester International Jazz Festival, JazzFest Berlin and London Jazz Festival. Here we will be showcasing a number of Danish groups, each of which represent the very best of the contemporary Danish jazz scene and give a taste of what Copenhagen Jazz Festival is capable of offering its audiences. The first stop is the US, at Rochester International Jazz Festival, where Copenhagen Jazz Festival Experience is presenting some of Denmark’s current, top jazz names - Palle Mikkelborg// Helen Davies/Mikkel Nordsoe, Ibrahim Electric and Little Red Suitcase

It is a great pleasure for us to collaborate with the festival in Rochester and with John Nugent who for a long time has been presenting Nordic jazz at the festival.

About Copenhagen Jazz Festival With a hundred venues and close to a thousand concerts in the course of ten days in July, Copenhagen Jazz Festival transforms the Danish capital into a European jazz capital.

Now Americans are going to have their own chance to check out the festival when it goes “on tour” in the United States with a selection of the best of the Danish jazz scene. Copenhagen Jazz Festival is one of the largest of its kind in Europe, attracting trades people, jazz enthusiasts and culture-minded folks in general. With over 240,000 guests per year, the festival is also a considerable tourist attraction.

“People come not only for the memorable musical experiences, but also to enjoy the very special atmosphere that takes over when jazz literally invades Copenhagen,” says festival leader (director) Signe Lopdrup. The many free, outdoor concerts around town are one of the festival’s special features and help make Copenhagen Jazz Festival the city’s most important public festival. In addition, the festival has made the presentation of jazz in unique surroundings its trademark. Thus the public is able to enjoy concerts in the city’s best concert halls, on an old, East-German trawler, in a disused printing plant and Carlsberg Brewery’s venerable, stately gardens. So Copenhagen Jazz Festival also provides an excellent occasion for experiencing the city itself - from its best side.

”The musical program for 2010 includes world-famous stars like , Caetano Veloso and and a long list of other well-known’s. But it’s very important for us to make a program that reflects the newest trends both in European jazz and in the rest of the world,” emphasizes Signe Lopdrup, who considers strengthening and developing jazz’ image in general – and Danish jazz in particular – as part of the festival’s task.

Further information can be obtained via artistic director Kenneth Hansen at: pho: +45 31 15 99 99 or e-mail: [email protected]

Palle Mikkelborg // Marilyn Mazur // Helen Davies // Mikkel Nordsoe

Live at Rochester Jazz Festival Thursday, June 17, 2010

Danish music legends Palle Mikkelborg and Marilyn Mazur have formed an international all-star band with harpist Helen Davies and guitarist Mikkel Nordsoe. It is no coincidence that these four Danish musicians are going to represent the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in the international marketing project Copenhagen Jazz Festival Experience. Each of them represents some of the best and ultimate in Danish music to day. None of them are jazz musician in the traditional sense, despite their use of freedom and improvisation - but together they invite the listener into a spiritual and beautiful world of soundscapes. Trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg celebrated his first 50 years in music in 2009. 25 years ago, Palle Mikkelborg and proved to be a great inspiration for each other, the outcome of which was Aura – a work that long since has been canonized and awarded with a Grammy. Palle Mikkelborg: "My personal sound and my ideas for concerts are naturally inspired by my deep interest in spiritual matters. I have never had a musical ambition in my life, only a spiritual one. My life-long journey in music and it's magic has only ever had one aim: to find peace in mind". As a composer Mikkelborg interest in the suite form has triggered a series of works with jazz and symphonic orchestra characterized crew and unorthodox use of jazz soloists, strings and woodwinds. Mikkelborg has toured in Europe and Japan time and again - and has recorded with , George Russell Big Band, , , , Dinu Saluzzi and many others. In other words, Mikkelborg is one of Denmark’s most valued musicians – and a national treasure. Marilyn Mazur is best known today as the flamboyant percussionist at the heart of the Jan Garbarek Group, speeding around an ever burgeoning array of multi-ethnic metal, wood and clay instruments. The Danish percussionist spent 14 years on the road with the Jan Garbarek Group, appearing on albums including “”, “”, “Visible Worlds” and “Rites”. Garbarek describes her as an elemental force, like the wind. Prior employers Gil Evans, , and Miles Davis have similarly valued her pervasive, penetrating percussion. Mazur also happens to be a very strong band leader and composer, which can be heard on the ECM-album "Small Labyrinths" which features her old band “Future Song”. In this new lineup will Mazurs amazing abilities as the listening drummer can be freely unfold. She cannot ask for better co-players and musical challengers. The quartet is completed with harpist Helen Davies and guitarist Mikkel Nordsoe – both longtime and highly respected musicians and strong contributors to the Danish music scene. Helen Davies’ main work is in the field of folk and improvised music, blending acoustic and electronic sounds. Together with Palle Mikkelborg, she has appeared together throughout Scandinavia, Australia, the Far East and China. She has also worked and recorded with several of Ireland´s leading traditional musicians, most recently with singer Padraigín ní Uallachaín in programmes that reflect the spirituality of much of the Irish song tradition. Guitarist Mikkel Nordsoe has been a massive force in the Danish rock and fusion scene since the early 1970s, and his excellent musicianship and pleasant mind has made him one of the most wanted guitarists on the scene. Nordsoe has a unique ability to move easily between genres, and his own projects always reflects this in the best way possible ■ Koncerts: Rochester/ Lutheran Church / June 17 / 7.30pm & 9.30pm

More info: www.mikkelborg.dk

Little Red Suitcase

Live at Hamilton Gallery, WA, June 16 + Rochester Jazz Festival, June 18 + Cornelia, NY, June 19

Little Red Suitcase delicately mixes improvised music, cabaret and theatre live on stage. With simple stage effects, a lot of instruments and crazy mic´ing, they are a live performance full of surprises, finurlige stories, expanding into many musical styles and genres. Spiced impro, cabaret and theatrical elements are part of their stage performance. Their attitude communicates directly to the audience… oohh yer, Spanish, German, French, Danish and English lyrics are part of the multilingua universe.

The band’s two members originally met in Copenhagen, but Little Red Suitcase was born in Zarautz, a small village by the Cantabric sea in during an improvised jamsession, dur- ing »the hours of the siesta« in July 2005. Since then, Little Red Suitcase has played concerts in Norway, Greenland, Spain, Germany, USA, Holland, and Denmark. They have thrilled audience in clubs such as The Stone in NYC to B-Flat in Berlin. At the Chilida Leku in San Sebastián and back to JazzHouse in Copenhagen.

Their debut album , ”They’ll know much more than we’ll never know,” was nominated in 2007 in the category »Best release« at the Danish Music Awards. ”Temporarily Out of Order” – the latest album from Little Red Suitcase – was released in October 2008. The album has received an award from The Danish Arts Council and is again Nominated in the category »Best vocal jazz release« at the Danish Music Awards 2009. Johanna Borchert was born 1983 in Berlin, Germany. After years of classical training she studied Jazz at the Universität der Künste in Berlin and at the Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium in Copenhag-en. Now living in Copenhagen, she has become an engaged participant of the young and energetic jazzavant-garde scene Johanna Borchert is both sideman and Co-leader of several bands and musical projects, notably Schneeweiss & Rosenrot, and has recently founded the group Borchert Sextett. Elena Setién was born in San Sebastián-Donostia,Spain, in 1977. In 1999 she graduated from Roehampton Institute London with a first Class Honours BA degree in classical violin and composition. From 1999 to 2002 she lived in where she taught violin and music theory. In 2002 she moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, where she was accepted as student at the Rhythmical Conservatory. Apart from playing in Little Red Suitcase, she has also participated in a number of different musical projects such as the debut album of Simon Toldam’s Prugelknabe, the »Karen Bach’s trio« and the bigband Stormchasers conducted by Django Bates ■

Koncerts: Rochester/ Xerox Auditorium at Xerox Plaza / June 18 / 6.30pm & 9.00pm ● Washington/ Hamilton Gallery/ June 16/ 6.00 pm ● / Cornelia Street Cafe/ June 19/ 20.00pm

More info: www.littleredsuitcase.com

Ibrahim Electric

Live at Rochester Jazz Festival, June 19, 2010

The Danish trio Ibrahim Electric is one of the most popular European jazz groups... Their quirky – provocative – extroverted - original music sticks its fingers into just about every musical cookie jar... and sends cascades of pearls from the speakers. Their style is not for the pedantic. There are elements of old fashioned soul/jazz – - 60’s acid- power- beat - and of course the trio’s trademark: the fast, almost-punk passages in which the three musicians merge into one playful organism. Each of the band-members possesses an extremely high level of musical ENERGY which has made this unit extraordinary! Niclas Knudsen has been playing almost all styles of music since he started performing professionally in 1992. He has released CD’s with some of our times greatest jazz players such as David Liebman, Ray Anderson, and Adam Nussbaum among others. He received a Danish Grammy in 1999 for his playing on the Danish Sax-player Hans Ulriks CD “Jazz And Mambo” and won the first price at the Gexto Jazz Competition in Spain in 1996 with the group ‘Science Fiction Quartet’, and again in 1999 with the group ‘Out To Lunch’. In 1998 he received the prestigious price ‘Roland Musical Award’ given to an outstanding young musician, and further- more his two solo-CD’s “Human Beat Boxer” and “Human Beat Boxer – Second Stroke” gained a lot of positive attention from the critics. At the present time he plays regularly with bass-icon Matt Garrison, Danish bass-legend , and a quartet featuring Ben Besiakow and Kresten Osgood. Jeppe Tuxen is considered one of the most talented Hammond organ players in Europe. He started out as a pianist but migrated to the Hammond B-3 after having tried this powerful instrument at a recording session. He has been seen in a lot of different contexts but his main focus has since 2004 been with the trio Ibrahim Electric, where he really gets to experiment with his more expressionistic sides. His style of playing has been compared with such different organ players as: Jon Lord (Deep Purple), Booker T. Jones (Booker T. and the MG’s), Jimmy McGriff, Larry Young and Dr. Lonnie Smith. The critics wrote: "The Hammond-playing by Tuxen has 'God-like' calibre in my ears.." - Jazz Special Magazine, 2007. “Jeppe Tuxen treats his Hammond B3 as if both Jimmy Smith and the Devil himself were close on his heels.” – Information, 2003.

Stefan Pasborg a two-time Grammy-winner, has become known on the European jazz scene as a highly personal drummer as well as a composer and bandleader. He has performed and recorded with a number of internationally renowned musicians, including guitarist Marc Ducret, trumpet player Tomasz Stanko, bassist , trombonist Ray Anderson, and saxophonists Ellery Eskelin and John Tchicai, among others. He has been awarded several prizes, including the soloist prize at the 16th European Jazz Contest in Germany; the Rhythmic Music Conservatory Talent Prize; the first prize at the 5th European Tournament for Improvised Music in France; and the Danish Arts Foundation’s grant for artistic work in 2003, 2004 and 2005. At Danish Music Awards Jazz 2004, he received 2 Grammy’s, including being voted ’New Jazz Name of the Year’, and his latest CD - TriplePoint - was selected into the worldwide TOP 5 "Best Debut Albums of 2007" by All About Jazz Magazine, New York ■ Koncerts Rochester/ Montage / June 19 / 6.00pm & 10.00pm ● New York City/ Coco 66/ June 22/ 20.00pm ● New York City/ Nublu/ June 24/ 20.00pm

More info: www.ibrahimelectric.com