Preface Introduction Jazz in Belgium 2011, Courage in the delta The Artists Unity is strength! Hamster Axis of the one-click Panther Manuel Hermia Trio After three editions of the Flemish Jazz Meeting we are very pleased De Beren Gieren to present you with a new initiative that aims to unite the jazz scenes Collapse of both parts of the country in one common objective: to firmly put Pascal Mohy Trio Belgian jazz on the map of Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and Europe, Rêve d’éléphant Orchestra thus promoting mutual knowledge. Tuur Florizoone - Mixtuur Nicolas Kummert Voices The Belgian Jazz Meeting is a mini showcase festival that gives national Rackham and international promoters and the press the chance to see 12 bands Christian Mendoza Group at work. Joachim Badenhorst At the same time, the meeting is an ideal forum for colleagues to meet Giovanni Barcella – Jeroen Van Herzeele Duo each other, stay connected, expand networks and exchange ideas. Belgian Jazz Directory For the selection, we asked a jury of about 60 members from all corners Organisations of the country to select 12 artists with international potential who could Jazz Festivals benefit from our support. The result is not a hit parade but rather a very Venues diverse palette of hungry young things as well as more established Jazz Clubs/Small Music Venues names that never tire of reinventing themselves. This CD introduces Media each one of them with a recent composition. Information Platforms Management/Booking Agencies The second part of this booklet contains an overview of the most Labels & Distribution important organisations, concert venues, festivals, etc… for jazz in Belgium. Once again, not an exhaustive list, but a selection based upon relevance, in regards to our international relationships. A guide to our visitors who’ll want to come back to explore more Belgian jazz, as well as an indicative list to foreign musicians looking for exposure in our country. For the full lists and additional information about other Belgian groups, please visit the website www.jazzinbelgium.com. We wish you lots of auditory pleasure and… do enjoy rummaging around! Katrien van Remortel Liliana Graziani Flanders Music Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles Musiques Belgian Jazz Meeting 2011 Partners: Jazz in Belgium 2011: Courage in the delta Rik Bevernage, De Werf Arts Centre Mik Torfs, JazzLab Series Broken glass can’t be glued. The same goes for jazz. Until the eighties, Jean-Pierre Bissot, Bérengère Cornez, Christine Jottard, Myriam Mollet, jazz was a relatively easily defined field, a nicely delimited musical Katy Saudmont, Jazz Together genre with, at most, two or three parallel or successive currents (swing and bebop, free and fusion). Those days are long gone. As J. Bernlef concluded in his essay “Will jazz make it through the twenty first century?”, jazz has shot off into many directions. These parallel currents have produced very odd offspring, that also seem to have swum off in different directions. The result is a wide and complicated delta of music that, very often, isn’t even remotely reminiscent of the work by the old or modern jazz masters. The jazz canon has been shattered, irreversibly so. Bernlef had a tendency to view this with pessimism. He suggested that the new cross-over tunes in that delta would quite possibly “drown in a sea of post-modernism where everything is identical and therefore not worth defending.” At the end of his essay he, then, contradicts himself, suggesting that it might be better to throw out the earflaps and blinkers and to “enjoy the cacophony of the present-day.” Most musicians would agree. You’d be hard-pushed, these days, to come across anyone claiming to “play jazz”. Usually, it’s more along the lines of: “I dig into all sorts of music and, at the end of the day, I really don’t care whether it’s jazz or not.” Just check out the website of accordionist Tuur Florizoone, Everything is permitted? In theory, yes, but is it still possible to flaunt one of the many at this Belgian Jazz Meeting: “Jazz is only one of the quality when dealing in broken glass? Or will the mice be allowed many types of music this musical world citizen has in his kit bag. The to play, now the cat’s away? Let’s be perfectly clear: there were no fact that he is comfortable in pop as well as in world music is obvious specific criteria for the Belgian Jazz Meeting. There was, however, a from the endless list of names with whom he has shared the stage or comprehensive long-list. Based on this, the Belgian jazz community the recording studio.” (press, organizers, connoisseurs of all kind - consisting of, in the interim, Also check Giovanni Barcella, from yet another far-flung corner of the a rather colourful quilt of 60-odd people) shortlisted twelve groups. delta: “I decompose current aesthetics - beauty, if you wish - because it So, what can be expected? I’ll open the game with this: let them be doesn’t tolerate death, nor sorrow for that matter; it doesn’t respond to courageous. Courageous enough to leave the clichés by the wayside. the mortal carnival and it doesn’t question itself.” Barcella doesn’t want Courageous enough to not only go with their gut feeling. Courageous to be called a jazz musician because the suggestion of an aesthetic enough to take the audience someplace they’ve never been, places that ideal curtails his creative appetite. Thus, everyone has their reasons. may seem inhospitable, uncomfortable or even hostile. It’s the kind of Take saxophonist and singer Nicolas Kummert, for example: he’s part of courage we recognize from all the jazz greats, from Sidney Bechet to a jazz quartet in Paris, but that’s more of a hobby. He will be attending Charlie Parker, from Duke Ellington to Cecil Taylor, from Fats Waller to the Belgian Jazz Meeting with Voices, a project merging poetry, song John Zorn. Hopefully the audience (who will maybe sign contracts with and world music. the Belgian musicians) has the same kind of courage. The courage to offer their audience something different, not just carbon copies of well- For the mainstream audience, in the meantime, the word jazz has known names or formulaic success. The more courage in the delta, the become very ambiguous. Nobody seems to think it’s strange to see grander the future of jazz. Gotan Project or Ben l’Oncle Soul or Prince headlining at Gent Jazz, Jazz à Vienne and North Sea Jazz. Great musicians, no doubt, but their only It’s the same kind of courage that was required to bury the Flemish Jazz link to a jazz tradition is quite likely merely listening to the occasional Meeting after three editions, and set up the Belgian Jazz Meeting. The recording. Except for the sporadic parenthesis, their music is as related question as to whether this small sliver of land between the North Sea to jazz as pepper steak is to cumin cheese. But the jazz umbrella is and the Eifel is also made of broken glass has no place in this text, but so tolerant (sometimes even opportunistic) that virtually everything is the choice to join hands across the language barrier is a statement that welcome to tag along. Is that a problem? Definitely not, the phenomenon cannot be underestimated. There is no such thing as Flemish or French has been going on for decades and doesn’t seem to have halted or even Community jazz, there is only Belgian jazz. And this need not even be slowed down the creative development of the jazz delta. jazz made by Belgians, but jazz, quite simply, made in this rich biotope between North Sea and Eifel. Be it by the Flemish, the Francophones, Creative musicians rather enjoy noticing that the banner is becoming EU-citizens and other seekers. In Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Mons, progressively less cramped in its interpretation. It offers them the Liège, Mechelen, Namur and thousands of other places. A fascinating opportunity to do precisely as they wish, free of all constraints. This is hotbed out of which an interesting sample card was selected. Allow also the case at the Belgian Jazz Meeting. Joachim Badenhorst even yourself to be utterly surprised and don’t be afraid of the shards on the has the choice of showing up with his improvisation ensemble or his ground. half-Icelandic band Mogil, without blushing. Nobody’s bothered about a leg spread. And the spread will be large: the meeting will be presenting Didier Wijnants (*) the widest variety of jazz anyone could imagine. From the carnavalesque Rêve d’Eléphant Orchestra to Pascal Mohy’s “Monkian” piano. From Rackham’s Euro-jazz to Collapse’s frenzy. From Hermia or Van Herzeele’s Coltrane-soul to the post-psychedelic madness of De Beren Gieren and (*)Didier Wijnants is jazz reviewer for newspaper De Morgen. the kaleidoscopic exercises of Christian Mendoza. Translation: Tania Derck By Frederik Goossens / JazzLab Series (FG) Translation: Tania Derck & Jean-Claude Vantroyen / Le Soir (JCV) - Translation: Michael Leahy “Long Tales and Short Stories”, is the album title of the trio of Manuel Hermia (sax, flute, When this band plays, it’s an all-out party; and bansuri), Manolo Cabras (double bass) and João even if they sometimes go all abstract, they always Lobo (drums, percussion). And it is a question of manage to recapture the audience’s attention just stories that the trio has to offer. Whether long or in time. Hamster Axis of the one-click Panther © Dirk Vervaet © Olivier Vin short, they are fascinating. Portraits, sketches, are Antwerp’s young guns and they are becoming increasingly more prominent on the short stories and fables with their own personalities.