Schedule

Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater walks in with considerable credentials, but this documentary related to her album ‘Red Earth’ trumps them all: Red Earth is a Malian journey that merges and melts all borders. While world-beat listeners will recognize the grooves, this is Bridgewater's first time bringing her own experiences as an African-American woman back to the motherland. It results in a fusion of feeling, visions, and music.

Annual trade fair, exhibition, and festival jazzahead! is one of the international jazz community’s most important events. Hosted in Bremen, Germany, jazzahead! brings together musicians, bookers, agents, organizers, jazz experts, and music enthusiasts at the world’s largest jazz event. In 2024, jazzahead! paid special attention to the jazz scene of the Netherlands and invited over forty jazz acts to perform over the course of three days. Among the bands presenting themselves at jazzahead! 2024 is Trombone Ensemble Nabou Claerhout. This Belgium-based group, featuring five trombonists and a three-piece rhythm section, realized a long-held aspiration of Flemish trombonist Nabou Claerhout during her artistic residency at the 2023 Brussels Jazz Festival. For the occasion she brought together a select group of profoundly talented European trombonists. The ensemble, which included the renowned American trombonist Robin Eubanks as a special guest, received praise for its innovation and modernity, with Downbeat magazine stating, “Claerhout knocks (this configuration) into a very contemporary, inventive place.” The jazzahead! 2024 lineup includes Nabou Claerhout (trombone), Rory Ingham (trombone), Peter Delannoye (trombone), Nathan Surquin (trombone), Tobias Herzog (bass trombone, tuba), Gijs Idema (guitar), Cyrille Obermüller (double bass), and Daniel Jonkers (drums).

Annual trade fair, exhibition, and festival jazzahead! is one of the international jazz community's most important events. Hosted in Bremen, Germany, jazzahead! brings together musicians, bookers, agents, organizers, jazz experts, and music enthusiasts at the world’s largest jazz event. In 2022, jazzahead! paid special attention to Canada’s jazz scene and invited forty jazz acts from all over the world to perform over the course of three days. One of the ensembles appearing at jazzahead! 2022 is the Alba Careta Group. Catalan-born, Amsterdam-schooled trumpeter and vocalist Alba Careta effortlessly forges powerful emotional connections, whether she is playing or singing. Her 2018 debut album won Catalonia’s Enderrock Prize for Best Jazz Album of the Year. At jazzahead!, she is accompanied by drummer Adrià Claramunt, tenor saxophonist Lucas Martínez, pianist Roger Santacana, and double bassist Giuseppe Campisi.

The MotorMusic Studios in Mechelen, Belgium, attract many great musicians to the city. A wide variety of visiting international jazz musicians share their art of making jazz music with us in the DJAZZ series ‘Belgium Sessions’. In these sessions, some of Europe’s finest musicians perform their own, original music. This episode MotorMusic invites the jazz trio ‘WRaP!’, consisting of singer Barbara Wiernik, guitarist Alain Pierre, and Chet Baker’s former bassist: Jean-Louis Rassinfosse. The trio plays one of their most beautiful compositions of ‘Endless’. In this fine composition, Wiernik’s beautiful voice, Pierre’s crystal chords of the 12-string guitar, and the warm sounds of the contrabass come to full bloom.

American soul and jazz organist Rhoda Scott spent most of her career in France, where she earned recognition far greater than that accorded to her in the United States. There was never any doubt about what instrument she would play as a child. "It's really the most beautiful instrument in the world,” she once stated in an interview. “The first thing I did was take my shoes off and work the pedals.” This performance at the French Festival Jazz à Vienne is extra special. Not only because of the beautiful location, but also because she shares the stage with American gospel and blues singer La Velle. Together they give an intimate and beautiful show in the antique theatre of Vienne.

The North Sea Jazz Festival is the largest indoor music festival in the world, known globally as the event where the past, present and future of jazz are featured within three days. Next to a firm base of jazz as the festival’s staple music genre, many others, such as blues, soul, funk, or hip hop, pass by. In 1982, the American jazz fusion band Spyro Gyra took the stage at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague. Having struck gold with their album "Morning Dance" just a few years prior, they played a slick set with exuberant energy.

Since 1977, Estival is a summer jazz festival in Switzerland, Lugano. Estival offers a thrilling and particularly surprising line-up that explores the rich world of contemporary music whilst promoting the understanding of different cultures, tolerance, and co-existence. McCoy Tyner’s first main exposure came with Benny Golson, being the first pianist in Golson’s and Art Farmer’s Jazztet. He’s also known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet. Tyner’s style is easily comparable to Coltrane’s maximalist style of saxophone. Though a member of Coltrane’s group, he was never overshadowed by the saxophonist, but complemented and even inspired Coltrane’s open-minded approach. McCoy Tyner is considered one of the most influential jazz pianists of the 20th century, an honour he earned both with Coltrane and in his years of performing following Coltrane’s death.

This broadcast shows a rare appearance at the 1996 Germeringer Jazztage by the legendary flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía and his sextet. Some may question the inclusion of a flamenco guitarist within a jazz festival. However, the similarities between flamenco and blues have been well documented: both are the outlet for a poor, disenfranchised minority, with a primitive strength, boundless capabilities for improvisation and a requirement for breathtaking virtuosity - all qualities shown by Paco de Lucía in this performance. Moreover, he has long been experimenting with jazz forms (evident even from his inclusion of bass, drums, and saxophone in his sextet), while still retaining the essence of the flamenco tradition. In his own words: “What I have tried to do is have a hand holding onto tradition and the other scratching, digging in other places trying to find new things I can bring into flamenco”.

The North Sea Jazz Festival is the largest indoor music festival in the world, known globally as the event where the past, present and future of jazz are featured within three days. Next to a firm base of jazz as the festival’s staple music genre, many others, such as blues, soul, funk, or hip hop, pass by. In 1986, the acclaimed jazz fusion group Mahavishnu Orchestra led by guitarist John McLaughlin took the stage at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague. This third incarnation of the group featured an outstanding lineup, with Jim Beard on keyboards, Jonas Hellborg on bass, Danny Gottlieb on drums, and Bill Evans on saxophone.

'Münchner Klaviersommer' was an annual concerts series that took place from 1981 to 1998 in Munich, Germany. Although the festival's name suggests a strong focus on piano music, it featured countless famous musicians from jazz and classical music – not just pianists. The concerts were usually held in July at The Gasteig, home of the Munich Philharmonic. In 1995, vibraphonist Gary Burton and pianist Makoto Ozone, both great jazz players noted for their virtuoso technique and innovative style, came together to give a concert of improvised music. They delighted the audience with their fluid, poetic artistry, which was expressed in a performance of the highest order.

British pianist George Shearing enjoyed an international reputation as an instrumentalist, arranger, and composer. Equally at home on the classical concert stage as in jazz clubs, he was recognized for his inventive, orchestrated jazz. In this live recording from the Munich Philharmonie, Shearing played in a duo format with Canadian double bassist Neil Swainson. The repertoire consisted of a selection of compositions by Shearing himself, among them ‘Lullaby Of Birdland’, which is a standard in jazz repertoire.

As one of the best Hammond B3 organ players, Jimmy McGriff (1936-2008) is often lost among great soul-jazz organists from his hometown of Philadelphia. Of the major soul-jazz pioneers, he was the bluesiest and often insisted that he was more of a blues musician than a jazz artist. Regardless, he remained eclectic enough to blur the lines of genres. His sound - deep, down-to-earth grooves drenched in blues and gospel feeling - made him popular with R&B audiences. This 1965 performance is part of the Comblain-la-Tour Jazz Festival.

What Jamie Cullum is to England, Wouter Hamel is to the Netherlands: a performer who knows the difference between jazz and pop! Hamel is backed by big band Sven Happel (double bass), Jasper van Hulten (drums), Gijs Anders van Straalen (percussion), Rory Ronde (guitar), Benjamin Herman (saxophone), and a string ensemble. Hamel plays the guitar, piano, sings, and writes many of his own songs. He made his debut in 2007 with the eponymous album Hamel on Dox Records; it was a hit on the Dutch albums chart, remained on the Top 20 for over a year, and spawned the hit "As Long as We're in Love”. The show was recorded at the legendary venue Paradiso, a former church considered the "pop temple" of the Netherlands. Hamel's performance of "One More Time on the Merry-Go-Round" perfectly connects the beautiful venue in the heart of Amsterdam and the enthousiastic audience.

The world-renowned North Sea Jazz Festival features a wide variety of genres, including traditional New Orleans jazz, swing, bop, free jazz, fusion, avant-garde and electronic jazz, blues, gospel, funk, soul, R&B, hip hop, world beat and Latin. The festival was founded by entrepreneur and jazz fan Paul Acket, who sold his highly successful pop magazine publishing house to organize and fund the first edition of the festival in 1976. This broadcast from the North Sea Jazz Archives presents a compilation with music of George Benson & Kenny G.

Annual trade fair, exhibition, and festival jazzahead! is one of the international jazz community's most important events. Hosted in Bremen, Germany, jazzahead! brings together musicians, bookers, agents, organizers, jazz experts, and music enthusiasts at the world’s largest jazz event. In 2023, jazzahead! paid special attention to Germany’s jazz scene and invited thirty jazz acts from all over the world to perform over the course of three days. Among the artists presenting themselves at jazzahead! 2023 are LIUN & The Science Fiction Orchestra. This ten-piece ensemble from Germany plays vibrant acoustic reinterpretations of electronic pieces from their 2019 album ‘Time Rewind’, reinventing the vocal jazz ensemble for the modern age. Their 2022 album ‘Lily of The Nile’ has been released on renowned guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel’s record label Heartcore Records. LIUN & The Science Fiction Orchestra consists of Lucia Cadotsch (vocals), Wanja Slavin (reeds, flute, keys), Heidi Bayer (trumpet), Florian Trübsbach and Phillip Dornbusch (reeds, flute), Shannon Barnett and Johannes Lauer (trombone), Mark Pringle (piano), Felix Henkelhausen (double bass), and Fabian Rösch (drums).

The North Sea Jazz Festival is the largest indoor music festival in the world, known globally as the event where the past, present and future of jazz are featured within three days. Next to a firm base of jazz as the festival’s staple music genre, many others, such as blues, soul, funk, or hip hop, pass by. In 1982, The Jazztet, a legendary hard-bop sextet founded by trumpeter Art Farmer and saxophonist Benny Golson, reunited after a twenty-year separation at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague. They are joined by original member Curtis Fuller on trombone and newcomers Rufus Reid on bass, Mickey Tucker on piano and Albert Heath on drums.

'Münchner Klaviersommer' was an annual concerts series that took place from 1981 to 1998 in Munich, Germany. Although the festival's name suggests a strong focus on piano music, it featured countless famous musicians from jazz and classical music – not just pianists. The concerts were usually held in July at The Gasteig, home of the Munich Philharmonic. In 1987, American pianist Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea was one of the artists appearing here. Together with Frank Gambale on guitar, Eric Marienthal on saxophone, John Patitucci on bass and Dave Weckl on drums, Corea performed jazz fusion with his Elektric Band - a jazz subgenre inspired by the rock music and electronic instruments of the day. The band was nominated for two Grammy Awards.

Unlike many of his fellow jazz cats, vocalist Gregory Porter transcends the jazz bubble. After sustaining a shoulder injury, this former American football player turned to jazz singing. He was discovered in a Californian jazz club by pianist, saxophonist and composer Kamau Kenyatta. Porter lent his vocal skills to gospel choirs across the country and a string of successful musicals before turning his talent to his own compositions. His rise since then has been meteoric. Porter’s magnificent, burnished baritone can sink into a lyric with luxurious ease, the melody gently sculpted into new shapes at every turn, with the rhythm tugging subtly back and forth across the bar line. This live performance at the Olympia showcases this man's worth, and is a truly amazing experience!

On July 20, 2018, double bassist Christian McBride presented his band ‘New Jawn’ at the Malta Jazz Festival. A five-time Grammy winner, McBride is one of the most requested, most recorded, and most respected figures in the music world today. Hailing from Philadelphia, this music luminary combines jazz, R&B, pop/rock, hip hop/neo-soul, and classical. Gracing the Malta Jazz stage with him are Nasheet Waits (drums), Marcus Strickland (tenor sax), and Josh Evans (trumpet).

Late August is traditionally the time for the annual Stift International Music Festival. Weerselo’s Stift Church and Oldenzaal’s ‘Hofkerk’ serve as venues for wonderful concerts of various young musicians from all over the world. The theme of the 2014 Stift Festival was “Divine and Demonic Passion”. Young musicians performed divine and demonic chamber music by composers such as Astor Piazzolla. Piazolla, who combined classical music and tango, created the ‘Nuevo Tango’ in the 1960s. In this period, he composed a number of tangos inspired on angels. These tangos had a spiritual touch. In the years before his death, Piazzolla used to perform this series of tangos as a single suite, the ‘Suite del Ángel’. This four-tango suite has been performed in several instrumentations. Brava broadcasts the version for bandoneon accompanied by the guitar, violin, double bass, and piano.