00:00
Moonlight Benjamin - WOMEX 2018
Since 1994, World Music Expo (WOMEX) has been attracting musicians, agents, a great number of press agencies, as well as media companies from all over the world. Its main exposition event has been held in various locations throughout Europe, including Berlin, Brussels, Marseille, Stockholm, Seville, Cardiff, and Budapest. In 2018, WOMEX was held in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. One of its showcase participants, Moonlight Benjamin, blends together Voodoo blues, Haitian rock and Creole roll into a riff-heavy, groove-laden sonic concoction built on the tension between her powerful voice and saturated electric guitars.
00:44
Seven Eleven: Back to the Source
Dutch band Seven Eleven is a mix of funk, jazz and hip hop. Founded in 1987, Seven Eleven is one of the first Dutch bands to perform with rappers, having collaborated with hip hop crew Dope Posse in 1990. Adding a superb horn section to the original line-up, they were awarded the 1993 Camelpop Award. Over the years, Seven Eleven released eight albums and played countless festivals, including three appearances at the prestigious North Sea Jazz Festival. Collaborations with legendary American funk artists such as Fred Wesley, Dawn Silva, Jeanette Washington and Louis Johnson followed. Guitarist Rob Manzoli of pop group Right Said Fred produced Seven Eleven’s 2015 album Back to the Source in London. Today’s broadcast presents the funkiest moments from Seven Eleven’s Back to the Source tour.
01:42
Django Reinhardt Tribute: Beets & Rosenberg
The treasured compositions of guitarist Django Reinhardt, the founding father of hot club jazz, are engraved in everyone's memory. Although Reinhardt missed two fingers of his left hand, his virtuoso technique was unrivalled. Dutch guitarist Stochelo Rosenberg and pianist Peter Beets now have the pleasure to bring Django’s music back to life with their infectious improvisations.
02:55
North Sea Jazz Archive: Wayne Shorter Quartet
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 the great Wayne Shorter Quartet. Shorter’s maxim is to reinvent his music during each concert. He means to give his music a radical originality.
03:23
Carla Bley Sextet live at Estival Lugano 1986
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. Discover the special bond between pianist Carla Bley and bassist Steve Swallow. The two have performed in the same bands since the '60s and have been romantic partners for more than two decades. Watching them perform is the definition of musical telepathy. Together with musicians Wayne Krantz, Victor Lewis, Larry Willis, and Don Alias, they form an amazing sextet at Estival in 1986.
04:12
R. Brecker, B. Wallace and Band - North Sea Jazz
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 1987, American trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonist Bennie Wallace brought their band of pianist Elian Elias, drummer Peter Erskine and bassist Marc Johnson to the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague. Together they put on a stellar duo performance.
05:20
Morgenland Festival: One Way Ticket to Damascus
Since 2005, the Morgenland Festival of Osnabrueck has dedicated itself to the fascinating music culture of the Near and Middle East. From traditional and classical music to avant-garde, jazz, and rock, the festival program also features art, such as visual arts, dance, and theatre of interdisciplinary projects. Bursting with sounds that could only be described as magical, “MCO” features the Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Naci Özgüç. Of Turkish origin, Özgüç was raised by two opera singers, who opened the doors of a musical career.
06:08
Mi niño curro
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”.
06:22
Up Above My Head
Jazz in Duketown is the largest free outdoor jazz festival in the Netherlands. It's a real gathering for jazz addicts, inviting internationally renowned artists. The talented American singer Michelle David performs pop and gospel music that feeds the heart and soothes the soul. Having grown up with the church, she started singing at the age of four. A year later she joined her first band, The Mission of Love. In 1980 she enrolled at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City, known from the film 'Fame'. During this time, she appeared as an extra in the legendary comedy film 'Ghostbusters'. Musicals and tours with the bands of Diana Ross and Michael Bolton followed.
06:29
Kenny Barron, DPW
Pianist Kenny Barron’s June 27, 2019 appearance at the Alfa Jazz Festival in Ukraine’s Lviv was a celebration of sublime jazz virtuosity. The revered elder statesmen of jazz piano brought his regular working trio of Kiyoshi Kitagawa (bass) and Jonathan Blake (drums), augmented by stellar jazzman Marcus Strickland (tenor saxophone) and young lion Riley Mulherkar (trumpet). Their seamless blend of classic bebop and modern explorations spoke of a deep, emotive connection to each note, captivating the Ukrainian audience with lyrical improvisations during this unforgettable concert.
07:00
Gil Evans, Ornette Coleman - Schloss Ansbach
This program presents two concerts from Schloss Ansbach in 1978. The first concert features Gil Evans and his orchestra, consisting of Gil Evans on piano, Steve Lacy on soprano saxophone, Arthur Blythe on alto saxophone, Pit Levin on synthesizers, Earl McIntyre on trombone, Lewis Soloff on trumpet, Geoffrey Berlin on bass and Sue Evans on percussion instruments. The second concert features saxophonist Ornette Coleman at the peak of his musically expressive powers. Coleman is joined by Bern Nix on guitar, Charles Ellerbee on guitar, Albert Arnold on bass, and Shannon Jackson on drums and percussion.
07:47
November Music: R. Frerichs/H. Alizadeh/Cello8ctet
The November Music festival in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands is the ultimate event for experiencing a broad range of music. It features a wonderful variety of contemporary and experimental pop, sound art, non-Western music, jazz and free improvisation. The closing concert for the 2016 edition offers a great example of this musical wealth - Dutch composer and pianist Rembrandt Frerichs’ fantastic trio play a wonderful set with Cello8ctet Amsterdam and renowned Iranian tar player Hossein Alizâdeh. Rembrandt Frerichs studied in New York and lived in Cairo for several years. His music has the drive of American jazz, the lyricism of Middle-Eastern music, and the sensitivity of the chamber music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. The combination of Frerichs’ trio with Cello8ctet and Alizâdeh is unique. Their music is a miracle of organic creativity, and a shining fusion of old and new world music.