Schedule

Louis Armstrong: Live in '59 is one of the only known complete Armstrong concerts from the 1950s to be captured on film. This 55-minute set, filmed in Belgium in 1959, features many of Satchmo’s greatest songs including ‘Mack The Knife’, ‘When It’s Sleepy Time Down South’ and ‘Stompin’ At The Savoy,’ backed by his stellar band the All-Stars, featuring Trummy Young, Peanuts Hucko, Billy Kyle, Danny Barcelona and Mort Herbert.

This is the first part of the 1960 concert recorded on the Alhambra stage in Paris, France where the American jazz trumpeter and arranger Quincy Jones performed with his orchestra. In the late 1950s, Jones moved to France to play concerts, study composition with Nadia Boulanger, and work for a record label: opportunities that black composers hardly had in the US at the time. Jones founded his first, 15-piece orchestra in 1957, which eventually celebrated musical triumphs in 1960 - but was a financial disaster. These were defining experiences in the life of the now multifarious maestro we know today. The concert included numbers such as 'The Birth of a Band', 'Moanin'', 'The Gipsy', 'Cherokee', 'Walkin'' and 'Big Red'.

They called her “the most exciting woman in the world”, and this Afro-American voice lived up to this expectation with international flair. Eartha Kitt was one of the reigning queens of blues and jazz. She epitomized the idea of the sex-kitten chanteuse, rising to fame with a nightclub act centered on her slinky stage presence and throaty purr. As much as she enjoyed vamping it up, Kitt also projected the image of an exotic international sophisticate, singing in several languages.

The international trade fair, exhibition and festival jazzahead! is one of the most important events in the jazz community. Hosted annually in Bremen, Germany, it brings together musicians, bookers, agents, organizers, jazz experts, and music enthusiasts. In 2019, jazzahead! pays special attention to Norway by selecting 40 jazz acts from all over the world and inviting them to perform over the course of three days. One of them is the German trio of pianist Johannes Bigge, double bassist Athina Kontou, and drummer Moritz Baumgärtner. The ensemble moves between powerful, inspired composed passages and lyrical, atmospheric improvisations.

The international trade fair, exhibition, and festival, jazzahead!, is one of the most important events in the jazz community. Hosted annually in Bremen, Germany, it brings together musicians, bookers, agents, organizers, jazz experts, and music enthusiasts. In 2019, jazzahead! pays special attention to Norway by selecting 40 jazz acts from all over the world and inviting them to perform over the course of three days. One of them is the American drummer Scott McLemore. With numerous years of experience in the jazz mecca, New York City, Scott McLemore is now based in Iceland, where he is part of a thriving local jazz scene.

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 1989, legendary jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal brought his trio to the North Sea Jazz Festival. Accompanied by James Cammack on bass and David Bowler on drums, Jamal showcased his excellence.

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 is Norwegian singer and band leader Lilja. She and her band add a tasteful touch of soul, funk and R&B to their catching jazz sound.

When renowned jazz pianists of the old and new school meet at a "Solo Piano Summit," audiences are treated to many an interesting musical surprise. The "Solo Piano Summit" brings together a handful of top pianists with different musical backgrounds: Jacky Terrasson, Junior Mance, Geoff Keezer, Bill Charlap and Alex Wilson. Besides solo performances the all-stars used the occasion for spontaneous interplay, improvisation and a fantastic finale - in short for the pleasure of virtuoso jazz piano playing.

Swedish pianist Jacob Karlzon is joined by Danish bassist Morten Ramsbøl and Swedish drummer Rasmus Kihlberg at the Steinway piano factory in Hamburg to present their album ‘Open Waters’. Karlzon, a classically trained pianist who shared a stage with Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, and Billy Cobham keeps the rich tradition of Swedish jazz eclecticism alive. Back in 2012, Karlzon explored the world of heavy metal, after that allowing electronic elements to set the pulse.

In 1963, the small Belgian town of Comblain-la-Tour hosted an exciting line-up of both new and older jazz groups. Opening things up is the British trombonist Charlie Galbraith’s All Star Jazz Band, performing classic Dixieland jazz. Next up is German singer Knut Kiesewetter, who, with backing from the Prague Dixieland Band, sings the blues. Perhaps the highlight of this event is the coupling of American alto saxophonist Bud Shank with Dutch pianist Pim Jacobs’ trio, who play standards and bossa nova. Bringing things to a close are French clarinetist Marc Laferrière and his New Orleans Stompers with more classic Dixieland.

In 1959, Jacques Loussier hit upon the idea that was to make his international reputation, by combining his interest in jazz with his love of J.S. Bach. Only a pianist with such an exceptional classical technique and deft improvisatory skill could have nurtured such a vision. He founded the Play Bach Trio, which used Bach's compositions as the basis for jazz improvisation. The trio immediately caught the public imagination. In their live appearances, tours and concerts, plus a succession of recordings built on the cornerstone of four albums made between 1960 and 1963, Loussier's group achieved the breakthrough to popular commercial success enjoyed by only a select few jazz musicians. In fifteen years, the trio sold over six million albums! On July 28th 2004, the day of Bach's 254th anniversary of death, the Jacques Loussier Trio perform a special concert at the famous St. Thomas Church of Leipzig - the city where Bach composed many of his most famous works.

By the time this set was recorded at Brussels Jazz Club in the summer of 1980, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard had already built an impressive resume. During the 1960s he became a leading voice in the hard bop movement while not shying away from avant-garde sessions with the likes of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. In the 1970s, Hubbard expanded his palette by recording in more diverse settings that included electric instruments and orchestral arrangements. On this club date, Hubbard showcases all of the experience he had accumulated up to this point. The working group consists includes David Schnitter on tenor saxophone, Billy Childs on keyboards, Larry Klein on bass, and Sinclair Lott on drums. Watch as the quintet deftly switches between acoustic and electric instruments and Hubbard entertains the crowd with his onstage antics.

There’s no question about it: with a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album for her recording ‘Made In Brazil’, seven previous Grammy nominations, four ‘Gold Disc Awards’, and three ‘Best Vocal Album Awards’ in Japan, Eliane Elias has taken her place in the pantheon of music giants. In her projects, Elias wears many hats: she serves as producer, composer, lyricist, arranger, pianist, and vocalist. In this concert broadcast, recorded live at the Philharmonie in Munich, Elias shows her distinctive and immediately recognizable musical style, which blends her Brazilian samba roots and her sensuous, alluring voice with her impressive instrumental bebop, jazz, classical, and compositional skills. She is an artist beyond category, and in this concert she performs with Jay Randall Anderson (bass) and Adam Nussbaum (drums).

Vocalist and composer Winston McAnuff was born in the hills of Jamaica in 1957. Reggae was ingrained in his life from an early age. On stage at the French world music festival Les Escales Saint-Nazaire, Winston “Electric Dread” McAnuff steps beyond his role as Rastafarian preacher, performing with a fiery spirit that is as distinctive as it is jovial. He runs across the stage, lectures the crowd, and rolls around joyfully on the floor. But where does his boundless energy come from after so many years of silence? How does McAnuff share his memories and beliefs with the “old white Europe”, where he makes his comeback thanks to the Makasound label? In contrast to his stage charisma, we share moments with him in an intimate setting, seated and relaxed. Against a neutral backdrop of a stage under construction, guitar in hand, he recounts stories about Rasta culture. His words and prayers evoke poetry from far-off Jamaica, the land of his first musical inspiration and his first life-changing encounters. Even though this great island is far away, the ghosts of elders are ever-present.

Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece small group. This group was called the All Stars, and in 1964 Louis Armstrong recorded his biggest-selling record, Hello, Dolly! He made assorted television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s – the recorded film was a TV Show in Australia when Armstrong was at the peak of his career. Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname ‘Ambassador Satch’.