00:00
Bakolo Music International - 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, Bakolo Music International, represents the pioneers of the golden age of Congolese rumba. The singer, guitarist and grand survivor Nzofu Moko Buele, known to all as Bikunda, is carrying on a torch first lit in 1948 by ‘Papa’ Wend Kolosoy, the ‘father of Congolese Rumba’ and composer of the first Rumba hit song, ‘Marie-Louise’.
00:50
jazzahead! 2024 - Julia Kadel Trio
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 ensembles presenting themselves at jazzahead! 2024 is the Julia Kadel Trio. German pianist and composer Julia Kadel introduces her new trio, featuring Greek-German bassist Athina Kontou and American drummer Devin Gray. Following the release of their album ‘Powerful Vulnerability’, Kadel describes her music’s central theme as the transformative power of vulnerability, suggesting that it is a source of strength, stability, and deeper connections with oneself and others. With over a decade of leading various projects in European jazz, Kadel is also committed to social advocacy through Future Bloom, a festival network that opposes discrimination. Additionally, Kadel co-founded the Queer Cheer Community, a collective that was honored with the “Sonderpreis der Jury” at the 2023 German Jazz Prize. Queer Cheer, established by Julia Kadel, Erik Leuthäuser, Laura Winkler, and Friede Merz, is one of the first queer communities in the German jazz scene, addressing issues such as diversity, intersectionality, multi-perspectivity, and interdisciplinarity.
01:22
jazzahead! 2024 - Yumi Ito
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 the trio of Swiss-based vocalist, pianist, and composer Yumi Ito. Polish-Japanese-Swiss Yumi Ito navigates the realms of art-pop, jazz, and neoclassical music. Her album ‘Ysla’ (2023) marks a high point in her career, blending personal narratives, remarkable improvisational skill, and a distinctive vocal tone that evokes the image of an isolated, resilient island. Ito has graced the stages of some of the world's most renowned festivals, including the Blue Note Jazz Festival in New York, the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the Jazzmandu Festival. At jazzahead! 2024, Yumi Ito (vocals, piano) appears with Nadav Erlich (double bass) and Iago Fernandez (drums).
01:53
A$AP Rocky & A$AP Ferg - At The Hordern Pavilion
Big hits, booty dancing, stage dives, fan freestyles and of course, controversy, A$AP Rocky's debut Down Under tour had it all! At his sold-out Sydney show, hip hop's hottest star and 5000 rowdy fans got wild for the night at the Hordern Pavilion and we captured it all exclusively.
03:39
Anita Oday Live in Sweden 1963
Anita O’Day boasts two wonderful concerts from 1963 and 1970 that present the “jazz singer supreme” in impeccable form. O’Day’s horn-based approach to singing is in full effect throughout both shows including stand-out renditions in each show of audience favorites “Tea For Two” and “Sweet Georgia Brown” (both reprised from her triumphant appearance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.) This show is a fitting testimony to one of jazz music’s true originals and shows unequivocally why she is ranked in the top tier of vocalists along with Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday.
04:34
Libérica Arrels
Having played in New York with jazz icons Dave Liebman, Eliot Zigmund, Ari Hoenig, and Chris Cheek, Catalan bass player Manel Fortià now returns to his roots to reinvent traditional Catalan repertoire. Manel Fortià teams up with Antonia Lizana (saxophones), Pere Martínez (vocals), Max Villavecchia (piano), and Raphael Pannier (drums) to form ‘Libérica’, reimagining Catalan music and Flamenco through the eyes of a New York jazz musician. Their 2021 album ‘Arrels’ explores Catalan hymns, including ‘El cant dels ocells’ and ‘Els tres tambors’, heard here during a live performance at Nova Jazz Cava in Barcelona.