f ES T i VA L RE P O RT

DR JAZZ fESTiVALby suzanne lorge

Each weekend guitarist Emmanuel Peña travels more than four hours from his home in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, to teach at FEDUJazz, a not-for-profit music school in Cabarete, a small town on the north coast of the country. The school—its handful of classrooms just a short walk from the beach—offers free music classes to students of all ages and seeks to instill both artistic discipline and a sense of personal accomplishment in its nascent musicians. Peña’s dedication to the school is not unusual among its teachers, all professional musicians who volunteer their time to the hundreds of children annually who attend workshops. The Dominican Republic Jazz Festival (Nov. 4th-8th), which sponsors FEDUJazz, attracts leading jazz performers from Latin America, Europe and the U.S. for a series of free concerts across five nights each fall, this year in the towns of Santiago, Sosúa, Puerto Plata and Cabarete. During the daytime hours of the festival, these jazz masters give the students classes in jazz history, performance techniques and the intricacies of polyrhythms. At the core of these classes is the understanding that Latin musical forms, an integral part of everyday life in the Dominican Republic, have as much to offer the jazz world as jazz training has to offer the students. Part of the festival’s mission, says Lorenzo Sancassani, the Vice Minister of Tourism for the Northern Coast and founder of the festival 19 years ago, is to make jazz more popular among Dominicans. Despite the cultural debt that jazz owes to Latin America, jazz isn’t a mainstream art form in the Dominican Republic. But local interest in jazz is growing as Dominican musicians study and perform abroad and return with their own Dominican-inflected forms of the music. More than 12,000 people attend the festival each year—most of them tourists from other regions of the Dominican Republic—and a known quantity (merengue, Latin pop tunes) is what they turn out to hear. As the festival continues to evolve, however, Sancassani wants to introduce more contemporary jazz acts to the festival roster. To this end, Sancassani entered into a partnership this year with saxophonist Marco Pignataro and woodwind player Matt Marvuglio of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI), who will be curating the festival with Sancassani going forward. The first question that the curator of a Latin jazz festival must answer is one of basic identity: is the festival’s goal to promote Latin American musicians on the global stage or to bring big jazz names to the Latin American stage? Either way, designing a program that strikes the right balance between local and international musical (CONTINUED ON PAGE 55)

WE JAZZ fiNLANDby stuart broomer

Helsinki’s We Jazz launched in December 2013 as a novel approach to the traditional jazz festival, emphasizing unusual venues and sometimes-novel approaches to the music itself. The event’s artistic director, DJ Matti Nives, stresses that it’s a kind of environment, a happening, even a utopia: in its brief history, it has defined a format for itself that works in the special terrain of the Finnish capital as winter approaches. The days are cold and short and it’s often raining, but We Jazz goes against the grain to stress movement, seeking out some of the city’s unusual places. It’s a novel idea—using jazz to discover the city and the city to discover jazz. It began in an ancient concert hall and ended in a rock palace, along the way presenting concerts on a moving tram and in a small apartment. As it has in previous years, We Jazz (Dec. 7th-13th) launched at the Aleksanterin Theater. Opened in 1880, it’s an insistent visit to the past, a tribute to Saint Petersburg that looks Austrian, as visually rich as a Viennese layer cake but with its gold-painted plaster rosettes showing signs of wear and some bulbs out in the chandeliers. Its history extends from Russian rule to a post-WWI home for the National Opera and Ballet. As in previous years, the first night included a visiting headliner (this time pianist Vijay Iyer’s trio with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, whose gunshot bass drum added a special contemporary touch) and an ambitious local project, drummer Teppo Mäkynen’s Teddy’s West Coasters. The latter octet includes many of the city’s most notable musicians, among them trumpeter Jukka Eskola and saxophonist Jukka Perko, but what’s remarkable is the style: a loving homage to the cool jazz of ‘50s California, creating airy, shifting textures from an ensemble that includes tuba, baritone saxophone, clarinet and flugelhorns playing music largely composed by Mäkynen and arranged by Jussi Lampela. A driving arrangement of Harold Arlen’s “Out of this World” summoned up memories of the John Coltrane recording. It became an apt feature for Eskola’s cascading trumpet lines. A few nights later, Lampela conducted his score to Before the Face of the Sea, a full-length supernatural melodrama from 1926, which is a significant early entry in Finnish cinema history. Lampela gave a moody resonance to the film with a starkly dissonant score for winds and accordion, using some of the same musicians (reed player Ville Vannemaa and tuba player Miika Jämsä) who had worked their way through the sunnier California visions of Teddy’s West Coasters. The score featured trumpeter Verneri Pohjola as soloist, bringing both depth and facility to the role. Pohjola possesses (CONTINUED ON PAGE 55)

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THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | JANUARY 2016 13

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expression is a tricky thing. It also happens to be BGJI‘s speciality. The 19th Annual Dominican Jazz Festival opened with the Big Band Conservatory of Santo Domingo in Santiago the first night and Sosúa the second. The large-group ensemble featured bright, horn-centric dance tunes under the baton of bandleader and composer Javier Vargas, with standout solos from visiting U.S. musicians: trombonist Jason Camelio, guitarist Jim Kelly and saxophonist Jim Odgren, all professors at the Berklee College of Music. Dr. Sócrates García, a Dominican native who teaches at University of Northern Colorado, contributed two numbers: “Homage to Tavito”, a merengue arranged for five saxophones featuring a transcribed solo by saxophone legend Tavito Vásquez, and “From Across the Street”, a composition using AfroDominican rhythms typically played on palos or atabales to enhance the big band sound. Cross-cultural hybrids like these compositions lie at the heart of jazz expression and international jazz festivals are one of the few places where North Americans can hear these fascinating Latin-based musical forms live. (Sosúa artist Adolfo Faringthon, whose designs provided a visual through-line for the festival, also deserves acknowledgment for his vibrant, nature-themed logo and set pieces.) Most of the musicians at the festival cross over readily, however, no matter their country of origin. For instance, in his set on day three, Grammy-winning saxophonist from Puerto Rico David Sánchez moved effortlessly from riffing on congas in one tune to a sinuous modern jazz solo on his horn in the next. On day four, Dominican-born pianist Josean Jacobo, an expert in AfroDominican rhythms, played one of the most straightahead sets of the festival, and bassist John Patitucci, whose playing has wide appeal throughout Latin America, riled up the audience with tunes like his “Messiaen’s Gumbo”, an extended funk jazz piece that most likely raised his profile in the DR a few notches. These borderless musicians—knowingly or unknowingly—are largely responsible for the cross-pollination of musical ideas from one locale to another and festivals like the DR Jazz Fest go a long way to foster a truly international music community. On day five, Cuban powerhouse percussionist and singer Pedrito Martínez closed the festival with a dance set so magnetic both he and the audience were reluctant to let it end. As the dancing continued toward midnight, Martínez’ bassist, New York-based Álvaro Benavides, jokingly asked who would take the band to the airport the next day to catch their flight. A slew of hands shot up and so Martínez, the master rumbero, played another tune and, with a characteristic grin, ushered in Constitution Day, a holiday commemorating the birth of the Dominican Republic as a nation. v

More information, visit drjazzfestival.com

(WE JAZZ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13)

an expressive lyricism and extends it with a host of alternate techniques, finding new voices—human or mechanical, sometimes multiphonic—in the trumpet’s tubing. The next night Pohjola presented his quartet at the Andorra movie theatre, the band surrounded on stage by period furnishings illuminated by table lamps. The recent Bullhorn (Edition) has introduced the band to a wider circle of listeners and its consummately lyrical work moves from reflection to subtle Latin beats and sudden vibrant explosions. Members of the long-standing group appeared elsewhere in the festival: pianist Aki Rissanen later turned in his luminously harmonic approach to explore almost ambient

electronics with a heavily supplemented Yamaha electric grand; the team of Teppo Mäkynen and bassist Antti Lötjönen were almost ubiquitous, working equally effectively in Teddy’s West Coasters and the funk-driven Timo Lassy Band. Tenor saxophonist Jussi Kannaste made a guest appearance with Pohjola’s quartet. It’s an apt pairing, for Kannaste plays with rare degrees of invention, intensity and control and manages to sound like himself whatever the context (the night before, in an event outside the bounds of We Jazz, Pohjola and Kannaste contributed tremendously to an outside big band, Mikko Innanen’s 10+). Later that night, next door in the Dubrovnik Lounge, Kannaste soared with drummer Jaska Lukkarinen’s trio (Lötjönen played bass) in an extended set freely exploring the compositions of Valtteri Pöyhönen. Some festival events inhabited very small spaces. A series at Kahvila Sävy, a tiny coffee house, climaxed with an appearance by tenor saxophonist-flutist Juhani Aaltonen on the eve of his 80th birthday. Aaltonen is clearly deeply inspired by early ‘60s Coltrane, but brought his own lighter sound to extended improvisations propelled by Ulf Krokfors’ driving bass and Reiska Laine’s rolling drums. The veterans found their own levels of freedom and passion, creating music that was magisterial, lyrical and convulsive, sometimes by turn, sometimes all at once. Aaltonen concluded with an unaccompanied “Amazing Grace”, infusing it with the very quality it celebrates. While all of those venues are well within the range of the probable, Matti Nives took it further. Pianist Joonas Haavisto presented five duo performances seated at his grand piano in a one-room apartment that seemed around 250 square feet. While some of the duos matched Haavisto with more swing and bop-oriented musicians, his own work is more distinctly contemporary, aligned with stylists like Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau. His duet with his regular trio-partner Lötjönen was a rare opportunity for the bassist to come to the fore, and the intimacy of the room heightened the close conversation, whether the subject was a Haavisto original or a Monk tune. The performance also made it a tie for most appearances in We Jazz; while Haavisto played five duets in his apartment, Lötjönen played in five different groups, including the opening and closing bands. The most unusual programming, though, was undoubtedly the Invitation Quintet. One musician invited another and so on, the choices then mixed by We Jazz staff so even the musicians wouldn’t know the order of appearance: the site of the collective improvisation was the city’s culture tram, which started out with an audience and a single musician, picking up the rest of the band at successive stops. Was it a musical success? Sometimes—especially when saxophonist Jukka Perko brought an intense focus—and, given the strangeness of the concept, that seems like a significant achievement. True to the environmental emphasis, it drew from the rumble, rattle and screech of the tram’s steel wheels and track as much as it did from the musicians. The festival’s finale was a celebration of the vigor of the Helsinki jazz scene, with a crowd gathered at Tavastia, Helsinki’s biggest rock club, to cheer tenor saxophonist Timo Lassy with his quintet and guests as they worked far into the contemporary possibilities of soul jazz. With solid, riffing support, Lassy poured out fluid, vocalic, subtly accented, rhythmically acute lines, with an immediacy and commitment that suggested Don Wilkerson or Stanley Turrentine had arrived on stage. What’s next for We Jazz? We hope that further integration of Helsinki’s distinctive urban landscape is in the offing. It’s a concept that can only grow and spread. v

For more information, visit wejazz.fi

THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | JANUARY 2016 55

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MONTY ALEXANDER

Venue Frederick P. Rose Hall

Box Office Broadway at 60th, Ground Fl.

CenterCharge 212-721-6500

jazz at lincoln center jazz.org

fred hersch & friends: intimate momentsJAN 15–16 • 7PM & 9:30PMFeaturing pianists Fred Hersch and Sullivan Fortner, clarinetist Anat Cohen, guitarist Julian Lage, and vibraphonist Stefon Harris

jazz in the key of lifeJAN 15–16 • 8PM Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and music director Vincent Gardner play the music of Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, and more

our love is here to stay: the george gershwin songbookJAN 28–30 • 8PMJazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalisand music directors Victor Goines and Chris Crenshaw

charles lloyd & the marvels featuring bill frisellJAN 29–30 • 7PM & 9:30PMNEA Jazz Master saxophonist Charles Lloyd with guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer Eric Harland, pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz, and bassist Reuben Rogers

monty alexander & friends: frank sinatra at 100 with special guest kurt ellingFEB 12–13 • 8PM Pianist Monty Alexander and special guest vocalist Kurt Elling