this is the poster of 2022 – Observer
You have free access to all the articles of the Observer for being our subscriber.
This summer, jazz will be back in force at Gulbenkian, in Lisbon. After two years conditioned by the pandemic, and in 2020 it was even replaced by a parallel event called Jazz2020, the Jazz in August festival will return between July 30th and August 7th for an edition closer to the usual pre-pandemic format.
From now on, in what will be the 38th edition of the festival,in some of the required requirements that marked the two years, such as the distance between, the use of standards of presentation of strict or rigorous standards. But the poster, which has just been published, also suggests a return to an old normality, with a bet on highly relevant international names in the genre that join national groups.
Presented as “an extended portrait, what Chicago, Lisbon and New York today sound like” — with “a short stopover in London” —, the program is dedicated to “the places where jazz lives with a more intense and creative pulse”. And it includes 13 jazz and improvised jazz music concerts divided into two: the night rooms (there are nine) take place in the Open Air Amphitheater — Grand Auditorium and the afternoon ones (there are four) in Auditorium 2.
The opening is made to the sound of the irreversible tangles, one of the most daring and imaginative groups in the current world jazz scene. Graduated in 2015, they started to stand out in 2017 with an eponymous edition in the police one, he already qualified some of the characteristics that set them apart: a sonically free jazz, without ties and that aimed for “liberation”, with socially interventional lyrics (about racism, social problems and other historical ones) to match.
Since their record debut, the group has released who sent you (2020) and open the gates (2021), critically praised editions. They are now returning to Portugal, after three concerts in 2019 in Coimbra, Lisbon and Braga, starting a festival that programs several other artists linked to this group’s label, International Anthem, from Chicago.
Against oppression, racism and police violence: the jazz of the Irreversible Entanglements
Two more concerts will follow in the festival’s schedule on 31 July. the first joins Mother Mouraword activist of the Irreversible Entanglements who has also made a career in experimental electronic music, to the flutist, poet and jazz composer Nicole Mitchellthat in his career he has had very diverse musical projects but that in some records, such as Liberation Narratives2017, showed points of confluence with the work of Moor Mother.
The duo had already performed together in 2018 at the Le Guess Who? festival in the Netherlands, and Nicole Mitchell recently — in 2019 — at the Jazz in August festival, with another lineup.
Nicole Mitchell: “When I was 8 or 9 years old I was told: ‘Get away from my house, black girl’. They came to the cusp of me”
The concert by Moor Mother and Nicole Mitchell as a duo precedes, on that day, a performance by the Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra. In this “orchestra of exploding stars”, led by Chicago musician Rob Mazurek, renovator of the jazz and experimental underground of the 1990s, there are several outstanding musicians of current improvised American jazz, such as Damon Locks (texts, voice, electronics), Nicole Mitchell (flutes), Tameka Reid (cello) and Jaimie Branch (trumpet), among others.
The following day, August 1, a Monday, Auditorium 2 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation hosts a concert by the Chicago trumpeter’s new project. Jaimie branch (who in 2017 edited the album fly or diewho projected her into the free-jazz scene) with drummer Jason Nazaryin which they deepen the exploration of the electronic potential of composition and interpretation.
On this night of August 1st, musician Damon Locks performs with the formation Damon Locks Black Monument Set, which includes elements such as clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid. With this group, Damon Locks released in 2019 the album Where the future unfolds and more recently, in 2021, the album NOW.
On the following days of the festival, concerts by the guitarist Tashi Dorji and the group turquoise dream (quartet that includes Portuguese violinist Carlos “Zíngaro” and Swedish cellist, with a career in the USA, Helena Espvall) on August 2 and, on the following day, the Portuguese group Voltaic Trio and a London-based free-jazz quartet composed of musicians Pat Thomas, Joel Grip, Antonin Gerbal and Seymour Wright, dedicated to revisiting and reinterpreting the music of the New York bassist Ahmed Abdul Malik.
On the 4th of August, a Wednesday, the Gulbenkian Open Air Amphitheater will host two more concerts. The American guitarist takes the stage Ava Mendoza the national formation Communion of João Lancastre. This October I will read a drummer and composer João, who edited (less than a year ago) the disco unlimited dreamsPortuguese musicians with an ongoing career in jazz play, such as bassist Nelson Cascais, bassist João Hasselberg, guitarist Pedro Branco and saxophonist Ricardo Toscano, among others.
On the following night, Friday, August 5th, the two night concerts will be performed by the Portuguese duo Pedro Carneiro (marimba) and Rodrigo Pinheiro (piano) it’s from Seven-Story Mountain by Nate Wooley VItrumpeter Nate Wooley’s project is closer to liturgical music than to the jazz universe with which he is most associated.
Four more concerts are reserved for the weekend, the last of the festival. On Saturday, August 6th, Jazz em Agosto starts at 6:30 pm with a concert in auditorium 2 of the duo Chris Corsano and Bill Orcutt. The drummer and guitarist proposed following the north of one of the most critically praised American jazz albums of 2021: made of sound. That same night there is still a concert of the improvised music formation Border Triowhich includes bassist Stephan Crump, pianist Kris David and drummer Eric McPherson.
Closing the festival, on Sunday, there is an afternoon concert by the duo by Sara Schoenbeck (bassoon) and Matt Mitchell (bassoon) and an evening concert to close the lineup. John Zorn New Quartet Masadain which New York’s avant-garde and improvised jazz reference, saxophonist John Zorn, will perform live with a luxury cast: drummer Kenny Wollesen, double bassist Jorge Roeder and electric guitar prodigy Julian Lage.