New York's World Saxophone Quartet, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, vocalists Dianne Reeves, Angelique Kidjo, Liza Celeste - daughter of Nina Simone, and a Polish big band led by an American, Maria Schneider, are just some of the stars of this year's Warsaw Summer Jazz Days festival.
The 18th festival will last from 30 June to 8 July 2009. Most of the performances are gala concerts and will be held at Warsaw's Kongresowa Hall. Austrian and Slovak Day concerts will be played at the festival club Powiększenie, which is also the venue for jam sessions planned throughout the festival. The organizer is Mariusz Adamiak's Concert Agency.
Wadada Leo Smith
The festival kicks off with an evening of African American music. The audience gathered in the Kongresowa Hall will hear the World Saxophone Quartet, followed by the Art Ensemble of Chicago with its two founding members: saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye. This concert will conclude with one of the most interesting bands in world jazz today - the Golden Quartet of the great trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, an innovator of American jazz. The group will play with original Indian-American pianist Vijay Iyer.
The second gala concert, on 2 July 2009, pays homage to the late great singer Nina Simone. It will feature great female vocalists representing a diversity of styles and traditions: Dianne Reeves and jazz, Angelique Kidjo and world music, Liz Wright and soul blues music, and Lisa Celeste Stroud - Nina Simone's daughter. They will all sing together in the concert's finale.
On 3 July, avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn will play with saxophonist Anthony Braxton and bass player Bill Laswell. The festival's organizers promise another spectacular project involving Zorn, a performance by guitarist Marc Ribot's group The Dreamers and the Electric Masada band. The Dreamers will play with Zorn and with the top performer of electronic and laptop-computer projects - Ikue Mori.
Maria Schneider
The festival's final day (8 July) at the Kongresowa Hall will be one huge Polish-U.S. jazz gala. This performance features the Tymański Brass Ensemble with special guest Dave Douglas as well as U.S. bandleader Maria Schneider with Krzysztof Herdzin's orchestra.
In the finale, the now famous Jazz Suite Tykocin project will be presented by Włodek Pawlik and American trumpeter Randy Brecker. They will be accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra of the Opera and Philharmonic in Białystok.
The Warsaw Summer Jazz Days will include an Austrian Day (30 June) and a Slovak Day (7 July). In addition, the Powiększenie club will play host to the Tomek Mucha Trio (4 July) and the Maciej Obara Trio (6 July). Królikarnia will be the venue for "artists with extreme musical fascinations", or the bands Pasimito and Me, Myself & I (5 July).
PROGRAMME
June 30, 2009, club Powiększenie
- Austrian Day: radio.string.quartet.vienna & Klaus Paier "Radiothree"
July 1, 2009, 7.00 pm, Kongresowa Hall
- World Saxophone Quartet
Art Ensemble Of Chicago
Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet
July 2, 2009, 8.00 pm, Kongresowa Hall
- Sing The Truth - The Music Of Nina Simone
Angelique Kidjo, Dianna Reeves, Lizz Wright, Liza Celeste Stroud
July 3, 2009, 7.00 pm, Kongresowa Hall
- ZORN FEST
Zorn Quartet: Braxton, Graves, Laswell, Zorn
The Dreamers
Electric Masada
July 5 - July 7, 2009, club Powiększenie
July 8, 2009, Kongresowa Hall
- Tymański Brass Ensemble & special guest Dave Douglas
Maria Schneider with Krzysztof Herdzin Orchestra
Jazz Suite Tykocin Włodek Pawlik & Randy Brecker, Symphony Orchestra of the Opera and Philharmonic in Białystok