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Jazz and more

An old favorite freshens its appeal with new sounds
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
November 21st, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Spanish singer Minerva Diaz Perez fronts the international lineup of N.O.H.A.
International Jazz Festival Prague

When: Nov. 22–30
Where: Reduta Jazz Club, Rock Café, Congress Center
Tickets: Available through Ticketart, Ticketportal, Ticketstream and at Reduta
For a complete schedule, check
www.jazzfestivalpraha.cz

This year, the 31st edition of the International Jazz Festival Prague is offering a radical break from traditional jazz programming. There will be nine nights of music, often at two venues a night, offering everything from Balkan beats and ska-jazz to Scandinavian blues and electronic dance music, along with jazz across genres by both local and international acts.
Dee Dee Bridgewater is the biggest star, playing Nov. 24 at Congress Center, the same venue she appeared at two years ago, performing mostly French chansons from her album J’ai Deux Amours. About that show, she says, “I was not only happy with the performance, but also with the public’s reaction to the performance.”
Bridgewater first performed here in the early ’90s, “sometime after the end of communism and the start of the new President Havel’s term,” she recalls. “It took place in the main square in Prague, and it was for S.O.S. Racism.”
After living for more than 13 years in Paris, Bridgewater moved back to the United States (part time, anyway) in 1999. But it seems she found her true home only recently, after extensive travels in Africa, originally as an ambassador for the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. “I feel more at home in Mali than in France or the USA, because in Mali I have found people who resemble me,” she says. “For once in my life, I am part of the majority and not a minority.”
On this visit she will be performing songs from Red Earth—a Malian Journey, which was recorded with musicians from Mali. Backing her will be a 10-member group of Malian musicians, including the singer Mamani Keita, Guinean singer Kabiné Kouyaté, Senegalese percussionist Moussa Sissoko and her regular jazz rhythm section, EdsGomez on piano, Ira Coleman on bass and Minino Garay on drums and percussion.
Red Earth is a personal exploration for Bridgewater. It includes both upbeat, traditional Mailian songs and jazz classics like “Afro Blue,” which opens the album. “It is Mongo Santamaria’s ‘Afro Blue,’ to which Oscar Brown, Jr. added lyrics,” she says. “I chose this song because I felt the lyrics described perfectly my feelings about my need to discover my African roots. It was also the title of my first solo album.”
Another top jazz figure plays the following night: saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, an original from the James Brown band. While he’s still a funk crusader, his newest album is described as “smunk,” meaning smooth funk with mellower songs.
N.O.H.A. (Noise of Human Art) should shake things up Nov. 26 with their electronic dance music. Even Philip Noha, the Czech saxophonist for the German-based group, admits they are an oddity on the program. “We do not fit into a classical conservative jazz festival,” he says. “But the International Jazz Festival has changed, I guess.”
Noha says most members of N.O.H.A. have played jazz before, and he played with Laco Deczi in his Jazz Celula ensemble from 1981 to ’86. But even then he was asking himself, “What is real jazz? If you mean 12 bars of an easy melody from Real Book, and then solos beginning with the sax, piano, bass and finally drums, no thank you. We do have a few jazz elements, but the ‘jazz hardliners’ will definitely not enjoy the N.O.H.A. gig.”
The Rotterdam Ska Jazz Foundation and a blues act from Sweden, Sir Jay and the Blues Orchestra, who are both playing Nov. 27 at different venues, could say the same thing.
The Apostolis Anthimos Trio play Nov. 28, and, according to Pat Metheny, Anithimos is the “European Jimi Hendrix.” Born in Poland of Greek parentage, Anithimos led the rock supergroup SBB, so his Polish jazz trio veers from acoustic to a loud fusion of prog-rock and jazz.
In all, this year’s festival has more spice than ever before, a change for the good.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (21/11/2007):

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