Parque de Santa Catarina is once again home to the Funchal Jazz Festival with six suggestions that complete each other and make for a varied festival.
Six concerts, three days’ worth of music on stage and a set of side events. A proven formula, this year it will serve once more as the masterplan for the Funchal Jazz Festival, to be held between the 14th and 16th of July at Parque de Santa Catarina.
‘Innovating isn’t the organizers’ biggest concern right now’, said artistic director Paulo Barbosa in interview with Essential. This, however, is not to mean that everything will be the same. He explains: ‘When it comes to innovation, our goals have more to do with bringing innovating musicians from the world of jazz’.
‘Jazz’ is the keyword in the program of festival which in previous years has tried to be more inclusive by having musicians from other genres. Since 2014, Choose Fantasy, the organizer, has committed itself to producing ‘a festival fully geared towards jazz, taking full advantage of the fact that, in our opinion, this is still the broadest and most comprehensive musical genre’.
Each year, organizers invest in a ‘balanced offer, strong as whole’ in which every concert ‘is worth it’. The idea is for the festival to be ‘illustrative of the best of what is done in jazz music, mainly in the US, but in Portugal as well’.
Paulo Barbosa expands on the quality of the invited musicians. And while it is true that he resists ‘highlighting a single artist’ he cannot help but refer to Gregory Porter, schedule to take to the stage on Saturday, the 16th of July. He is ‘singer whose popularity has gone above and beyond the boundaries of jazz’.
The evening of Saturday will start with Sextexto de Jazz de Lisboa, with Tomás Pimentel (trumpet), Edgar Caramelo (sax tenor), Mário Laginha (piano), Francisco Brito (bass) and Mário Barreiros (drums).
On Thursday, July the 14th, the festival opens to the sound of the classic trio of pianist Hersch, a ‘master and great influence on other great pianists of our time, Bard Mehldau and Jason Moran, for instance’.
Then it will be drummer António Sánchez’s turn to show why, in Paulo Barbosa’s words, he ‘has attracted attention all around the world.’ After all, he is the author of the soundtrack for the ‘Birdman’ film, ‘which, among many other awards, has just earned him another Grammy®’.
Our artistic director highlights yet another concert, on the 15th of July, with Rudresh Mahanthappa who, ‘last year alone, earned the titles of best Alto saxophonist and best group according to the critics of JazzTimes as well as those of best Alto saxophonist, jazz album of the year and “Rising Star Composer” according to Downbeat’s critics, just a few awards that join two tens of other awards conquered over the last decade’. To Funchal he brings ‘Bird Calls’, a tribute to saxophonist Carlie Parker, the father of jazz.
In sharp contrast to this concert is the Maria João and Mário Laginha duos’ one. They will perform together with a quintet as well as accordionist João Frade to open the evening.
While the organizer confess that it was not their explicit intention to do so, they hope that ‘having a voice in each of the festival’s evenings’ will be a plus factor and work to draw in more people.
The festival will also have the Jam Sessions at Scat, with the Ricardo Toscano Quartet, ‘a group dedicated essentially to pieces of music that identify the second of half of the 1950s decade and the first half of the 1960s, most of which authored by John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Ornette Coleman’. Scat will also serve as stage for the festival’s presentation on the 9th of July with the Wilson Correia Trio and the Madeira Jazz Collective’.
Between the 11th and the 15th of July, every afternoon, Avenida Arriaga will act as stage for 6 combo performances by the jazz orchestra of Conservatório Escloa das Artes da Madeira.
Curious about Funchal Jazz Festival? Know how to go with Essential here.
