July 9, 2009 – 12:54 pm
Just been through the jazz festival programme with Christian, one of the organisers of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. Together, we’ve managed to whittle the baffling array of 900 bands across 100 venues down to just 40 concerts over the next few days. Some of them are happening simultaneously, so it remains to be seen exactly how many of them I’ll get to – but from the encyclopedia-sized programme, everything I’ve circled looks amazing.
A lot of big names I’m really impressed by – and a lot of names I’ve never encountered, but who come highly recommended. Quite excited to go and see Daedelus with Jon Hopkins and the Universal Quartet with Yusef Lateef. There’s also a lot of contemporary avant-garde stuff, which I’m really pleased about.
I was worried there’d be a predominance of traditional, Dixieland jazz about, but it turns out there’s only one significant band doing trad – and they’re young guys who also play a lot of avant-garde stuff, so that’ll at least be interesting.
On the agenda today, at different venues across the city:
1430: George Garzone / Rasmus Ehlers Quartet
1600: Kolkhöze Printanium
1600: Mikkel Ploug Group feat. Joachim Badenhorst
1630: Junglebreed
1800: Sinne Eeg Group
1830: Barefoot Records presents EstherOrkester
2000: Snekkestad, Kjaergaard, Strønen
2000: Thirsty Ear – Lotte Anker & Fred Frith
2030: Maria Laurette Friis
2100: Provis, Tranberg & Friis
2100: Tim Exile
2230: Delirium
2230: Emil de Waal & Spejderrobot
2300: Mark Solberg 4 feat. Herb Robertson
…and then the evening ends with all-night weirdness and drinking on a ferry that’s been reconditioned and turned into some sort of floating speakeasy. Apparently.
They’ve given me a pass which will theoretically get me in free to all of the jazz venues around town, sat me down in their VIP chillout space (sofas, coffee tables, guitars, wifi, stereo… festival organisers and jazz journalists from around the world), told me to help myself to the beer fridge (Tuborg is a sponsor – and they like their beer to have ice crystals on it here, which suits me) – and there’s a free lunch shortly.
So my question is this: Who do these people think I am – and what happens when they find out?