# Live review: Ljubljana international jazz festival 2018: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/07/08/live-review-ljubljana-international-jazz-festival-2018-video-photos/
- Published: 2018-07-08T23:23:57+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The Slovenian capital of Ljubljana has rightly become in the last few years one
of the most loved tourist destinations in Europe. Hugged by its namesake river, 
crossing it with a variety of bridges, the city holds great artistic and historical
memories, pleasant and wide green areas, great food and a positive, youthful vibe
due to university students from all over the world. **

Reminding of Vienna in a smaller scale, has a rich cultural and musical life which
includes the Ljubljana International Jazz Festival, one of the oldest in Europe,
that will celebrate next year its 60th edition. But it is not any old festival—the
European Jazz Network, a continent-wide association of presenters, awarded it this
year with the Adventurous programming prize: the unique character of the festival
is to be open for international directors, first the Portuguese Pedro Costa of Clean
Feed fame, and now Edin Zubcevic from the Sarajevo Jazz Festival in Bosnia—also 
part of the ex-Yugoslavia but a very different city.

The festival is held in the Cankarjev Centre, the largest cultural centre of Yugoslavia,
a huge building partially underground which despite some architectural excess—the
marbled entrance halls especially—features a number of great spaces for performance,
with excellent acoustic, top-quality equipment, comfortable sightlines and seating.
And it’s subject to intense usage since it holds more than 2.000 (two thousands)
events in a year with more than 500.000 visitors (roughly twice the population of
the city).

![Картинки по запросу Ljubljana International Jazz Festival 2018](
https://i0.wp.com/s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/media/medium/6/c/d/7166fe350949a262866be833b7195.
jpeg?w=640&ssl=1)

**Day 1:** The program opened Wednesday June 27 with a double bill in the spacious,
elegant Gallus hall. First the Slovenian musician Kristijan Krajnčan (who studied
in Amsterdam) presented his own unique combination of instruments: he plays with
equal facility cello and drums, alternating and sometimes at the same time. Compared
to another other set by him that I saw, this time I found rather excessive the use
of electronic sequencing in every single piece, leading to some monotony. But the
closing evocative number with dancers Žigan Krajnčan and Gašper Kunšek was truly
impressive. What followed, the Chris Potter—Zakir Hussain —Dave Holland trio, must
be one of the world top jazz groups. An apparently effortless continuous flow of
ideas in conversation, transporting the listener beyond virtuosity into the realm
of timelessness. The sweet but sinewy grooves by Holland, the vertiginous variations
by Hussain, the liquid lines by Potter intertwining in a delicate but perfect structure.

The program moved then out in the park, where in the middle of ancient plane trees
the festival set up a stage and refreshing stand, for the concert of the extremely
cool MTF feat. Sub-Lime band, a combination of two existing band into a coherent
unity. Krajnčan was back at the trap set, accompanying rapper Murat, modern flamenco
dancer Urška Centa, and a jazz quintet into a truly successful blending of languages
into a new vibrant expressivity. Fusion in jazz is today’s buzzword, and not a virtue
in itself, but when it is successful brings the music into a new dimension.

![Картинки по запросу Ljubljana International Jazz Festival 2018](
https://i0.wp.com/s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/photos/a_large/7a7d8592104e66320600085c61a136b7.
jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

**Day 2:** Despite misgivings about the weather the second day also opened in the
park, with the set by the ALEŠ Rendla sextet, a drummer-led band joining different
generations of Slovenian jazz. The modern compositions were quite interesting, if
a little diffuse at times, and the musicianship was first class, with brilliant 
solos by keyboardist Rebeka Zajc, saxophonist Primož Fleischman and clarinetist 
Aljaž Rendla. What followed was the December Soul trio, an Italian-Slovenian band
featuring the master percussionist of Slovenian jazz Zlatko Kaučič, a key presence
in many European Free Improvised music bands celebrating the 40th anniversary of
his musical career with piano luminary Stefano Battaglia and Salvatore Maiore on
bass. Maybe best suited to an indoor venue due to the intimate, delicate character
of their music, the trio was nonetheless able to build an intense set with some 
breathtaking passages from lyricism to all-out energy music, and finally won the
hearts of all but the most obdurate yappers in the audience. Due to pressing necessity
of food and rest I wasn’t able to follow the funk-meets-balkan set of saxophonist
Lovro Ravbar with his Get On Board collective that sounded like great fun.

**Day 3:** Friday’s events started with the LORE quartet—a truly European ensemble,
four young musicians from Slovenia, Italy and France living in Amsterdam. Singer
Laura Giavon, alto saxophonist Pia Podgornik, baritonist Giuseppe Doronzo and drummer
Tancrède Kummer presented an original program of carefully crafted compositions,
using texts for songs that defied classification but left ample space for improvisation.
Later in the day the presentation to the Adventurous Programming Prize was followed
by a set of singer Rohey Taalah and her Norwegian band. The volume was so loud that
since damaging what is left of my hearing is not something I look forward to I moved
first away from the stage, and then away from the neighbourhood. Music that is meant
to be listened with earplugs for me negates the purpose, so I will not comment on
the music—the volume prevented me to listen to it. Did I mention that it was loud?

For the two final concerts of the day we moved to yet another venue, the CD Club
on top of the Cankarjev Dom, a very pleasant room with a terrace and a breathtaking
view of the city and the surrounding Alps, for two concerts that were nothing less
than explosive. The spirit of Sun Ra is very much alive in the spectacular Subtropic
Arkestra led by trumpeter Goran Kajfesfrom Sweden but originally Croatian. Goran’s
high profile collaborations include Fire! Orchestra and Angles 9; he quite startled
me opening the first Cd of this band with a cover of Edip Akbayram’s song Yakar 
Inceden, including its famous guitar riff, and then including several Turkish tunes
in the second record, paying tribute to band like Muvaffak Falay’s Sevda. They also
covered a huge variety of pieces, from Weather Report to Soft Machine and Milton
Nascimento in a series of brilliant records, but now moved to a repertory of original
compositions, all performed with the trademark relaxed, spaced-out attitude of the
band, a solid but easy-does-it groove over which solos grow, intertwine and develop.
Think Lanquidity meets European Ethnojazz. A great set.

The Belgian/French trio formed by Manuel Hermia on saxophone, Valentin Ceccaldi 
on cello and Sylvain Darrifourcq on drums was equally impressive on a totally different
vibe—the two concerts in fact set each other off in an example of successful programming.
Ranging from timbral explorations to maniacal bursts of rhythm, the trio gave an
all-out performance masterfully using dynamics and intense internal listening, with
Darrifourcq especially successful in transforming the drum set into a timbral generator
or a clockwork machinery gone amok.

The last day, Saturday, opened in the CD Club in the early afternoon for the classic
presentation by Clean Feed and Pedro Costa, who miraculously brought to Ljubljana
the Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble (L.U.M.E.) from Portugal. This a unique big
band, not for the instrumentation but because the leader and composer Marco Barroso
developed a specific and original style that could be described as big band swing
meets funk. Played at ferocious speed and with impeccable precision the arrangements
created unheard sounds with the resources of a big band; especially impressive were
some waves of electronic-like timbres produced with the classic all-acoustic instrumentation
enlarged by Manuel Luís Cochofel on flute and Paulo Gaspar on clarinet. Often coloured
with humour and fragmenting in passages of free improvisation, the pieces opened
spaces for brilliant solos, including a startling wa-wa trumpet offering by Jéssica
Pina, but what remains in mind is the way that Barroso turned the tables on a well-
established style.

To avoid overload I had to make some choices so I jumped the Rok Zalokar—Port Songs
set to wait in the lovely round room of the Center for the Elifantree concert, which
was a very pleasant experience. Powerful songs, great fun by all members of this
Finnish trio lead by Anni Elif Egecioglu, of obvious Turkish origins, and such a
pleasure to see a young woman assuredly in control of intimidating banks of electronics,
pedals, synth and all while singing with such expression. By contrast the Saturday
night concert by Dhafer Youssef was, quite frankly, embarrassing. Coupling oud and
piano is in my opinion never a good idea, since the Arab instrument, progenitor 
to the European lute of the Renaissance, is forced to assume a guitar-like sound
or to clash with the piano intonation. But there were deepest issues in a performance
where the rest of the quartet were mostly left inactive on stage until they were
called to act as props for the hystrionics of the leader. Never even trying to build
a group sound, the show was totally self-centered and ultimately lacking any sense
of an integrated musical experience, despite the very high quality of the sidemen
including Azeri pianist Isfar Sarabski. A very early start the following morning
forced me to leave before the end, but I was not unhappy to oblige, so my festival
experience closed on a sour note, and could not listen to the following concerts
by Bowrain, Shake Stew and Vasko Atanasovski’s Melem featuring Bojan Zulfikarpasic
that were extremely well received both by audience and by the many international
professional guests who met at the festival.

The reader may or not have realized that in all the festival I have not listened
to a single recognizable “jazz” tune from the “standard” repertory. All original
compositions, or left-field pieces from odd corners. No tributes, not even recognizable
quotations (from jazz at least—here and there classical or folk influences were 
floating by). It’s a good sign for the vitality of the art form, and it does not
matter if not all the tunes were masterpieces. The questions become—will at least
some of this music solidify into a shared repertory? Do “jazz” still need it or 
can players meet in different ways? It’s I think an interesting point that shows
how good the Ljubljana festival was—a path of discovery that stimulated listening
and thinking. I cannot think of an higher compliment to a festival program.

![Ljubljana International Jazz Festival 2018](https://i0.wp.com/s3.amazonaws.com/
allaboutjazz/photos/a_large/d1aa98b8c374324790cd0d44112d7192.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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