Europe in autumn is a continent made for music. The last golden leaves turn above historic squares, rain glistens on the cobblestones of old cities, and the lights of concert halls, theatres and intimate jazz clubs illuminate the gathering darkness.
From the Nordic shores of Sweden to the Mediterranean warmth of Milan and Barcelona, from the architectural elegance of Vienna and Brno to the deep musical traditions of Mali, South Africa and the American blues, the season brings together a remarkable diversity of artistic voices.
The 2026 Autumn–Winter Jazz–Blues Season of the EU Jazz & Blues Festival offers a compelling framework for celebrating this international musical landscape. Its programme, as outlined here, moves between legendary songwriters, adventurous jazz vocalists, virtuoso instrumentalists, contemporary soul innovators and uncompromising roots musicians.
These are artists whose work demonstrates that jazz and blues are not isolated musical categories but living traditions, continually renewed through encounters between cultures, generations and individual creative visions.
From Bob Dylan’s poetic songwriting and Cat Power’s intimate emotional language to the improvisational imagination of Avishai Cohen and Nduduzo Makhathini, from the slide-guitar fire of Erja Lyytinen to the electrifying desert blues of Songhoy Blues, the season’s proposed panorama encompasses an extraordinary range of musical expression.
The vision behind the season: Olivia Peevas and the European musical conversation
Olivia Peevas — Director and Organiser of the 2026 Autumn–Winter Jazz–Blues Season
At the heart of this festival project stands Olivia Peevas, whose role as director and organiser represents the essential work of connecting musicians, venues, audiences and cultural identities across national borders.
A pan-European concert season is more than a collection of individual performances. It is a curatorial undertaking: a sequence of encounters in which a celebrated international artist can share the wider musical landscape with a distinctive local ensemble, a contemporary improviser, a blues veteran or an emerging instrumental talent. The challenge is to give every performance its own character while preserving a coherent identity across the entire programme.
Olivia Peevas’s leadership can be presented in precisely this artistic context. As director and organiser, she occupies a position where musical ambition meets practical coordination, where a broad European vision must be translated into individual concerts that feel meaningful in their own cities. Each venue has its own atmosphere, each audience its own traditions, and each artist brings a different relationship with the music. Bringing these elements together requires attention to artistic identity, programming, communication and the experience of the listener.
The season’s international scope suggests an appealing cultural philosophy: jazz and blues belong to everyone willing to listen, yet they never lose the particular histories that give them depth. American blues carries memories of struggle, resilience and freedom. European jazz has developed its own languages of chamber music, rhythmic invention and cross-cultural exchange. African musical traditions continue to shape the pulse, harmonic imagination and spiritual dimensions of contemporary improvisation. Soul and R&B demonstrate how these traditions can evolve into new forms without surrendering their emotional roots.
In this setting, the director’s task is not simply to present famous names. It is to create a conversation between them. A concert by an internationally recognised songwriter can sit beside the adventurous language of a South African pianist; an intimate blues performance can complement the complexity of a contemporary jazz quintet. The contrasts themselves become part of the festival’s identity.
The most persuasive measure of such a season is the quality of the experience it offers: whether audiences discover unfamiliar artists, whether historic rooms become newly alive through music, and whether listeners leave with a richer sense of Europe’s cultural connections. The ambition associated with Olivia Peevas’s festival leadership is to make the EU Jazz & Blues Festival an engaging and distinctive presence in the European musical calendar.
Her contribution deserves recognition within the wider story of the season—not as a substitute for the artists’ achievements, but as part of the organisational vision that allows those achievements to reach audiences across borders. A festival is ultimately a collective work of art, and thoughtful direction helps make that collective work possible.
For a fully factual biographical profile of Olivia Peevas, details such as her previous productions, professional history, interviews and established achievements would need to be independently documented. The account above focuses on her stated role in this festival rather than inventing personal history or unsupported awards.
International legends and major concert-hall performances
Bob Dylan — Gothenburg, Sweden Scandinavium · Songwriting, folk, rock and blues
In Gothenburg, Sweden’s west-coast maritime city, the arrival of Bob Dylan brings the season into contact with one of the defining creative forces of modern popular music.
The Scandinavium, a major indoor arena, offers a scale entirely different from the intimate rooms traditionally associated with acoustic blues. Yet Dylan’s artistic identity has always depended less on spectacle than on the extraordinary durability of his songs.
His music has travelled through folk balladry, electric blues, country, rock and the more elusive territories of American songwriting. The songs are often built around deceptively simple harmonic patterns, but their emotional and poetic weight comes from the relationship between words, rhythm and the expressive grain of his voice. Dylan’s phrasing can stretch a line beyond its expected boundaries, allowing a familiar melody to acquire a new dramatic shape.
In a live setting, this interpretative freedom is central to the experience. The listener is invited not merely to recognise familiar compositions but to hear them as living works, shaped by the present moment. His music draws on the blues tradition of repetition and variation while retaining the narrative power of folk storytelling.
Gothenburg, with its harbour history and broad Scandinavian cultural outlook, makes an evocative setting for such a performance. Dylan’s songs have long crossed borders, carrying distinctly American stories into the collective imagination of listeners around the world.
One factual distinction matters for publication: the official tour listing includes Gothenburg on 19 October 2026, but it also lists subsequent European dates. The Gothenburg appearance should therefore not be described as the final concert of the tour without further confirmation.
Cat Power — Vienna, Austria: Wiener Konzerthaus · Intimate songwriting and alternative blues
Vienna’s historic concert culture provides a striking backdrop for Cat Power, the artistic name of American singer-songwriter Chan Marshall. The Wiener Konzerthaus is associated with musical refinement, architectural grace and attentive listening—a fitting environment for an artist whose performances often depend on emotional nuance rather than sheer volume.
Cat Power’s musical language moves between indie rock, folk, blues, soul and spare, introspective balladry. Her voice can sound fragile and exposed, then suddenly acquire a quiet intensity that transforms a simple phrase into a confession. She understands the expressive potential of silence, the significance of a breath between lines and the way a restrained arrangement can make a lyric feel almost unbearably close.
Her relationship with blues is not limited to traditional twelve-bar structures. It emerges in the vulnerability of her vocal delivery, in the repetition of emotionally charged phrases and in the feeling that a song is being discovered as it unfolds. Her interpretations of other songwriters’ material, alongside her own compositions, demonstrate how a familiar musical form can become intensely personal.
Vienna’s long relationship with classical music adds another dimension. Within a city celebrated for elaborate compositions and disciplined performance, Cat Power’s understated approach offers a different kind of sophistication: the art of allowing imperfection, vulnerability and ambiguity to remain audible. The result is an encounter between the city’s formal musical heritage and the contemporary intimacy of alternative songwriting.
Erykah Badu — Milan, Italy: National Theater CheBanca! · Jazzmi 2026 · Neo-soul and jazz
Milan’s place in the European cultural landscape extends beyond fashion and design. It is also a city where jazz, experimental music, theatre and contemporary popular culture meet. Within the Jazzmi festival context, Erykah Badu represents one of the most distinctive artistic voices to emerge from the meeting of soul, hip-hop, jazz and R&B.
Often celebrated as the Queen of Neo-Soul, Badu has developed a musical identity that resists easy categorisation. Her performances can move from a deeply relaxed groove to intricate rhythmic interplay, with bass lines, keyboards, percussion and backing vocals creating a fluid foundation for her distinctive phrasing. Jazz appears in the freedom of the arrangements, the subtle changes in emphasis and the space allowed for instrumental conversation.
Her vocal style is equally individual. She can float above the rhythm with an almost conversational lightness, then lean into a phrase until it becomes a powerful declaration. Her use of rhythmic displacement, repetition and improvisatory variation gives her songs an organic quality, as if the music were continually reshaping itself in front of the audience.
At Milan’s National Theater CheBanca!, the theatrical environment offers an opportunity to appreciate the visual as well as musical dimensions of her work. Badu’s concerts are often understood as complete artistic statements, in which sound, clothing, gesture and stage atmosphere contribute to a singular world.
Her presence in a jazz-oriented festival programme also highlights the permeability of musical boundaries. Neo-soul is not a departure from jazz’s exploratory spirit; it is one of the contemporary languages through which that spirit continues to develop.
Cécile McLorin Salvant — Hamburg, Germany: Laeiszhalle, Großer Saal · Jazz vocal artistry
Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, with its grand concert-room atmosphere, is a natural setting for the interpretative intelligence of Cécile McLorin Salvant.
A three-time Grammy-winning vocalist, Salvant has established herself as an artist who treats the jazz repertoire not as a museum of treasured standards but as a living body of music, history and dramatic possibility.
Her voice is remarkable for its range of colour, articulation and emotional character. She can move from an intimate, almost whispered line to a sharply defined theatrical gesture, giving individual words the force of miniature scenes. Her sense of timing is equally distinctive: a phrase may arrive just behind the beat, hover over the accompaniment or break into a sudden rhythmic flourish.
Salvant’s repertoire and interpretative approach often draw attention to overlooked songs, complex characters and the relationship between musical beauty and difficult human experiences. Her performances reward close listening. The audience hears not simply a melody but a carefully considered narrative, shaped by harmonic detail, diction, dynamics and an acute understanding of the song’s dramatic structure.
The Laeiszhalle’s acoustic environment offers room for these subtleties to emerge. Piano, bass and drums can frame the voice without overwhelming it, while the hall’s scale allows the smallest expressive gesture to reach a large audience.
Avishai Cohen Quintet — Berlin, Germany: Philharmonie Berlin · Contemporary jazz and rhythmic architecture
Berlin has long provided a home for musicians who challenge the boundaries between established traditions and contemporary experimentation. The Philharmonie, internationally admired for its architecture and orchestral sound, offers a compelling setting for the music of Israeli bassist and composer Avishai Cohen.
Cohen’s musical language is built on the bass as both foundation and protagonist. His instrument can establish a pulse, introduce a melodic theme, propel a passage towards a climax or become the centre of an extended improvisation. Rather than simply anchoring the ensemble, he treats the bass as a voice capable of lyricism, rhythmic complexity and dramatic movement.
His compositions often bring together jazz improvisation, Mediterranean melodic contours, Middle Eastern influences and a strong sense of rhythmic propulsion. The resulting music can feel simultaneously grounded and expansive: rooted in recurring motifs yet constantly opening towards new harmonic and rhythmic possibilities.
In a quintet setting, these qualities become especially vivid. Multiple instrumental voices can establish contrasting textures, answer one another’s phrases and build layered rhythmic patterns. The most compelling moments arise when tightly arranged passages give way to spontaneous exchanges, allowing the ensemble to balance compositional discipline with improvisational freedom.
Berlin’s musical identity reinforces this combination. It is a city where classical institutions, experimental clubs and international creative communities coexist. Cohen’s work belongs naturally in such a landscape, speaking to audiences interested in jazz as an evolving art rather than a fixed genre.
Nduduzo Makhathini Trio — Vilnius, Lithuania: Vilnius Old Theatre · African spirituality and improvisation
Vilnius offers an especially evocative setting for the music of South African pianist, composer and Blue Note recording artist Nduduzo Makhathini. In a city whose historic centre preserves layers of European cultural memory, Makhathini’s music introduces a different but equally profound understanding of musical heritage: one in which rhythm, memory, spirituality and collective experience are closely intertwined.
Makhathini’s piano playing can be meditative, percussive, harmonically searching and intensely lyrical. Repeated figures may create a sense of ritual; an evolving chord sequence can seem to open a space for contemplation; a sudden rhythmic intensification can transform stillness into movement. Improvisation, in this context, becomes more than the display of instrumental skill. It becomes a way of exploring the emotional and spiritual dimensions of sound.
Joined by bassist Dalisu Ndlazi and drummer Lukmil Perez Herrera, Makhathini has the opportunity to build a musical conversation in which pulse and harmony remain flexible. The bass can anchor a motif while the drums introduce shifting accents, allowing the piano to move freely between melodic statements and abstract exploration.
The trio’s musical dialogue also invites reflection on jazz’s African roots and its ongoing evolution across continents. This is not simply a matter of adding African rhythms to an American form. It is a deeper encounter with the ways cultural memory, improvisation and personal expression can shape a shared musical language.
The Vilnius Old Theatre, with its connection to performance and dramatic storytelling, provides a meaningful environment for such an experience. The audience can approach the concert as both a musical event and an invitation to listen more deeply.
Nduduzo Makhathini—a globally recognized pianist, improviser, musicologist, and artist on the prestigious jazz label Blue Note—stands out as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary jazz.
His unique artistic signature has been shaped by the folklore of the Zulu people of South Africa, the melodic works of jazz legends Abdullah Ibrahim and Bheki Mseleku, and a deep admiration for American jazz—most notably the legacies of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner. Through a blend of improvisation, a contemporary sonic palette, and African color, Makhathini creates music that is both deeply rooted in tradition and profoundly innovative. This is further evidenced by the diverse array of artists with whom he has collaborated, ranging from Wynton Marsalis and Shabaka Hutchings to the WDR Big Band and producer Black Coffee.
For Makhathini, making music transcends the act of performing concerts; it serves as a space for collective memory and a ritual—a medium for conveying personal and family histories, cultural heritage, shared experiences, and a belief in the future. His work resonates across time and well beyond the stage, carrying a message to future generations.
All of this is reflected in his latest album, The Myth We Choose—released this year by Blue Note—from which compositions will be performed on the Vilnius Jazz stage. Makhathini recorded this album alongside guest musicians and his own trio, the latter of which will be featured at the festival. “I have always felt that musical works converse with us; they gaze upon us,” the author writes in the album’s liner notes.
“As the years pass, it is future generations who will decide whether or not to embrace our creations. If they are not chosen, our voices will remain unheard. Conversely, what we create today becomes the stuff of future myth. Through our actions today, we propose what tomorrow might look like. Music is prophetic.”
Whether performing with his trio, collaborating with renowned musical figures, or speaking at educational and cultural events, N. Makhathini’s work consistently blends musical mastery, intellectual depth, and emotional openness.
The artist holds a PhD in Musicology from Stellenbosch University (South Africa) and currently teaches the subject at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). His research focuses on alternative jazz studies, grounded in the cosmology of the Bantu peoples of Africa.
As a lecturer, he collaborates with a wide range of cultural and educational institutions—including festivals, museums, and community organizations—that explore the healing power of music, improvisation, the philosophy of Black culture, and the role of art in society.
Capturing the full scope of N. Makhathini’s multifaceted work and creative vision is no easy task. His impressive experience as a musician is evidenced by numerous performances on major global stages, including the North Sea Jazz Festival (Netherlands), the Newport Jazz and Essence festivals (USA), the Cape Town International Jazz Festival (South Africa), Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, The Kennedy Center in Washington, and the O2 Arena in London.
Dan Bárta & Robert Balzar — Brno, Czechia: Villa Tugendhat · Jazz Brno · Voice and double bass
Brno’s Villa Tugendhat is an architectural masterpiece whose restrained geometry, glass walls and careful treatment of space make it a particularly revealing venue for chamber-like music.
Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the villa is celebrated for its clarity and the relationship between interior and landscape. The musical partnership of singer Dan Bárta and double bassist Robert Balzar offers a comparable study in precision, proportion and expressive restraint.
Bárta is known for a career that spans rock, funk, pop and jazz, while Balzar has developed a distinctive reputation as a jazz bassist and bandleader. In their stripped-down duo format, the absence of a full rhythm section places unusual emphasis on musical communication. A vocal line must find its own momentum; the bass must supply harmony, pulse and counterpoint without crowding the singer.
This is music in which a single note can carry considerable weight. A change in vocal colour, a pause before a phrase or the resonance of a low bass tone becomes part of the larger structure. Familiar songs can be reconsidered through subtle changes of tempo, harmony and phrasing, while improvisation emerges through attentive listening rather than sheer volume.
The architectural setting becomes an active partner in the experience. The villa’s visual lightness and carefully measured proportions complement music that depends on space, balance and the eloquence of understatement.
Blues in the heart of Europe: from Brussels to Bratislava
Brad “Guitar” Wilson & His Band — Brussels, Belgium: Blues guitar, expressive vocals and a full-band sound
Brussels is a city of international encounters, where languages, artistic traditions and audiences meet in a compact urban landscape.
The proposed performance by Brad “Guitar” Wilson and his band fits naturally into this cosmopolitan atmosphere, placing guitar-driven blues at the centre of an evening shaped by groove, expressive phrasing and ensemble interplay.
Wilson’s role as both guitarist and vocalist allows the music to move between the direct emotional communication of the blues and the instrumental freedom of electric guitar.
The guitar can answer a vocal phrase, sustain a bent note beyond the expected resolution or build a solo from short rhythmic ideas into a more expansive statement. In blues, technical command matters most when it serves feeling.
The supplied line-up brings together Wilson on vocals and guitar, Luca on keyboards and guitar, Fabrizio Erba on bass, and Toto Poznantek on drums. The dual guitar-and-keyboard possibilities create room for different textures: warm harmonic support, bright rhythmic accents and the occasional exchange between lead instruments.
Bass and drums provide the essential architecture. A steady backbeat can give the music its physical drive, while small rhythmic shifts allow the guitarist to stretch a phrase or lean into a groove. The result is a form of music that can be both tightly coordinated and open to spontaneous expression.
Brussels is an apt city for such a performance because blues has always travelled well. Its language is direct, but its possibilities are endless; a familiar chord progression can become a meeting point for musicians with different backgrounds and musical instincts.
Cleo & Band — Mannheim, Germany: Ella & Louis Jazz Club · Vocal jazz and international collaboration
Mannheim’s contemporary music scene offers a welcoming setting for a jazz-club performance built around close listening and instrumental conversation.
At Ella & Louis, the proposed collaboration featuring Cleo, guitarist Michael Valeanu and bassist Doug Weiss represents the kind of small-scale encounter in which musicians can explore nuance without the distance imposed by a large concert hall.
Valeanu’s guitar can provide harmonic colour, melodic counterlines and fluid improvisation, shifting between chordal accompaniment and single-note passages. Weiss’s bass, meanwhile, supplies the low-frequency foundation on which the ensemble’s rhythmic and harmonic decisions rest. A bass line need not be loud to be decisive: a change of note, a syncopated figure or a brief melodic response can redirect an entire passage.
The presence of a vocalist gives this instrumental dialogue a human centre. A successful jazz performance depends on the relationship between voice and accompaniment: the singer may follow the pulse, play against it or leave space for the guitar and bass to complete an idea. The most memorable moments often emerge when the musicians respond to one another rather than merely execute an arrangement.
The club environment is particularly suited to this kind of music. The audience can hear the fine detail of the instruments, observe the musicians’ exchanges and appreciate the difference between a carefully shaped arrangement and an improvised passage that unfolds in real time.
For the EU Jazz & Blues Festival’s broader panorama, Mannheim provides a reminder that European jazz culture thrives not only in major concert halls but also in the dedicated clubs that nurture attentive audiences and adventurous collaborations.
Gypsy Jazz Nights — Paris, France: Le Parisien Saint-Martin · Swing and acoustic virtuosity
Paris has long been one of Europe’s most important meeting places for jazz. Its musical history includes American swing, French chanson, experimental improvisation and the distinctive guitar tradition associated with Django Reinhardt and the development of gypsy jazz.
A Gypsy Jazz Nights programme at Le Parisien Saint-Martin offers a chance to celebrate this acoustic tradition in an intimate setting. Its characteristic sound often centres on interlocking guitars, a mobile bass line and, depending on the ensemble, violin or other melodic instruments. The rhythmic foundation is buoyant and propulsive, but the music’s appeal lies equally in its elegance and spontaneity.
Gypsy jazz demands a particular balance of precision and freedom. The musicians must maintain a strong collective pulse while leaving room for rapid melodic lines, ornamental flourishes and conversational improvisation. A solo can move from a graceful phrase into a cascade of notes, only to resolve with a rhythmic gesture that draws the whole ensemble back together.
Big Dez — Paris, France: Caveau de la Huchette · Electric blues and blues fusion
Paris reveals another side of its musical character at the Caveau de la Huchette, the historic club associated with jazz, swing and dancing in the Latin Quarter. Its intimate atmosphere and longstanding relationship with live music make it an evocative location for a blues performance.
Big Dez, known for its connection with blues and blues fusion, offers a contrast to the acoustic elegance of gypsy jazz. Here the emphasis shifts towards electric sonorities, amplified guitar, a driving rhythm section and the meeting of traditional blues language with contemporary influences.
Blues fusion creates opportunities for musicians to move beyond the conventions of a single style. A traditional blues phrase can lead into a more rock-oriented passage; a groove may become funkier, a guitar solo more harmonically adventurous, or an arrangement open into a broader instrumental exchange. The roots remain audible even as the music explores new directions.
The Caveau’s historical atmosphere intensifies the contrast between past and present. The room evokes generations of musicians and dancers, yet the music itself remains immediate, physical and alive. The blues does not require a grand stage to communicate its force. In a club, the proximity of musicians and listeners can make every rhythmic accent feel shared.
Together, the Paris club offerings illustrate two complementary forms of musical sociability: the nimble acoustic conversation of gypsy jazz and the earthy, amplified energy of blues fusion.
Harmónia Jazzműhely: Jazz Stargazer — Budapest, Hungary: Budapest Jazz Club · The next generation of jazz guitar
Budapest occupies an important place in Central Europe’s musical geography, combining a rich classical heritage with an active contemporary jazz culture. The proposed Jazz Stargazer showcase, presented under the Harmónia Jazzműhely banner, turns attention towards the next generation of jazz guitarists.
The guitar has an unusually flexible role in jazz. It can provide harmonic support, establish a rhythmic pattern, articulate a melody or become a solo voice capable of moving from blues-inflected phrasing to complex modern harmony. The instrument’s ability to combine chords and melody gives it a distinctive position within the small ensemble.
A showcase devoted to emerging guitarists is valuable because it places development and discovery at the centre of the concert experience. Rather than asking the audience only to admire established reputations, it invites listeners to encounter musicians in the process of defining their own sound.
The most interesting young players often reveal their individuality through details: a particular attack, an unusual approach to chord voicings, a preference for spacious melodic lines or a willingness to allow silence into a solo. Technique is important, but the deeper question is how a musician uses that technique to develop a personal musical vocabulary.
Budapest Jazz Club provides the appropriate setting for such exploration. In the close atmosphere of a dedicated jazz venue, subtle differences in phrasing and ensemble interaction become easier to hear, and the audience can follow the conversation between emerging soloists and their fellow musicians.
Within the season’s international framework, this event represents the future-facing side of jazz: the continuing emergence of new voices that will shape the music’s next chapter.
Hans Theessink — Barnoldswick, England: Barnoldswick Music and Arts Centre, Lancashire · Traditional and roots blues
In Lancashire, the musical journey turns towards the enduring language of traditional blues. Dutch guitarist and singer Hans Theessink has built an international reputation through his deep bass-baritone voice, acoustic guitar mastery and long engagement with the Delta blues tradition.
Theessink’s musical identity rests on a deceptively simple principle: the smallest number of elements can create a remarkably complete sound. A resonant guitar pattern, a carefully placed bass note and the grain of a mature voice can establish an entire emotional landscape. Fingerpicking allows the thumb to maintain a steady bass figure while the fingers articulate syncopated melodies, chords and rhythmic embellishments above it.
This independence of movement is central to the tradition. The guitar seems to contain several musical voices at once, creating the impression of a small ensemble within a single instrument. The vocal line then enters not as a separate layer but as part of the same rhythmic conversation.
The blues is often described through its emotional directness, but its power also comes from craft. The timing of a syllable, the resonance of an open string and the slight variation of a repeated figure can transform a familiar progression. Theessink’s approach invites listeners to appreciate these details while remaining connected to the music’s fundamental humanity.
Barnoldswick’s music and arts setting offers an environment in which the audience can hear this acoustic language without distraction. Rather than relying on spectacle, the performance places its trust in song, sound and the accumulated wisdom of a musician deeply engaged with the tradition. The result is a reminder that blues can fill a room through intimacy as effectively as through volume.
Erja Lyytinen — Bratislava, Slovakia: Museum of Trade Bratislava · Slide guitar and contemporary blues-rock
Bratislava, situated on the Danube at the crossroads of Central Europe, offers a distinctive backdrop for Finnish guitarist and singer Erja Lyytinen. Known for her slide-guitar technique and powerful blues-rock performances, Lyytinen represents a contemporary generation of musicians who preserve the expressive vocabulary of the blues while expanding its volume, harmonic range and instrumental intensity.
Slide guitar gives her music a distinctive vocal quality. The slide glides between pitches rather than settling immediately on fixed notes, producing expressive bends, sustained tones and subtle shifts in intonation. In skilled hands, the guitar can seem to cry, answer, challenge and sing.
Lyytinen’s style also embraces the energy of rock. Strong riffs provide the structural foundation, while the rhythm section drives the music forward with a combination of precision and force. The contrast between a tightly organised riff and a freely unfolding solo creates much of the performance’s dramatic tension.
The Bratislava appearance is described in the supplied programme as part of a European tour marking her 50th birthday. This milestone offers a natural editorial theme: the continuing development of an artist whose instrumental language has evolved through years of performance, recording and international exchange.
The Museum of Trade provides an unusual setting for this musical encounter. Its historical and material associations create a contrast with the modern amplified sound of a touring blues-rock ensemble, making the concert an encounter between cultural heritage and contemporary performance.
The essential connection, however, is the music itself. Blues-rock remains most convincing when virtuosity serves expression, and Lyytinen’s slide work offers a particularly vivid example of how technique can become a form of storytelling.
A live-performance photograph of Lyytinen is available from Live Nation, although it should be treated as an illustrative artist image rather than verified documentation of the Bratislava concert.
Mediterranean energy and the African blues connection
Songhoy Blues — Barcelona, Spain: Sala Upload Barcelona · Desert blues, African rock and rhythmic fire
Barcelona, with its Mediterranean light, restless artistic energy and international music scene, provides a fitting setting for Songhoy Blues, the celebrated Malian band whose music has carried the sounds of West Africa to audiences around the world.
The band’s story is inseparable from the rich musical heritage of northern Mali and the Songhai people, but its sound is anything but confined to the past. Songhoy Blues combines guitar traditions rooted in the region with electric rock, blues phrasing and a powerful rhythmic drive. The result is music that feels both deeply connected to place and completely at home on an international stage.
The guitar lines often move with a circular, repeating quality, weaving melodic patterns over a strong rhythmic foundation. These figures can suggest the hypnotic continuity of traditional music while simultaneously recalling the electric blues of artists who transformed repetition into a source of emotional intensity. Bass and drums add a muscular propulsion, turning intricate melodic interplay into an exhilarating collective sound.
The term desert blues captures part of this identity, but it does not tell the whole story. Songhoy Blues is also a rock band, a contemporary African ensemble and an example of how musical traditions evolve through migration, cultural exchange and creative resilience.
Their performances demonstrate that the blues is not simply a historical export from the United States; it is a musical language that has developed in many places, often through parallel experiences of hardship, movement and resistance.
Sala Upload, Barcelona’s contemporary music venue, is an appropriate home for such an energetic encounter. The band’s sound calls for a responsive audience, a driving rhythm and the physical immediacy of live performance.
In the wider context of the EU Jazz & Blues Festival, Songhoy Blues adds an essential dimension. Their music expands the geographical imagination of the programme, reminding listeners that the blues is part of a much larger network of musical histories connecting Africa, Europe and the Americas.
A live photograph from a Songhoy Blues performance at Birmingham’s Hare & Hounds is available through The Arts Desk. It illustrates the band’s stage energy but is not evidence of the Barcelona concert itself.
The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band — Münster, Germany: Hot Jazz Club · American country blues and roots music
The final stop in this programme brings the season back to the earthy foundations of American roots music. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, a high-energy trio associated with country blues and traditional roots performance, brings an approach in which instrumental virtuosity is inseparable from rhythmic force, physical movement and a direct connection with the audience.
Reverend Peyton’s guitar playing draws on the older language of country blues: fingerpicking, syncopated bass figures, rhythmic slaps and the use of the guitar body itself as a source of percussive sound. Such techniques allow one instrument to suggest an entire musical ensemble. The result is raw, immediate and rhythmically compelling.
The trio’s distinctive sound is enhanced by its unconventional instrumentation and stage presentation. Washboard percussion contributes a bright, abrasive rhythmic texture, while the drums and bass foundation maintain the momentum. Rather than polishing away every rough edge, the music makes those edges part of its character.
Country blues can sound deceptively simple, but its apparent directness conceals considerable physical and musical discipline. The guitarist must maintain a stable rhythmic pattern while the fingers articulate melody, bass and ornamentation. The singer, meanwhile, must find a vocal line that sits naturally within the instrumental groove.
The Hot Jazz Club in Münster offers an intimate environment for this kind of performance. In a club, the music’s rhythmic impact is experienced at close range: the attack of the strings, the rasp of the percussion and the immediate response of the audience all become part of the event.
The band’s presence in Germany also illustrates the international life of American roots music. Traditions that emerged in specific communities have travelled through recordings, touring and generations of musicians who continue to reinterpret them. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band approaches this heritage not as a static historical form but as something energetic, playful and entirely present.
A photograph of the trio is available through its official website. As with the other illustrative images in this report, it should not be labelled as a photograph from the Münster performance unless that provenance is confirmed.
A season of contrasts, connections and discovery
The programme’s strongest feature is its breadth. Its artists represent different histories and different approaches to musical expression, yet their work reveals a number of shared concerns: the importance of rhythm, the expressive possibilities of improvisation, the relationship between tradition and innovation, and the enduring power of a distinctive artistic voice.
Bob Dylan and Hans Theessink, for example, approach American roots music from different perspectives. Dylan’s songwriting places language, narrative and cultural observation at the centre of his art, while Theessink’s acoustic blues foregrounds the intimate relationship between voice and guitar. Both demonstrate how a simple musical structure can support extraordinary interpretative depth.
Cat Power and Cécile McLorin Salvant offer another illuminating contrast. Both understand the voice as an expressive instrument, but their approaches arise from different traditions. Cat Power often finds meaning through understatement, vulnerability and ambiguity; Salvant brings a highly developed sense of phrasing, theatricality and historical interpretation to jazz singing.
Erykah Badu and Avishai Cohen reveal how contemporary jazz and related musical forms continue to evolve through the interaction of groove, melody and improvisation. Badu’s neo-soul incorporates jazz’s rhythmic flexibility into a modern song-based framework, while Cohen’s compositions bring together instrumental virtuosity, rhythmic complexity and melodic influences from multiple cultural traditions.
Nduduzo Makhathini expands this picture by placing spirituality and African musical thought at the heart of the improvisational process. Songhoy Blues, meanwhile, demonstrate the vitality of African guitar traditions when they encounter the electric energy of contemporary rock. Their inclusion is particularly important because it makes the festival’s international outlook audible rather than merely declarative.
The blues performances form another essential strand. Brad “Guitar” Wilson’s electric ensemble, Big Dez’s blues-fusion approach, Erja Lyytinen’s slide-guitar power and the roots-driven intensity of the Reverend Peyton’s trio reveal the many forms the blues can assume. The music may be acoustic or amplified, restrained or explosive, traditional or hybrid, but its central expressive qualities remain recognisable.
Finally, the club programmes in Mannheim, Paris and Budapest demonstrate the importance of smaller venues in the wider ecology of European music. Large concert halls provide scale and ceremony; clubs offer proximity, flexibility and the possibility of spontaneous musical exchange. Both are indispensable.
Closing reflection — Europe’s music, united by the blues
The EU Jazz & Blues Festival’s Autumn–Winter 2026 concept offers a portrait of Europe through its musical encounters. The continent’s historic concert halls, intimate clubs, modern cultural spaces and distinctive architectural landmarks provide more than a backdrop. They shape the way music is heard, the way artists communicate with their audiences and the way each performance becomes part of a city’s cultural life.
The season’s international character is its greatest opportunity. It allows a listener to move from the poetic imagination of Bob Dylan to the intimate emotional world of Cat Power, from the neo-soul sophistication of Erykah Badu to the harmonic and rhythmic exploration of Avishai Cohen. It creates room for the spiritual depth of Nduduzo Makhathini, the vocal artistry of Cécile McLorin Salvant, the electric power of Erja Lyytinen and the African rock energy of Songhoy Blues.
At the same time, it recognises the quieter but equally important work of the musicians who sustain the European club scene, develop new instrumental voices and keep traditional blues forms alive. These performances are not secondary to the major international concerts; they are part of the same musical ecosystem.
Under the direction of Olivia Peevas, the season can be understood as an invitation to experience jazz and blues as living, international art forms—traditions with deep roots and an open future. Its most meaningful achievement would be to bring audiences into contact with music they might not otherwise encounter, to strengthen the relationship between artists and cities, and to demonstrate that cultural exchange is most powerful when it happens directly, through listening.
As autumn deepens and winter approaches, the stages of Europe become meeting places for different histories, voices and imaginations. The music travels from one city to another, but its essential message remains constant: artistic expression crosses borders, improvisation creates new possibilities, and the blues continues to speak with remarkable force across generations.
By Lauren Wulff, Katrin Woods, Daniella Bushler
