Heineken Jazzaldia
The Heineken Jazzaldia (the official name) or San Sebastian Jazz Festival or Festival de Jazz de San Sebastián is a music festival that has been held in San Sebastián every year since 1966 on four days in the third week of July . It is the oldest Spanish jazz festival and one of the oldest still in existence in Europe .
Many well-known jazz musicians performed here such as Ella Fitzgerald , Oscar Peterson , Miles Davis , Dizzy Gillespie , Dexter Gordon , Art Blakey , Stan Getz , Sarah Vaughan , Charles Mingus (1974 and 1977), Ray Charles , McCoy Tyner , Weather Report , Don Cherry , Gerry Mulligan , Ornette Coleman , Keith Jarrett , Chick Corea (whose concert at the Velodrome in 1981 attracted 15,000 people), Wynton Marsalis , Diana Krall , Hank Jones , Herbie Hancock , Pat Metheny , Sonny Rollins and musicians from other fields such as Van Morrison , BB King , Liza Minnelli . In 2013, Hiromi Uehara , Vijay Iyer , Dave Douglas , Pharoah Sanders , China Moses , Youn Sun Nah and John Zorn (with a five-hour Massada marathon in which 32 musicians in twelve formations took part) performed.
The addition Heineken in Jazzaldia comes from the sponsor.
history
The first festival took place on September 10 and 11, 1966, but was postponed to July the following year. It had its origins in a competition for amateur musicians. In its early days, the American blues guitarist Mickey Baker (1925–2012), who lived in France, was the only professional musician to perform here . Pierre “Pedro” Lafont (who died on July 3, 2012) played a key role in this, thanks to his contacts - he came from the Hot Club of Saint-Jean-de-Luz - and his commitment to the festival at an international level in his early days to lift.
The festival initially took place in the Plaza de la Trinidad. When the big stars came in the 1970s, they moved to bigger pitches, the Anoeta football stadium and then the Velódromo. In 1992 they moved to over a dozen different locations in the city (various theaters and museums, the yacht club at the port, the Kursaal auditorium, etc.), again on the Plaza de la Trinidad. There are also free concerts on the beach, which are particularly popular with young people (Playa de la Zurriola, Green Stage ).
Initially, the festival had mainly traditional jazz and mainstream as well as blues in the program (for example Jo Jones , Milt Buckner , Cab Calloway , Arnett Cobb , Illinois Jacquet , John Lee Hooker , Muddy Waters ), but that changed in the 1970s.
Festival Prize
The festival has been awarding the Donostiako Jazzaldia Award (Donostia is the Basque name of the city) for the festival's distinctive musicians since 1994 . Prize winners were:
- 1994: Doc Cheatham
- 1995: Phil Woods
- 1996: Hank Jones
- 1997: Steve Lacy
- 1998: Chick Corea
- 1999: Max Roach and Clark Terry
- 2000: Kenny Barron
- 2001: Ray Brown
- 2002: Elvin Jones
- 2003: Bebo Valdés
- 2004: Shirley Horn and Fernando Trueba
- 2005: Keith Jarrett and Charles Mingus (posthumous)
- 2006: Herbie Hancock
- 2007: Wayne Shorter
- 2008: Ahmad Jamal
- 2009: Roy Haynes
- 2010: Ron Carter
- 2011: Toots Thielemans
- 2012: Jimmy Cobb and Pierre Lafont (posthumous)
- 2013: Lee Konitz
Discographic notes
Some recordings of concerts at the festival were published on sound or image carriers.
- Gary Bartz / Jeanne Lee / Jorge Pardo Music for Ebbe: Live in San Sebastian (El Dilirio 1997)
- Pat Metheny & Brad Mehldau Live at San Sebastian (2007, Bootleg )
- Diana Krall Doing All Right (2008, Bootleg)
- Return to Forever Live in San Sebastian (Jazzdoor, 2008 - video)
- Ron Carter Golden Striker Trio San Sebastian (In & Out, 2012, with Mulgrew Miller & Russell Malone )
literature
- Jesús Torquemada: 40 Años / Urte Jazzaldia Festival de Jazz Donostia-San Sebastián . Donostia-San Sebastián: Donostiako Jazzaldia-Festival de Jazz de San Sebastián, 2004. ISBN 84-609-5730-6
Web links
- Official website (English and Spanish)
- Review of Jazzaldia 2010 , JazzTimes