Within a programme that celebrates the sheer breadth of jazz today, the Festival reflects on moments that reflect jazz milestones amidst a wider sense of history, and especially the seismic events of 1918.
Australian Art Orchestra | Sunday 18 November | LONDON Purcell Room
The end of the Great War left multiple legacies that extend throughout the world. In 'Sometimes Home Can Grow Stranger than Space', the Australian Art Orchestra reflect on the aftermath of war - on the stories of those who returned to Australia, irreparably damaged, and who tried to pick up ‘normal’ lives after the war. These stories are much longer than the stories of the war itself and involve whole communities affected in profound ways by the echoes of violence rent by steel on the battlefields of Gallipoli, the Somme, Passchendaele - intimate accounts of lives remembered in fine grain detail away from the thrust of battle.
The World Gone Mad 1899-1919 | Saturday 24 November | LONDON Cadogan Hall
Jazz as we know it emerged at least a century ago, though when and how is a fascinating story. How it hit the UK is the theme of this Jazz Repertory Company’s show – 'The World Gone Mad 1899-1919; Jazz, Ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and the Blues', with a pre-concert talk from Catherine Tackley.
James Reese Europe Marches | Sunday 18 November | LONDON Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer FREE
The impact of James Reese Europe and the Harlem Hellfighters – the hard-swinging African-American military band that took wartime France by storm in 1918 and - is re-visited by an ensemble of young players from London, playing Europe’s original repertoire arranged by Andy Grappy
Māris Briežkalns Quintet: Rothko in Jazz | Friday 23 November | LONDON Kings Place Hall Two
Briežkalns Quintet & Kristine Praulina | Saturday 24 November | LONDON Pheasantry
Europe also saw the emergence of new states around the Baltic and the east - Latvia celebrates its centenary as a nation with Māris Briežkalns’ evocative jazz take on the paintings of Mark Rothko at Kings Place, and with the country’s leading jazz singer Kristine Praulina at the Pheasantry.
Alice Zawadzki, Peter Wiegold and Martin Butler: The Edge of the Abyss | Friday 16 November | LONDON Royal Academy of Arts
Also reacting to the dialogue between music and visual art, the radical culture of early 20th. century Vienna is explored in 'The Edge of the Abyss', with Alice Zawadski and Club Inegales, as a counterpart to their seminal exhibition of the drawings of Klimt and Schiele.
Sheila Jordan with Cameron Brown | Sunday 18 November & Monday 19 November | LONDON Pheasantry
Stan Sulzmann's Neon Orchestra | Thursday 22 November | LONDON Purcell Room
Celebrating significant birthdays, Sheila Jordan celebrates her 90th no less, and still as fresh as when she sang with Charlie Parker back in the heady days of bebop - and on the very day, she performs at the Pheasantry.
And British saxophonist Stan Sulzmann, massively influential as both performer and teacher, reaches 70.
Jazz Voice | Friday 16 November | LONDON Royal Festival Hall
As ever, the Festival’s opening night features Jazz Voice, with its trademark series of anniversaries and birthdays – this year, the founding, 300 years ago, of the quintessential jazz city, New Orleans, takes pride of place alongside songs to mark the 100th birthdays of Leonard Bernstein, Eddie Jefferson – the “inventor” of vocalese, and the pioneering African-American songwriter Irene Higginbotham.
