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Jazz
Divas - The Isle of Wight Jazz Festival
The Isle of Wight is situated on the south coast of England, for many
years it has been a holiday resort for Londoners. The island is renowned
for its beauty. There are well-marked walking routes right around
the coast, sometimes along the beach and at other points along the
limestone cliffs. However, nice scenery no longer fills the hotels
and the town of Ventnor on the south coast of the island, has started
to attract jazz tourists by organizing a jazz festival. This year’s
festival, held on April 7th - 9th, was "officially" the
third Isle of Wight - Jazz Divas festival. "Officially",
since the first festival was extremely small scale and in 2005 and
the audience was mainly local islanders. The 2006 festival was the
breakthrough year - not only were all the events sold out, but the
festival also attracted many visitors from the mainland and even further
afield.
The success cannot have been a surprise, when you can hear the very
best British jazz musicians in one weekend, people will come from
far and wide. Friday’s main attraction was one of the “grand old men”
of British jazz - Stan Tracey with a star-studded band playing Ellingtonia,
mostly lesser heard works, such as the Far East Suite. The headline
act on Saturday was Claire Martin, a true jazz diva. One of the themes
of the festival is to highlight jazz played by women so the festival
provides a stage for female musicians, such as the pianists Andrea
Vicari and Taeko Kunishima, saxophonist Anna Brook, and the (predominantly)
female Vortex Foundation Big Band.
Most of the evening events were held in the Winter Gardens, a stylish
building right on the front with spectacular views of the sunsets.
However during the afternoon, the entire town is saturated with jazz
- every caf?, every pub, every restaurant, even the parking lots have
bands playing in them - the Osku Rajala approach to organizing a jazz
festival! One afternoon event does stand out - the performance of
Acoustic Triangle in St. Catherine’s Church. Acoustic Triangle (Malcolm
Crease - bass; Tim Garland - Saxophones, Gwilym Simcock - piano) create
a blend of music suitable for sacred sites - a mixture of jazz, folk
music and classical, played without amplification. Their CD has been
nominated as “Recording of the Year” and can be obtained from their
web site -also nominated as the best jazz-related web site! (http://www.audio-b.com/acoustictriangle/)
The final performers on Sunday evening were the Humphrey Lyttelton
Band - again a sell-out in the Winters Gardens. Humphrey Lyttelton
- “Humph” has progressed from Grand Old Man to the status of Living
Legend. He is undoubtedly the best known jazz musician in Britain;
he has led his own band for almost 60 years; compered “The Best of
Jazz” radio programme for 40 years but the great British public probably
know him as the chairman of the long-running (over 30 years) radio
show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue” - the forerunner of all “unscripted”
comedy programmes such as Uutisvuoto. Thus it is not surprising that
not only did Humph’s band play some of the swingingest music to be
heard during the festival, but the dry humour between songs had the
audience rolling in the aisles - who says jazz needs to be serious?
Ventnor in the spring is a very pretty place. While we were there
admiring the daffodils and cherry blossoms, Finland was enjoying sleet,
slush and fog. The dates for the 2007 festival have been fixed - April
13th - 15th - the weekend after Easter. Ventnor is not far away -
the catamaran crossing to the island from Portsmouth only takes 15
minutes. We had breakfast in Helsinki, had a leisurely lunch in London
and still were in Ventnor in time for five o’clock tea. Details of
the 2007 Isle of Wight - Jazz Divas festival can be obtained from
their web site. (http://www.jazzdivas.freeuk.com/) |
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