Four days of jazz in Odessa:
musicians from 11 countries will perform at the Odessa JazzFest

From September 22 to September 25, 2016, Odessa will host the Odessa JazzFest International Jazz Festival for the 16th time. The festival of improvisational music will be held thanks to the support of the City Hall of Odessa and the Odessa Regional State Administration.

Over the years of its existence, the festival has grown into a large-scale cultural event of national and European significance. On the stage of Odessa theaters, traditionally collecting full houses, dozens of eminent musicians from around the world perform. And concerts in open areas of the city give thousands of spectators the opportunity to see Ukrainian and foreign performers for free.

With the assistance of embassies and cultural centers of Europe and the USA, in 2016, 12 groups were invited to the festival, whose participants represent 11 countries: Austria, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Ukraine, France, the USA and Switzerland.

Odessa JazzFest 2016 will begin on September 22 with a large-scale open-air concert in the City Garden. In 2015, the opening concert of the festival gathered more than 3,000 spectators, becoming one of the most spectacular events of the season. This year, Derek Brown (USA), Niccolo Faraci Trio (Italy) and Fusion Corporation (Georgia) will try to surpass this achievement. Odessa jazz groups will also take part in the concert.

American saxophonist-innovator from Chicago, creator of saxophone beatbox technique, popular YouTube blogger and endorser of leading saxophone brands Derek Brown will clearly demonstrate to Odessa audience that the saying “and a warrior alone” works 100% in jazz. And that a recital, during which there is absolutely no time to be bored, can be given not only by a pianist, but also by a performer on a wind instrument.

A wider harmonic palette will amaze connoisseurs of jazz improvisation with a trio of Italian double bass player and bass player Niccolo Farachi. The leader of many jazz-oriented projects relates his own work to world music. And, as if justifying this genre definition, he is trying to maximize his own concert geography, regularly performing in countries such as Jordan, Moldova, China, Malaysia and many others.

The Fusion Corporation quartet is still less known outside of its native Georgia, where it managed to perform at festivals such as the Black Sea Jazz in Batumi and the Tbilisi Jazz Festival. Musicians from the town of Rustavi promise to surprise the audience with both a new program specially prepared for Odessa JazzFest and the solo of their young drummer Giorgi Kapanadze, a 15-year-old child prodigy who has already managed to play with such stars as Marcus Miller and DJ Logic.

On September 23, the Poltava big band led by E. Golovashich will represent Ukraine in the Gorsad. This jazz orchestra successfully performed at the festival in 2015 and was well remembered by Odessa music lovers.

In 2016, the festival will be held for the first time without Yuri Anatolyevich Kuznetsov, his permanent president and founder, a virtuoso jazz improvising pianist, composer and teacher. The musician, whose name is strongly associated with the very concept of "Odessa jazz", passed away on the night of May 2.

The second festival day will be a day of dedication to Yuri Kuznetsov. On the stage of the Odessa Regional Philharmonic on September 23, his special program will be presented by his student - Odessa vocalist, composer and arranger Tamara Lukasheva living in Germany. Together with a symphony orchestra conducted by Igor Shavruk, she will present the program “Cinema Music of Yuri Kuznetsov”, consisting of authorial arrangements of melodies written by the founder of Odessa JazzFest. This dedication project to a colleague and teacher is without a doubt the most anticipated premiere of the festival.

On the same day, the first music award named after Yuri Kuznetsov and the presentation of its laureates will be held.

Concerts of the third and fourth festival days - September 24 and 25 - will also be held in the Odessa Regional Philharmonic. In two days, eight groups will perform here, in which musicians from 10 countries are involved.

The festival’s guests will enjoy a unique duet in the history of jazz, the duo of the world-famous horn-improviser Arkady Schilkloper (Germany) and the virtuoso jazz tubist John Sass (USA). For several years now, the Mini Brass Band (which is exactly what the musicians called their project) has been striking the audience of the whole world with an incredible tonal palette, excellent performing technique and a variety of repertoire.

The most famous jazz musician from Odessa Vadim Neselovsky (USA-Ukraine) will present his music program. A talented pianist and composer quickly entered the world jazz elite, performing with such stars as Gary Burton, Arkady Shilkloper and many others. Neselovsky’s arsenal has a huge stock of compositional techniques, mastery of any modern style, knowledge of music from baroque to the latest jazz trends. Particularly significant for the festival his performance is made by the fact that Vadim is a student of the founder and president of Odessa JazzFest, Yuri Kuznetsov.

The audience will get a boost of good mood from the international music project Holler My Dear (Austria - Germany). A team led by charismatic vocalist Laura Winkler performs acoustic pop folk with elements of swing and funk, which critics call nothing more than a “relaxing antidepressant.” Even in the “strict” halls, musicians easily light the audience, turning their own performance into a fun party.

Improvising in the “no piano” format, but with an incredible groove, the Jeff Herr Corporation trio will be presenting a somewhat exotic jazz Luxembourg at the festival. The lack of a harmonic instrument does not prevent drummer Jeff Herr’s project from creating interesting author’s compositions with an intricate structure, as well as surprising the audience with original readings of hits from popular music written by such stars as Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie.

The names of the participants of the Flying Jazz quartet (Greece) are well known to connoisseurs of European improvisational music and are undoubtedly among the best jazzmen of Hellas. Three of the four musicians are professors of the jazz department of the prestigious Ionian University of Corfu. At the festival in Odessa, the quartet will present its new album Flying Jazz II, which is scheduled for release in September 2016.

Virtually no jazz festival in the world can do without projects that perform klezmer or Balkan music. Odessa JazzFest, which will feature the duet of French clarinetist Samuel Berto and vocalist and accordionist of Serbian descent Stanko Marinkovic, will not be an exception. These two original musicians first met in 2010 and for the sixth year they have been giving music lovers a sense of joy and freedom with the help of their fiery melodies.

A bizarre mix of experimental music, free jazz, ambient and something critics have not yet come up with a name for is the signature style of the innovative trio Infiltrators (Lithuania). The music played by musicians far-known outside the Baltic states: pianist Dmitry Golovanov, saxophonist Jan Maksimovich and legendary drummer Arkady Gotesman is more than jazz. In sounds and pauses between them lies infinity, which is limited to a framework of a particular genre is an empty idea. The team is 100% justified in its name: Infiltrators translates from English as “Border-Breakers”.

The famous riffs of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and other Kurt Cobain hits, shrouded in jazz harmony, guests of the festival will be able to hear performed by the German pianist Clemens Hort, called Clemens Orth Trio plays “Nirvana”. Songs written by the grunge legend have found new life in the improvisations of a talented musician from Cologne, which proves once again that real Music with a capital letter is often hidden behind the noisy protest pressure of rock.

On Saturday, at the end of the main block of the festival program, the audience will be waiting for a jam session in the public bar “Ai love u Petrovich” (19 Bunina St.).

PROGRAM
International Jazz Festival Odessa JazzFest-2016

September 22nd
City Garden, Deribasovskaya at 18:00

• Grand opening of Odessa JazzFest-2016.

Open-air concert with the participation of Derek Brown (USA), Niccolo Faraci Trio (Italy), Fusion Corporation (Georgia), big band "Poltava" pu E. Golovashich (Ukraine).

23 September
City Garden, Deribasovskaya at 16:00

• Big band "Poltava" pu E. Golovashich (Ukraine).

23 September
Odessa Regional Philharmonic, st. Bunina, 15 at 18:00

• Presentation of the first music prize named after Yuri Kuznetsov and performance of the laureates.
• The project of Tamara Lukasheva (Ukraine-Germany) and the symphony orchestra performed by Igor Shavruk with the special program “Yury Kuznetsov’s Film Music”.

September 24th
Odessa Regional Philharmonic, st. Bunina, 15 at 18:00

• Jeff Herr Corporation (Luxembourg)
• Vadim Neselovsky (USA-Ukraine)
• Arkady Shilkloper John Sass (Germany-USA)
• Holler My Dear (Austria-Germany)

Public bar “Ay Love Yu, Petrovich”, (19 Bunina St.) at 21:00

• Jam session with festival participants

September 25 at 18:00
Odessa Regional Philharmonic, st. Bunina, 15