December 1, 2007

There aren’t many music festivals that can claim to have survived 39 editions, still less that could shine just as brightly as the first occasion.

At the festival’s emotional peak, 89 year old Cuban piano legend Bebo Valdés played with his quartet as if seducing the musical hearts of every 19 year old cutie in the audience. Sonny Rollins caused an outburst of enthusiasm at the Palau de la Música, the place where he himself came to play for the Jazz Festival’s debut back in 1966. US virtuoso Chick Corea revealed his passion for the new. An original duo with banjo maestro Béla Fleck displayed the frontiers of two US musicians conscious both of musical roots and new sonic horizons. Jazz fans also witnessed the birth of ‘post-jazz’. The Bad Plus, a trio re-defining the position of jazz as the mature brother of pop, with their sophisticated cover versions of songs by Bowie and Tears for Fears not only pleased the spoiled ears of the jazzies but would have been an absolute revelation for any pop music fan with open ears. In total, a festival appealing not only to jazz experts but to anyone open to sonic adventures in the universe of endless improvisation, from musical revolutionaries who risk and playfully juggle with the heritage of more than 100 years of jazz tradition.