On July 27, Eve Risser’s Red Desert Orchestra, which brings together European and African musicians, opens the 39th edition of the Jazz em Agosto festival, which takes place at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon.
To explain what will be presented at the 39th edition, the Jazz in August organization recalls that the “idea of a universe in permanent expansion that in jazz, even due to its Afro-American matrix, led to a deep dive into the waters of the enormous African rhythmic richness”, with musicians like John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders or Art Blakey following these paths.
“New possibilities continue to unfold for today’s musicians in terms of, for example, the hypnotic and trance characteristics that exist in both the Moroccan gnawa and many West African traditional expressions. That trance quality with African origin It is one of the characteristics of this 39th edition of Jazz in August, which takes place between July 27 and August 6”, read a statement released this Thursday.
In this edition, the opening act is performed by Eve Risser’s Red Desert Orchestra, whose debut album, “Eurythmia”, released last year, “brings together European and African instrumentalists in an infectious music built from polyrhythmic cycles. ”.
Along the same lines, the organization highlights the performance of the Natural Information Society, of the “reference of the Chicago scene of the 90s” Joshua Abrams, together with the saxophonist Evan Parker, scheduled for July 29.
The “hypnotic impression” that exists in Eve Risser’s Red Desert Orchestra and the Natural Information Society “is still found in the group Trance Map + [que atua a 28 de julho]in the Ghosted project [3 de agosto] or in the solo music of Susana Santos Silva [29 de julho] and julia reidy [30 de julho]”.
In its 39th edition, the Jazz in August festival has 15 concertswhich will be shared between the Open Air Amphitheater and Auditorium 2 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
The trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and the guitarist Julia Reidy are part of a solo program “taken over by four women”, together with Marta Warelis (August 5) and Camille Émaille (August 6), in an edition in which “there are several very outstanding projects in the most creative music of 2022 with a female lead: Eve Risser, Hedvig Mollestad, Zoh Amba, Myra Melford and Mary Halvorson”.
The guitarist Hedvig Mollestad presents, on July 30, a new formation, Ekhidna, in which “she decided to do without the bass, doubled the presence of percussion and invited the keyboardists Marte Eberson and Erlend Slettevoll, plus the trumpeter Susana Santos Silva (with who had intersected in the NU-Ensemble of Mats Gustafsson)”.
Saxophonist and flutist Zoh Amba performs as a trio, on August 2, with bassist Luque Stewart and drummer Chris Corsano, and pianist Myra Melford performs, on August 4, with “improvisers Mary Halvorson, Lesley Mok, Ingrid Laubrock and Tomeka Reid, shaping the amazing quintet of fire and water.
The guitarist Mary Halvorson will present in sextet, on August 5, the album “Amaryllis”, which “was, by consensus, one of the best albums of last year, in jazz and beyond.”
The 39 Jazz de Agosto program also includes performances by drummer João Lencastre, in a quartet (July 31), El Ático, which brings together Rodrigo Amado, Gonçalo Almeida and Onno Govaert (August 1) and the Supersonic Orchestra, of drummer and composer Gard Nilsen, who closes the festival on August 6.
Information on schedules and prices of individual tickets and passes for the Jazz Festival in August can be found at www.gulbenkian.pt.
Source: Observadora
