Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
The Marcin Wasilewsksi Trio is set to play the Polish Night showcase at jazzahead! in Bremen, Germany, on April 19. The Atom String Quartet, Monika Borzym, Joanna Duda and Power of Horns also are scheduled to perform on the eight-band bill.
(Photo: Andrzej Lazarz)Since 2006, jazzahead! has helped turn Bremen, Germany, into a place for the jazz world to congregate during a week of programming.
The annual industry meeting gathers together an international cadre of producers, labels, musicians and distributors, as well as festival bookers and club promoters at the Bremen Exhibition and Conference Center for panels, showcases and a trade fair.
This year, the festival runs April 6-22 and the trade fair runs April 19-22.
During the festival, more than 100 concerts are planned for the 3,000 participants to attend. There also are about 1,000 exhibitors at the conference center; 40 jury-selected showcases also are planned during the week; and on Saturday, April 21, jazzahead! club night boasts 30 hosting venues throughout the city.
This year’s conference partner country is Poland, which on Thursday, April 19, will host Polish Night with eight acts representing the genre’s current crop of talent.
“In the past 60 years, a very independent jazz tradition has developed in Poland with strong improvisers right up to the youngest generation of promising new performers,” said Peter Schulze, a jazzahead! jury member and part of the event’s artistic directors team.
The showcase is set to include the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, the Atom String Quartet, as well as representatives of a new generation of Polish jazz players.
Jury member Karolina Juzwa said she’s particularly excited for performances by Monika Borzym, as well as Joanna Duda, who’s leading an “original and stylistically experimental project.” Juzwa also was unapologetically enthused about free-jazz group Power of the Horns: “I’m sure they will blow the audience away.”
For more information on the festival, visit the jazzahead! website. DB
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
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