The Barcelona International Jazz Festival

The autumn will resonate with jazz rhythms with the arrival of the Barcelona International Jazz Festival, offering over 80 activities on its programme, including music dinners, family breakfasts, jazz-rhythm performances at the Montjuïc Magic Fountain and an area for professionals that is still to be decided on. The festival will also support Barcelona’s promising new jazz artists.

Andrea Motis (16 years) has become a new sensation, along with the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, on the Barcelona jazz scene. The trumpeter and singer will perform with Europe’s youngest big band during the Barcelona International Jazz Festival.

The event gives resolute support to new Catalan talent, as it did for Llibert Fortuny, who will give a guest performance with La Locomotora Negra, a group that celebrates their 40th anniversary this year, and is due to receive the festival’s Medal of Honour. The award will be shared with the composer and band-leader Maria Schneider.

Paolo Conte will draw the festival to a close at the Auditori on 1 December, offering songs from his latest project, Nelson. Other attractions in the festival include Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Michel Camilo Trio with Giovanni Hidalgo, Pat Metheny Trio with Larry Grenadire and Bill Stewart and the Joshua Redman – Brad Mehldau Duo.

::.. Barcelona International Jazz Festival ..::

From Broadway to Barcelona: Chicago at Teatre Tívoli

A thirteen-year run in Broadway, six Tony awards and an audience of 17 million. These spectacular figures bear witness to the success of Chicago, the Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb musical with music by John Kander, which has seduced half the world and which is now coming to Barcelona, backed by the international show’s very producers.

Teatre Tívoli‘s will become 1920′s Chicago to bring audiences the story of Roxie Hart, a woman who kills her lover and ends up in prison. There she meets Velma Kelly, another crime-passionnel killer, her rival in securing the services of the best criminal lawyer, Billy Flynn, and turn herself into a star.

The sensuality of the music and dancing, and the great songs that everyone already knows, set the pace of a show where characters and story never lose their power. And that is because the stage, which is practically bare, only makes rooms for the actors and orchestra, delighting us with their live music.

Chicago is playing at the Tívoli for eight weeks, to the sound of jazz!

Program BAM Festival 2011

Despite having a new artistic director, the BAM festival retains its essential spirit: every style of music and a fair share of local representatives.

From 22 to 24 September, one of the big attractions of the coming BAM will be Herman Dune. The French folk group has become a summer phenomenon thanks to the inclusion of the 2006 hit “I wish that I could see you soon” in a beer commercial.

This is not the first time the festival programme has included the creators of soundtracks for such ads. It did in 2009 with Billie Vision and The Dancers.

BAM has always been a platform for new groups. That means you’ll be able to see the new British Jazz sensation, Portico Quartet, and the young Canadian singer-songwriter Little Scream, in the style of Arcade Fire and The National.

As regards electronic music, it has been announced that Zomby will be taking part, bringing BAM a touch of British dubstep. And from the Dominican Republic, Rita Indiana y Los Misterios will be bringing a taste of electro-merengue beat.

The festival is clearly opting once more for home-grown music. Guillamino and Bedroom, two very different musicians, head the list of Barcelona talent.

::: BAM Festival 2011 :::

Montjuïc at Night: Open Music Festival

On 2 July, Barcelona will once again pay tribute to its own home-brewed live music, with a new white night on Montjuïc mountain, Montjuïc at Night, where the best bands from the city’s main music festivals will be meeting up at the same site.

Sonar, Barnasants, De Cajón! Festival Flamenco, Cruïlla BCN, Mas i Mas, BAM. Up to twenty festivals with a highly varied programme that includes some forty performances in every style to suit every taste, from pop to jazz, hip-hop and electronica.

The white night will also offer a taste of the Beefeater In-Edit, the Barcelona International Music Documentary Film Festival, with a screening of two music documentaries.

As usual, the music evening of this fourth edition of Montjuïc at Night will be accompanied by an open night at various museums and mountain venues, such as the CaixaForum, the Fundació Joan Miró, MNAC, the Poble Espanyol and the Teatre Grec gardens.

The festival will kick off at 8 pm and go on until 4 am. For access to some of the mountain stages, the public will have extra public transport and a free bus service until 5 am, connecting Montjuïc Castle to Plaça d’Espanya and Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina with the funicular.

The Mas i Mas Festival in August

For eight years the Mas i Mas Festival has been adding rhythm to the warmest days of the year. This edition’s festival, which kicks off on 29 July with a performance by the Malian diva Rokia Traoré, has programmed over 160 concerts to suit all tastes with world music, flamenco, classical and electronica.

Among all that will be going on, one concert stands out, the Plaça Reial tribute to the city’s most iconic jazz club, the Jamboree, which is 50 this year. Musicians like Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald and Ornette Coleman have been here, so jazz will be the star of this free concert on Monday 30 August, starting at 6 pm.

The Big Acoustic Band, the best national jazz outfit, and WTF All Stars, the musicians that liven up the WTF Jam Sessions every Monday at the club, will have the job of bringing the Jamboree out into the light in Plaça Reial.

Appearing at the Mas i Mas Festival besides Rokia Traoré will be Flavio Rodríguez, Lucrecia and Sole Giménez, accompanied by the saxophonist Perico Sambeat. This last recital will close the festival on 1 September at the Palau de la Música.

The inclusion of the Palau de la Música as a festival stage is one of the new features of the eighth Mas i Mas Festival. There the chamber music room will hold three latin and jazz concerts a day.

In all the festival will have seven stages around the city. La Pedrera once again provides the stage for classical music, with three concerts a day, while flamenco will be based at the Tarantos, with six sessions a day, and electronica at the Moog. The Auditori will open the festival and there will also be concerts at Luz de Gas and the Jamboree.

All those people who say nothing happens in Barcelona in August have got it all wrong!

Sweater, British sound made in Barcelona.

Plan Magistral, their first album, recalls the best in Anglo-Saxon pop rock as well as the indie music scene. As they work on new songs, Víctor Garcia Barriocanal, the lead singer, and Rocky Otto, the keyboard player, tell us how they’ll be including new sounds, such as flamenco, jazz, blues and classical music, as the Barcelona band’s five members take their inspiration from a large and varied range of influences.

Having gone through a “traumatic experience” with a big label, Sweater’s members are keen defenders of self-management and opted for the do-it-yourself approach with their first album, which they produced themselves. It’s a formula they’re sure to follow in the future.

Impeccable sound and detailed, well-crafted lyrics make up the credentials of a group who attach as much importance to their music as they do to their words.

They started off singing in English, but now they sing in Spanish to be “true” to themselves and their audiences, and don’t rule out writing songs in Catalan. And that is because, they tell us, they do what and how they want.

Visit the Sweater website.