Totally Stockholm 1
and I know other venues do the same, we are still
not putting on shows at full capacity even after September 29, as giving some extra space to people seems logical. Personally, I think covid passes would be a good idea at cultural events, it would make the majority of us feel safe, knowing that the rest of the audience were fully vaccinated as well. Could you explain the procedure of booking the artists this year? It must have been very difficult since so much has been up in the air regarding international travel, the size of the audience and so on. I suppose you have had a larger focus on domestic artists this year? I think we’ve been quite bold in booking international acts considering the circumstances, perhaps too bold. Had we known there would still be harsh travel restrictions in place, we might have done it differently. Still, one of our aims with the festival is to showcase some of the major developments going on in international jazz to the Stockholm audience, and to us jazz is an international movement, so we have an obligation to try our best. I think it’s really important that the cross-border cultural exchanges get going again, for musicians and for the audience. But there is a fantastic domestic scene in Sweden as well and it’s well represented on both the larger and smaller stages throughout the festival, as it should be! Could you share a few of your personal highlights from this upcoming festival programme, and let us know why we shouldn’t miss those shows? If you want to grab tickets to internationally-acclaimed acts like Gilberto Gil, Ben Wendel, Melissa Aldanna, Ghoste Note and Kenny Garrett, I suggest you hurry up. If you’re too late, here are some local acts and venues that you should get to know, whether you are here temporarily or live here. Pianobonanza! – The last weekend of the festival there is a ‘festival within the festival’ at experimental venue Fylkingen. For three days in a row there is a Monopiano festival with three different acts every day. At Kulturhuset Stadsteatern there is also some serious piano going on, with two duo-piano concerts with three of the biggest names in Swedish jazz and improv as well as a prominent Italian guest: Bobo Stenson with Rita Marcotulli and Lisa Ullén with Sten Sandell. Glenn Miller Café – an institution in Swedish jazz life, Glenn Miller has been serving up jazz, food and drinks since the late ‘80s in their small cosy venue. With live music every night of the festival you can catch some of the newest and most interesting stuff around like the Viktor Skokic Sextett, Adam Forkelid 1st Movement, Helen Salim or the Terese Lien Evenstad Quartet. Tellus – If you didn’t know about Biocafé Tellus in Midsommarkransen then you have a little gem to discover. The voluntarily-run Tellus promotes concerts, has evenings of open croquis, foreign language cafés, and the best cinema programme in town. During the festival, they’ll host a large number of concerts as well as two biopics about Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday. Also not to be missed are: the opening concert with Ida Sand with The Bohuslän Big Band and Joel Lyssarides, The master musicians in Ale Möller’s Xeno Mania project, Bo Sundström singing jazz standards in Swedish, Magic Spirit Quartet for a touch of Moroccan-SwedishDanish gnawa-jazz, and Per ‘Texas’ Johansson’s new hugely ambitious project Orkester Omnitotal, which wraps up the festival at Fasching. Stockholm Jazz Festival, 15-24 October. For the full programme see stockholmjazz.se. *The other, perhaps more believed, theory is that it simply derives from the term ‘jasm’ which originally meant energy, vitality, spirit, pep. The Oxford English Dictionary, the most reliable and complete record of the English language, traces ‘jasm’ back to at least 1860. Any sexual references with the word jazz appeared way later. 10 Gilberto Gil, Photo: Gérard Giaume