Totally Stockholm 1
and came to be applied to the music as well.” But
enough with the history lesson. Jazz is very much on our mind this October with another landmark of the much-awaited return of live music. Just in time for Stockholm Jazz Festival, restrictions have been lifted and the festival programme caters to the still pent-up demand for live music in a social setting. This year’s edition seems way too extensive to actually have been planned and booked in the midst of a pandemic, but he who dares wins, as they say. Close to 200 acts will perform, dotted around 40 different stages during this ten-day bonanza of music, performed just as intended. We’re still unsure about the international names due to travel restrictions and whatnot, but hopefully Stockholm will hear the sounds of Grammy-winning Kenny Garrett and the legendary Gilberto Gil, the infectious beats of Emma-Jean Thackray’s at times almost dancefloory kind of jazz and, speaking of rhythm, the mishmash of sounds belonging to Michael League’s, of Snarky Puppy fame, ensemble Bokanté. There will of course be shows by many of the star names from within the domestic jazz scene too, from Amanda Ginsburg to Joel Lyssarides. But the road to here has of course been wobbly, hazardous and gravely uncertain. Festival director Eric Birath could finally take a deep sigh of relief when the news filtered through about the lifting of restrictions. ”An end to restrictions means everything to the festival! We had a full programme booked and just about everything was already sold out with the restrictions in place, a lifting of the restrictions meant we could offer music to so many more people. Even if it’s a big deal financially, what matters most is that more of us can share the experience,” he says. You must have planned for both scenarios I’m sure, and perhaps more for the restrictions still being in place, but will you make any changes or late additions to the festival, and how much will this year’s incarnation resemble the jazz festivals prior to the pandemic? During the spring the prognosis from Folkhälsomyndigheten was that restrictions on public gatherings would start to be lifted in mid-summer and totally abolished in September, so we were planning for a festival without restrictions, although we started having some serious doubts late in the summer. We begin booking the festival up to a year in advance and during this past year we’ve been constantly torn between hope and despair. Finally it looks as if we can go at full capacity, but let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched… I think the festival visitors will find the festival is quite a lot like it used to be. Some international gigs have been cancelled due to worldwide traveling restrictions, and some last-minute changes could happen. Still, the festival includes almost 200 concerts, so there is plenty to see and hear even if one or two concerts should be cancelled last minute. During this last year and a half, has there ever been a time when you have almost felt like you wanted to throw in the towel and walk away? There have been times when I’ve wanted to just cancel everything, until this damn pandemic was 100 percent over for good. When we’re not doing Stockholm Jazz Festival, the organization behind the festival runs Fasching, and we’ve moved, rescheduled, cancelled and re-booked hundreds of gigs in the past 18 months. It’s tiring and tedious work. That goes for the whole business, never have so many worked so much for such little outcome… So, now when people are allowed to gather in crowds again and enjoy live music entertainment, do you think that our collective appetite for entertainment is even greater after a year in cultural hiding? Perhaps that could translate into a positive slingshot effect for anyone putting on live entertainment this autumn? I surely hope so, the first signs are very hopeful, people are buying tickets again! I do however think that there is still quite a large proportion of the public that will be quite sceptical of and anxious about large social gatherings. We’ve been training for social distancing for 18 months, so it may take a while for people to get comfortable with packing in at concerts with a bunch of strangers breathing down their neck. At Fasching, Kenny Garrett, Photo: Hollis King 9