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Amanda Ginsburg, Photo: Johan Ståhlberg Avishai C
ohen, Photo: Andreas Terlaak Could you also tell us more about how many tickets are available for each night, whether there is any sort of seating arrangement, and what’s on the food and drinks menu? We can welcome up to a thousand people each night and there will be seating available for those that want it. We will have seating directly in front of the stage for the calmer jazz concerts whilst we will have a standing audience in front for the concerts where we think people will want to get up and move their stuff. Food and drinks are provided by Café Bloms, which is in ArkDes year-round, they have a super fresh summer menu, and there will be beers from local breweries as well as a great selection of wines and bubblies. There is a large seated dining and drinking area, where DJs will kick off our evenings, so come early and enjoy! Is this your way of celebrating the end of the pandemic, and a return to live music and a vibrant cultural life? Truthfully, we’ve wanted to do this for years, and had our first meetings out on Skeppsholmen in 2018. But after years of covid, what better way is there to celebrate life and music? When I look at the line-up for the 13 nights I see many of the biggest names from recent Stockholm Jazz Festivals. When compiling the line-up, was the thinking pretty much the same as when booking the festival line-up? A mix of international acts and Swedish artists, and blending more traditional jazzy sounds with more contemporary influences and the odd sprinkle of pop? We wanted the program to reflect what Fasching is right now, and it is, as you say, “a blend of traditional jazzy sounds with contemporary influences and the odd sprinkle of pop”, or perhaps a sprinkle of “odd pop” rather. Fasching is first and foremost Sweden’s main stage for contemporary jazz. It’s the venue that will serve you the hot new names on the jazz scene as well as provide a home for the world-renowned names we have come to love over the years. But our ambition is also to be the most interesting venue in Stockholm in more undefined genres that perhaps have a lot of the components that we would call jazz, but without actually having to be jazz. There’s usually an element of improv, instrumental or experimental music in everything we do without it necessarily being defined as jazz. We love this eclectic mix and feel that it feeds jazz with new ideas just as jazz has fed other genres for the past hundred years. Will this become an annual event do you think, and could the series even be expanded for next year? I think we will most definitely do a summer thing in the coming years as well. If it’s exactly in this format or not 10 Cecile McLorin Salvant time will tell. The great thing about a series instead of a festival is that we do not have to rely on all the artists being available the same weekend. We can pick the artists we want to have in our programme when they are available. Who would be your dream booking? Is there an elusive name that would fit perfectly? We are super proud of our line-up, and feel that it’s actually a great mix of everything we wanted to have in our programme. I feel that the most interesting names in jazz are just these kinds of acts that can fill a garden of a thousand people. Many of the acts bigger than that can be a little uninteresting for me, usually a bit too bland. That being said, I think we could easily book hundreds of great gigs – luckily that’s exactly what we do at Fasching year-round. What are your personal memories and highlights from previous adventures with Stockholm Jazz Festival om Skeppsholmen? Truthfully, what I liked best was the whole set-up - walking over to Skeppsholmen in the early evening, being surprised by a lot of artists I hadn’t heard before. Looking back at old festival line-ups I mostly regret the acts I didn’t see and will never be able to see live; McCoy Tyner, Ray Charles, Yusef Lateef, Monica Zetterlund…. Luckily, musicians in our field have long careers but I always make Rigmor Gustafsson, Photo: Joel Nilsson a point of seeing great musicians when I can. You never know when the opportunity will come again. And finally, could you give us three or four of this summer’s highlights in your own words? Difficult choices but if I had to choose a couple of acts it would be Charles Lloyd Quartet feat. Bill Frisell – I’m a huge fan of Lloyds late 60’s and early 70’s recordings of more spiritual jazz, but he has kept on being great and curious about the new, well into his old age. His later albums with The Marvels that feature Bill Frisell, a guitarist who could easily have had his own concert on Skeppsholmen this year, are just superb and really bring out Bill’s fantastic playing as well as Charles. A chance to see two jazz giants on one night! Another outrageous guitarist is of course John Scofield, who can be seen just the night after! Two personal favourites from the buzzing UK jazz scene are The Comet is Coming; a jazzy, afrobeaty, electronic, funky outfit fronted by one of the most important names in contemporary jazz - Shabaka Hutchings. The other act is Emma-Jean Thackray, whose recent album Yellow was very special - jazzy dance tunes that will get you strutting your stuff in no time. For the full concert program see fasching.se/samling/in-bloom/ Joel Lyssarides, Photo: Nikola Stankovic