The Jazz Bez 2011 is inspiring us to anticipate for the next even more ‘star’ & more intense jazz-fest.  Is it possible? The answer is known only by the Dzyga Art Association, a tireless creator of that  jazz-feast  but it never reveals its all intentions.

Every one year the Festival is  becoming more extensive, it covers new jazz styles , new music genres & direction, new cities; it motivates the creation of new projects and it captures more & more hearts of the lovers of good music. Every ‘forthcoming’ year we are sure that it’s impossible to expect a wider  scale but the Fest proves the opposite. In 2011 jazz music was heard from west to east (from Lublin to Kharkiv) and from north to south (from Bialystok to Sevastopol). Besides those cities, the festival marathon has fused in a joint gust Ukrainian jazz-venues (Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk,  Rivne, Kharkiv, Sevastopol)  and Polish (Przemysl, Krosno, Rzeszów and Nowica). As usual  Lviv city remains the core of jazz movement. This year Ukraine was a venue to bring together masters of jazz from the USA, Canada, Austria, France, Israel, Germany, Russia, Lithuania, Greece and Poland.
It still seems to be impossible to state the precise  number of jazzmen participated in the Festival, as for 150 musicians declared in the programme were joining by local bands;  and the  jam sessions provided an opportunity for young musicians to “compete” with jazz sharks (by the way, both  ‘sides’ were high about the process).
As accustomed, the Festival has demonstrated a variety of jazz styles; almost all projects presented something new, interlacing and interpreting diverse genres and techniques. Jazz music was hosted by all possible venues: village Houses of Culture, jazz clubs, cultural centres, architectural monuments, philharmonics and dramatic theaters; as for jam sessions – they were held even in the streets.
Those eleven Festival years of non-stop jazzing have resulted in the music-competently-bred  audience; now the jazzbez adepts are able to comprehend good music, they  applaud after skilful solos,  they are ready to hold qualified debates on concerts and each year they require new jazz revelations.
Students (several years ago used to buy only discount tickets) this year expressed respect for themselves and for the Festival and visited concerts in the company of family and friends.
Musicians (in the ‘old days’ of the first Festival being juniors) have grown to  become representatives of  notable international projects.
The organisers have polished the complicated logistics of flights and transport removals to such an extent that no one customs problem could preclude the conduction of concerts.

This year we can state for sure that the Jazz Bez has already become an integral and irreversible phenomenon in the creation of Ukrainian jazz and at the same time the fest enforces its promotion on the world stage.

efandy  concerning music:

The bands presented at the Jazz Bez 2011 could be provisionally divided into three groups. The first one  - so called "home", that is united the JazzClub.Lviv members, namely Alex Maksymiv (guitar), Ihor Hnydyn (drums),  Anastasia Litvinyuk & Yuriy Seredin (piano), Mykhailo Balogh (sax) and Andriy Kochan (bass)  - in various recombination and in diverse collaboration both with local and foreign partners.  Due to the Jazz Bez festival Ukrainian musicians are often invited to give concerts in the West. And this year Ukrainian musicians themselves were very active and invited foreign performers to participate  in their own projects. There were such projects as the Deżmbezdżez (Alex Maksymiv & Ihor Hnydyn +  Lithuanian Alexander Raichenok and Poles Piotr Dankiewicz, Maciej Pus and SinSen), the Michael Balog Sextet (four Ukrainians + two Americans: Frank Parker & Nathan Williams). As well as the Litvinyuk Acoustic Jazz project. Though all four musicians are Ukrainians and the representatives of the cities of Lviv, Kyiv and Kharkiv, the international ‘flavour’ is quite noticeable.  As in different years but they all participated in the Gaude Polonia Scholarship Programme. Also within the mentioned above context the Tatiana Balakyrska’s Lviv Sessions project should be noted -  thanks to Tanya  Lviv musicians became well-known from Tallinn to Jakarta. The Lviv Sessions album was recorded in co with the Lviv musicians  Alex Maksymiv (guitar),  Yuriy Seredin (piano) and  Ihor Hnydyn (drums).  The first its edition was conventional – 1000 copies, then the CD was additionally issued  - 123.000 copies as an attachment to the Stereo&Video magazine. The presentation of the CD   (involving Andriy Kochan - bass) took place at the Kvartyra 35 art café and then it was followed by the grand jam session.

The second group of bands presented  mainstream jazz, scilicet the kind of music usually associated with jazz  “ possessing  a human face". That was the academically correct,  temperate and dignified Janusz Muniak Sextet with the selection of standards (those days they celebrated the 70^th jubilee of their leader);   and John Beasley (American pianist, the 2011 Grammy winner) with his quartet & his refined gentlemanlike drive. Don’t to forget about an elegant and ironic hooligan-virtuoso Joachim Menzel who’s managed in one day to collaborate in a duo with a famous American clarinetist Brad Terry and with the El Greco fusion project. These were the soft-jazz quartet by a vocalist Karolina Beimcik, the soundtrack- illustrative Polish Contemporary Noise Sextet and the pop-jazz Russian Fusion Point band.

The Jazz Bez would be a quite common festival if not  its tendency to present new, unexpected and risky sound. And in 2011 the Fest remained true to its enlightenment-experimental spirit. The experiments were ‘experiencing’ just from the start – the Festival was launched with the  Ensemble Nostri Temporis and  "a new academic" music, devoted to Gustav Mahler, a late-romantic Austrian composer. As well as the Polish-Russian-Ukrainian free-improvisational Sound in Space project by Yuriy Yaremchuk with the goal to find music outside musical notes. And the Polish electro-jazz experimenters Levity (possessing the ability of musical levitation), they’ve managed more than once to send  the audience into the fantastic journey in other dimensions.

The more temperate and moderate Festival’s " flank" was represented by the French duo of Fransois Thuillier (tuba) and  Alain Bruel (accordion) with their author's compositions and the arrangements of French folk. A sort of  bohemian, decadent music for the aristocracy. On Saturday at the Dzyga the German Schultzing band with the participation of Mateusz Smoczynski, a Polish violinist demonstrated true contemporary jazz (the extra festival concert). And  the Ukrainian-Israeli global music project involving Marina Zakharova (piano, vicals), Orhan Agabeyli (percussion) and Amir Perelman (oud) has complemented the Festival’s musical canvas with oriental shades.

The New York TARBABY project represented by the jazz-stars of the global scale could be regarded as a transition link between classical jazz and free. That quartet possesses the freest jazzy soul and the widest  stylistic range per one composition. It’s the most dangerous band of the Festival. Warning! If you like TarBaby – be ready to lose the taste for  a half of contemporary jazz bands. The  trio, that is Eric Revis (Grammy-winning bassist), Orrin Evans (pianist, The Mingus Big Band member) and Nasheet Waits (drummer, a  partner of the renown Jason Moran) invited for co Oliver Lake, the glorious saxophonist, recognised to be a jazz classic.  Those four have demonstrated the top quality jazz – maybe suchlike sound will determine the development of the next decade's  music.
The TARBABY performance turned out to be the grandiose final of the Jazz Bez 2011.

We declared the Festival to be finished. But let's discover a little secret: the Jazz Bez  is not over - it lasts for all the time involving new reflections rising from our recollections, the ‘updated’ skills of musicians, negotiations between the organisers and potential participants of  the next festival, concerts conducted by the JazzClub.Lviv and every time when  we’ve managed to  overcome conventions and to become a little freer. After all, jazz -  is not primarily a musical technique but the freedom of spirit ..


PHOTO: Sergiy Horobets, Andriy Artym, Rostyslav Pavlyk