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In mid-August, the International Festival «"Time In Jazz"» will take place in Berchidda (SS). This year, the festival will feature musicians like Uri Caine, Sax Four Fun & Tiger Dixie Band, Maria Pia De Vito Claudio Astronio, Carlo Actis Dato Quartet, Omar Sosa Quintet, Piccola Vienna Art Orchestra, Ivo Papasov, Michel Portal Quartet, Richard Galliano.
Given the importance and uniqueness of the event, now in its seventeenth edition, I thought of asking a few questions to its artistic director, the famous jazz musician Paolo Fresu, who, among his numerous commitments, found the time to answer me.
1. Hi Paolo, first of all, where are you right now and what are you doing during this period?
As I write to you, I'm returning from the Montréal Festival where I performed two concerts. One in a trio with the Tunisian Dhafer Youssef and the Norwegian Eivind Aarset, and another with trumpet players Jon Hassell and Erik Truffaz as part of an original production strongly desired by the festival. Naturally, from now on, I have concerts almost continuously and a bit everywhere with my different formations (the “Paf” trio, the new "Devil" quartet, my Italian Quintet that this year celebrates its twentieth year of mutual life, the project with the “Alborada” string quartet, in duo or trio with Youssef and Aarset, plus some different concerts, for example with Stefano Benni or Marco Paolini in the Dolomites), and I am dealing with the music for a film directed by Valia Santella and produced by Nanni Moretti's Sacher. And then I'm preparing for the efforts of the Berchidda Festival first and the Nuoro Jazz Seminars afterward.
2. I read that you do not share the opinion that jazz is dying or in crisis. But in your opinion, what is jazz today and in what directions is it moving?
Granted that perhaps the term "Jazz" no longer exists because it cannot define and contain all the genres this music embraces, I think that jazz is still that ability of improvisation and spontaneity that makes it different from other music today. But despite everything, jazz is also the swing, which is the ability to breathe music in a certain way. The ability to breathe it and thus to live it. That's it, I believe jazz is somehow a musical philosophy and more, that can unite certain styles and certain musicians. Starting from this, I think jazz is moving in very different directions and continues to well represent the trends of the modern world. As I said, I am returning from the Montréal Festival, which is the largest event in North America with an impressive crowd quality and about 600 concerts. The fact that jazz is not dead is proven not only by the great creativity and dynamism of the artists but also by the increasingly evident attention that the public, especially in Europe, gives to this music.
3. In just over a month, the International Festival “Time in Jazz” will be held in Berchidda, of which you are the artistic director. Can you tell us how the idea for this event, which has reached its seventeenth edition, was born and its main characteristics?
“Time in jazz” is a festival in the spirit of tradition, but also of inventiveness and contemporary projectuality that loves giving space to original and creative artists, musicians, and trends. A vocation that finds its best incarnations in productions conceived and realized ad hoc, often based on the comparison and crossover between different artistic languages: jazz and visual art, jazz and dance, jazz and cinema, jazz and ethnic music, jazz and cultured or ancient and contemporary music, jazz and poetry. A dominant theme gives meaning to the entire festival, which is more than ever dedicated to Jazz understood as both a classical expression and experimentation and encounters not only with other art languages but with many other forms of music. When the event was born in the now distant 1988, my intention was to bring and make known to Berchidda and the whole area that music I played, which seemed far from our culture. This in an attempt to find a precise relation with the territory and also with our musical culture. But also a festival where the music became a pretext for communicating and reflecting and thus not an end in itself. “Time in jazz” is, in fact, an art container and an incredible tool for exchange between the languages of art and the idioms of the world. An extraordinary tool where people of all ages and backgrounds can be moved by the music and/or speak an improbable Esperanto made of encounters and emotional sensations. In all this, music is the main aspect, but everything has its role and its value.
4. The theme of this edition of Time in jazz is madness. Why this choice?
Because "Time in jazz" indeed has a Theme every year, and this theme is a stimulus to move in new and different directions. Often the themes are very open, and often, as in recent years, the musical theme becomes a pretext for moving at 360°, for example with the themes "Sogno di Orfeo" of 2001 and "Quadri di un’esposizione” of 2002: the fable of Orpheus singer and enchanter married with the famous "Introduction for five trumpets" of the Monteverdian Orpheus, the first musical step towards the sound/sap/imagination of the trumpet, while the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky drew inspiration from Hartmann's pictorial work, and his equally famous composition became a pretext to bring visual art on stage along with music. It is the play and the challenge, once again, that act as a guiding thread throughout the entire program of "Time in jazz". This subtle play between reality and fiction is at the basis of art and its spectacularity. In particular, the theme of Madness stems from the Baroque Madness, and this becomes the cue to explore not only the world of musical variation, which is typical of jazz and ancient music but also the madness of genius and the creativity of art.
5. The presence of artists like Uri Caine, Dave Douglas, Michel Portal, Richard Galliano, just to mention a few, is an element of interest for the initiative, but its originality is also inherent in its ways of taking place (daytime concerts, sometimes in fascinating and unusual places like a railway station or a country church, etc.). How do artists participating in Time in Jazz usually experience the uniqueness of the event?
Artists generally love the festival because they see it as different from so many other events. This is mainly because "Time in Jazz" takes place in a small village (Berchidda has 3500 inhabitants, ed.) and because the dimension of the small place, even with an international value during the period of the event, creates a humanity and respect towards music and artists that make them feel good and consequently make the audience feel good. It is a true exchange that gratifies everyone and makes each feel like a protagonist. Also, there are acoustic concerts in small places - in country churches rather than in the middle of woods or on the streets - that place the artist in a new extremely stimulating creative condition. I have seen artists get enormously agitated and others cry. There is extraordinary energy that makes every event an equally extraordinary event.
6. As you know, De-Baser is a site where music enthusiasts can exchange their opinions about records. To conclude this brief interview, do you want to leave us with the title of a record that you particularly love and would recommend?
Well, assuming there are many, the first one that comes to my mind now is "Fascinoma" by Jon Hassell. A rare example of balance between the search for sound and space and the cult of melody and silence. Just because we were playing together yesterday... just because, for me, it is one of the most beautiful albums of recent years...
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