Between Wednesday, 1^st July, and Saturday, 4^th July, Cankarjev dom, Križanke and Club Gromka hosted nineteen first-rate concerts; variegated, forceful and insomniac – the 56^th Ljubljana Jazz Festival again offered a diversified and challenging music experience. 

This year, the festival opened in mid May, with concerts by jazz ensembles of diverse music schools being held at various ad hoc venues across Ljubljana. Such dispersion of the festival across urban texture was very pronounced and predominantly concentrated on Jazz Quarter, the Maxi underpass transformed to live and breathe jazz music, and Nama Department Store window displays that featured various music instruments and previous jazz-festival posters. The Jazz Quarter also spread across the Council of Europe Park, where a jazz bazaar with album swapping, music workshop and refreshments was organised.

In mid May, an exhibition of photos of jazz musicians by illustrious English photographer Caroline Forbes was held at the NLB Avla Gallery, and later on an exhibition of photos by young Urška Lukovnjak opened at the Small Gallery. 

And the festival hadn’t even begun yet.

On a magnificently sultry afternoon, Flat Earth Society, a Flemish line up of seriously rollicking jazzmen, opened the Ljubljana Jazz Festival, which sped down the incredibly variegated musical roller coaster. At a certain point, a New Orleans street orchestra suddenly wandered into the psychedelic 1970s, and then proficiently entered a 1940s gala concert.

This journey was followed by an adventure that is Hidden Myth, jazz that breathes contemporariness with lungs from the epic 1970s, rolling with the waves of two bodies, video, bass clarinet, guitar, piano and drums, crashing against the shores of Cankarjev dom’s Grand Reception Hall, temporarily transformed into a special, magical place.

All this – also KUU!’s no-wave, no-nonsense and nonchalant crafty groove –, was witnessed by 150 concert-goers who attended the Festival for the first time and were winners of the IT’S MY FIRST TIME prize draw, proudly sponsored by SheXO, a Club of Business Women.

The charged atmosphere pervading Cankarjev dom continued on Thursday, 2 July, with the Carate Urio Orchestra, one of those trans-genre ensembles whose booming voice is delivered with certain muteness, which enjoyed a several-day recording residency in Ljubljana. The overpowering blues recital by legendary James Blood Ulmer overwhelmed the audiences. The evening’s electric atmosphere was enhanced by the first-time collaboration between two improvised music giants, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and pianist Craig Taborn. A new series of gigs, mostly featuring improvised music, followed the next day. The Štih Hall hosted a mature and compelling appearance by guitarist and experimenter Vitja Balžalorsky.

A sweltering evening at the open-air Križanke theatre: three concerts culminating in the star-appearance of the day, Nils Petter Molvaer, Sly & Robbie, Eivin Aarset and Vladislav Delay introducing a cold blaze of aurora borealis onto Jamaican soil. Massive, dreamy, danceable music that traversed both north and south.

The fiery Friday then featured surf rock on a desert road, distorted, psychedelic and hypnotic music at the CD Club and Club Gromka.

Saturday witnessed another bunch of captivating gigs. Accompanied by three music masters, New York-based Slovenian drummer Dre Hočevar engaged in forceful, contemplated, sonically rich and eruptive new music. The Carlos Bica AZUL project featured an uncontrived jazz generating enormously appealing melodies.

Fire! Orchestra’s name tells it all. An explosion of orchestral jazz, rock and informed vision of contemporary, boundless music more than met our expectations. Flawlessly executing delicate, soft and upbeat music, the Bossa Negra project by Hamilton de Hollanda and Diogo Nogueira surpassed our expectations.

In late-night hours, the CD Club hosted two concluding concerts, fiery and expressive appearances featuring a palette of innovative, exploring music and all-embracing, flexible understanding of contemporary jazz. Jazz that continues to be inclusive, agile and forever explorative.


Written by Marvin