On the Town

Jazz in the Old Town, July 5-August 30

The 9th edition of the Jazz in the Old Town Festival, one of the capital's major outdoor events in summertime, is about to begin.

Krzysztof and Iwona Wojciechowski, the festival's organizers, claim that it's the longest jazz festival in Poland, the second longest in Europe after the Paris Jazz Festival, and definitely one of its kind in Warsaw, a city which during the months of July and August becomes a cultural desert. As usual every year, the concerts take place on a stage set in the middle of the Old Town, every Saturday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and attract huge and diversified audiences. This is partly because all concerts are free and take place in a very popular location, but also because the patrons put a lot of time and effort into compiling an interesting repertoire every year, combining all types of jazz music, from acoustic, electric to vocal pieces. It's also been a tradition for the festival to promote very experimental projects and host premiere concerts of entire albums, a feature that may not have exactly become a milestone in the field of jazz, but definitely significant musical events nonetheless.

This year is no different, as the festival repertoire includes both classical jazz musicians and representatives with a bit more experimental take on jazz. The festival will open on Saturday July 5, with a concert by Duffy Jackson, who is considered to be one of the best percussionists playing in the big bands. It will be his second performance in the history of the Jazz in the Old Town Festival, as he already played there with Scott Hamilton in August 2001. This time he'll play with some local talents, Wojciech Karolak on organs, Tomasz Szukalski on sax, and Jarosław Śmietana on guitar. In contrast to Jackson's classical jazz touch, the following weekend we'll hear the Ryszard Tymon Tymański Band, who will present us with a mixture of acoustic jazz, heavily influenced by 1960s jazz, ethnic rhythms, modern club music and alternative rock. The leader himself is a complex personality - he plays a vast range of instruments, writes poems and novels, and is an important figure on the contemporary Polish music scene.

Lovers of classical jazz should definitely head for the Old Town Square during the two following weekends to listen to the Iza Zając Band's tribute to Duke Elington and Louis Armstrong, and then Zbigniew Namysłowski's Quintet with their premiere concert of a new project called Standards, featuring the cream of young Polish jazz artists as well as the older generation of jazzmen.

There is still more good jazzy news to come in August. There will be a Kraków-based artist, Joachim Mencel, with his Trio, and an absolute premiere - Nippy Noya from Indonesia with the Globetrotters band from Poland, promoting their new project Fairy Tales of the Teres. Their concert should be a perfect combination of all the existing folk rhythms in the world: Latin, African, Indian, Scottish, Polish and more.

Deeper in the summer, the Janusz Muniak Quartet, with a special performance by Tuna Otenel from Turkey, as well as another visit from Giovanni Mirabassi, who will play with the Andrzej Jagodziński Trio, should make your heart sing. Those of you who were present during Mirabassi's recent concert at the Sheraton will surely flock to the Old Town to listen again to his soothing and cozy sounds, which are so reminiscent of smoky French piano bars.

The festival will end with a hot Latin music concert by Rei Ceballo&Calle Sol from Cuba.

In the past some of us deliberately shortened or delayed their weekend trips outside of town to be in Warsaw for one of the amazing concerts, and we hope for equally thrilling musical encounters this year.