Playing the right tune
Herbie Hancock, BB King, Paco de Lucia, John Scofield and John MacLaughlin are just a few of the jazz giants that are regular visitors to Poland. The country puts on a number of large concerts to appreciative audiences and is home to a 10-month-long jazz festival each year. Not only is this the reality of the Polish jazz scene, but it is getting bigger and better every year.
"In Europe you can count the number of serious jazz events on one hand. In the US you don't find big money behind jazz festivals, as Americans look at jazz as more of a hobby than a way to combine art and business," says music critic, jazz promoter and CEO of the Era Jazzu festival, Dionizy Pištkowski.
Poles' passion for jazz manifest itself in the number of festivals organized in the country. The oldest and the biggest is Jazz Jamboree, which began in 1958. The second-biggest, and probably the best known, is Era Jazzu, an annual event, usually starting in February or March and ending in December. The third in line, but also famous, is Warsaw Summer Jazz Days (WSJD). After the 'big three' there are dozens of smaller festivals and now almost every city in Poland has its own jazz festival. For instance, Zakopane will hold its Zakopane Jazz Spring for the third time this year, Kraków has been putting on its Summer Jazz Festival since 1995 and Wrocław will host its Jazz on the Oder for the 42nd time. Even the national forestry service has become a patron of Polish jazz, having hosted the international Jazz in the Forest festival nine times already.
"The market in Poland is just perfect for jazz music," says Jazz Jamboree and WSJD CEO Mariusz Adamiak, who does not bother to hide his enthusiasm. "There are thousands of fans, so there is an audience worth organizing concerts and festivals for. I reckon there are almost 100 jazz festivals at present. So there are many crazy folks like me, who not only organize things but also breath, smell and feel jazz in every aspect of their life."
Where market meets culture
Jazz Jamboree 2005 cost approximately EUR 400,000 (zł.1.5 million), while the 2006 version is set to cost at least EUR 500,000 (zł.1.9 million), Adamiak claims. Era Jazzu's cost varies from year to year, sometimes amounting to $200,000 (zł.627,944), and in other years reaching $400,000 (zł.1.2 million). Jazz festivals held in Poland are considered world-class, and there are only a few, such as the world's biggest - NordSea, with a EUR 6 (zł.23) million budget - superior to them. But is there a place for art in business? Opinions differ.
"A festival itself is a strange and ambiguous thing. Several years ago, when for example WSJD was just taking off, jazz fans were attracted to festivals like bees to honey," says Andrzej E. Grabowski, a jazz critic and owner of Diapazon, a major Polish jazz portal. "With time, festivals became a way to get bigger audiences and to make more money, so they became a little more commercial than in the past, a little less artistic."
Festival organizers reason, however, that jazz can't exist without business. In particular, the biggest events are strongly connected with sponsorship and state money, thanks to which Poland has become a permanent stop for the world's biggest jazz stars, such as Chick Corea, Pat Metheny or Dianne Reeves.
"Era Jazzu - as all other music events I am aware of - is obviously a merger of art and finance," Dionizy Pištkowski concludes. "Of course, it is business. It lets me earn money and employ people. But also I perceive it as a form of jazz promotion."
