Chucho Valdés & Tributo Irakere 50, Cécile McLorin Salvant and “Potter, Mehldau, Patitucci, Blake” head the 33rd edition

• • The 33rd edition of the ‘Festival Internacional Canarias Jazz & Más’ will be held from 5 to 27 July at venues on the eight islands
  • The programme also features Dave Douglas, Estrellas de Buena Vista, Veronica Swift, Knower, Ana Popovic, Theo Croker & Antonio Lizana

   

• Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 08 de abril de 2024. For yet another year, making it 33, the main auditoriums & theatres and the most emblematic public squares of the Canary Islands will host more than 60 concerts at the Festival Internacional Canarias Jazz & Más, which will be held from 5 to 27 July. And as in every edition, it does so featuring a line-up of artists, exemplary models of the genre.

  This year, among others, the billing features the legendary Cuban pianist ‘Chucho Valdés & Tributo Irakere 50’; the star-studded get together of Chris Potter, Brad Mehldau, John Patitucci & Jonathan Blake; the excellent US vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant; and the presence of other artists such as Dave Douglas; Estrellas de Buena Vista; Veronica Swift; Knower (formation led by the multi-instrumentalist Louis Cole and the singer Genevieve Artadi); Ana Popovic; Harold López-Nussa, Jonathan Kresiberg; Theo Croker; Antonio Lizana and London Afrobeat Collective.

  On a regional level, the festival programmes its concerts at more than twenty venues on the eight islands, which host over forty musical formations. The festival’s commitment keeps on evolving, maintaining some of its own characteristics, such as the presence of notable jazz figures in its billing, that alternate with emerging bands and local groups; and the staging of events in open-air venues (emblematic public squares) and thus free entrance; alternating its programming with those venues more representative of the cultural life of the Canary Islands, viz. auditoriums, theatres & concert halls.

  During four weeks in the month of July, the Festival Canarias Jazz & Más becomes one of the main meeting points for lovers of good music. During these three decades of its existence, it has managed to consolidate a knowledgeable and curious audience, open to both concerts featuring the festival’s top billing as well as discovering new talents of the genre. But it has also become an attraction and a must for thousands of tourists that visit the islands during the month of July, complementing the cultural offer of the islands, which is ever expanding, and that meets the expectations of a tourist open to new experiences.

  Chucho Valdés kicks off his tour ‘Chucho Valdés & Tributo Irakere 50’, as a tribute to the Cuban band ‘Irakere’ which marked a ‘before & after’ in Latin Jazz, and he does this at the Festival Internacional Canarias Jazz & Más. 

  The formation is led by Chucho Valdés on piano, accompanied by his son Julián Valdés on drums; José A. Gola –acoustic & electric bass-; Horacio Hernández -drums; Roberto Jr. Vizcaíno Torre -percussion-; Eddie de Armas Jr. -trumpet-; Luis Beltrán -sax-; Carlos Averhoff Jr. -sax-; Osvaldo Fleites -trumpet-; & Ramón Álvarez -vocalist-, enabling us to relive some of his prior achievements such as “Bacalao con pan” & “Cien años de juventud”.

  Irakere “reset” the popular dance genre in the Latin world and allowed jazz an unprecedented media exposure. The origins of what would be that great boom are in 1962, when Dionisio Jesús Valdés Rodríguez, whom everyone knew as Chucho, coincided at theTeatro Musical de La Habana (Havana Music Theatre) with the guitarrist Carlos Emilio Morales and clarinet/saxophone player Paquito D’Rivera, among other colleagues, forming a combo which served to channel and experiment with new ideas.

  In March 2024, the album “Eagle’s Point” was released, and is well on its way to become the best jazz album of the year. The disc features saxophonist Chris Potter, famous for his boundless creativity, his technique and immaculate sense of swing, playing alongside Brad Mehldau, described by The New York Times as “the most influential jazz pianist of the past twenty years”, and bassist John Patitucci, winner of four Grammy awards and with a track record of some thirty years. Joining them on the tour that brings them to Europe and the Festival Canarias Jazz & Más, is drummer Johnathan Blake, whom NPR described as “the ultimate modernist”. With credentials ranging from Pharoah Sanders & Wayne Shorter, across Sting, Paul Simon & Herbie Hancock, all the way up to Pat Metheny & Avishai Cohen, playing together, these four virtuosos cover just about every style under the sun.

  The upshot of their collaboration is a collection of compositions that are as refreshing as they are characterful, guided by the principles of creativity and virtuosity. The foursome’s intense improvisations are testament to their mutual respect and their respect for the music, without descending into a string of mundane pats on the shoulder. Fans of the discographies of the individual musicians are certain to delight in this new source of music. How will this translate live? Into splashing flows of genius!

Cécile McLorin Salvant

One of the great artists to visit us this year is Cécile McLorin Salvant, composer, singer & visual artist.  The late Jessye Norman described Salvant as “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and fully-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings.” Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, folk traditions from around the world, theatre, jazz, and baroque music. She is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humour.

Salvant won the Thelonius Monk competition in 2010. She has received Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for three consecutive albums, “The Window,” “Dreams and Daggers,” and “For One To Love,” and was nominated for the award in 2014 for her album “WomanChild.” In 2020, Salvant received the MacArthur fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. “Ghost Song”, Salvant’s debut for Nonesuch Records, was released in March 2022 to critical acclaim, and has gone on to receive two Grammy Nominations, as well as being included in spots in some ‘Best Albums of 2022’ lists. This was followed up on 24 March 2023 by the release by Nonesuch Records of “Mélusine”, an album sung mostly in French along with Occitan, English, and Haitian Kreyòl.

Salvant’s latest work, ‘Ogresse’, is a musical fable in the form of a cantata that blends genres (folk, baroque, jazz, country). Salvant wrote the story, lyrics, and music. It is arranged by Darcy James Argue for a thirteen-piece orchestra of multi-instrumentalists. Ogresse, both a biomythography and homage to the Erzulie (as painted by Gerard Fortune) & Sara Baartman, explores fetishism, hunger, diaspora, cycles of appropriation, lies, otherness and ecology. It is in development to become an animated feature-length film, which Salvant will direct.