The final stretch features most of the concerts in Santa Ana & Puerto de la Cruz
- Septeto Santiaguero, Pepe Bao Sextet, Philip Lassiter, Avishai Cohen ‘Big Vicious’, Pokaz Trio & Yusan will put the finishing touches to the festival, which Ernesto Montenegro will close at Fábrica La Isleta
Islas Canarias, 20 de julio de 2022. The 31st edition sees out its last days with a big bang that promises strong emotions and a lot of dancing in the free sessions staged in the public square of Santa Ana (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) and at Lago Martiánez (Puerto de la Cruz) bringing to a close an event featuring over 60 concerts. There have been more than 30 ensembles that have shared out their musical creativity over the eight islands at 27 venues. Four weeks of concerts and re-encounter with an attending audience which for yet another year has shown its loyalty by selling out entrance tickets at almost all the paid venues and filling to capacity the open-air free ones.
The final phase begins on Wednesday with performances by the Rayko León Quartet at Fábrica La Isleta and Berta Moreno, presenting her album Tumaini, at Lago Martiánez in Puerto de la Cruz. On Thursday double concert sessions commence in the public square of Santa Ana featuring performances by Pepe Bao Sextet, bassist of O’Funkillo and one of the best instrumentalists in the country, together with Septeto Santiaguero, legendary Cuban group, winners of many Grammy awards and an institution of Cuban ‘Son’. Two examples of this “& Más” that characterizes the last few sessions of the festival, much more festive, but without losing its kinship with original jazz.
The featured groups at these last few events of the festival will be crossing maritime & flight paths taking them from one island to another. On Thursday, for example, Fuensanta & Louis Cole will perform in Puerto de la Cruz together with Yusan and Avishai Cohen ‘Big Vicious’, who the day after, on Friday, will be in Lanzarote to perform in the public square ‘Plaza del Almacén’. The day that Puerto de la Cruz will host performances by Pepe Bao Sextet and Septeto Santiaguero, Santa Ana Square meanwhile will be enjoying contemporary jazz by the Ukranians Pokaz Trio and Philip Lassiter; who in turn will close the sessions at Lago Martiánez on Saturday; in the meantime, on Gran Canaria, Santa Ana Square will be bidding farewell until the coming year staging concerts by the French group Yusan and Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen with his project ‘Big Vicious’.
There will be no rest on Sunday for the Gran Canarian audience, with one last bullet left in the chamber; that of the Canarian trumpeter now based in Holland, Ernesto Montenegro, who will make his presentation in a quintet formation. And that will bring the curtain down at this 31st edition, that experienced exciting sessions with the artists heading the billing Marcus Miller and Gregory Porter, and once again were left surprised by a countless number of artists that left the audience with a pleasant taste in its mouth.
‘Big Vicious’ is a genre-bending venture by trumpeter Avishai Cohen, that originated from several Lower East Side jam sessions. The initial premise was to build instrumental songs based on rock riffs, using a mirrored rhythm section featuring two guitars and two drummers, and with Cohen leading and layering his distinctive trumpet melodies both inside and over the band. The resulting music is a combination of composed motifs, rock backbeats, and jazz improvisation that works both in a small dark club and an open-air festival stage. The Line-Up presented here features Avishai Cohen (trumpet, effects & y synthesizer), Uzi Ramirez (guitar), Yonatan Albalak (guitar & bass), Aviv Cohen (drums) & Ziv Ravitz (drums & live sampling).
Born in Ferrol (A Coruña) and forged musically between cities like Seville, Malaga & Madrid, Pepe Bao is one of the best bassists in the history of music in Spain. Known as the founder of the band from Seville ‘O’funkillo’, he has shared the stage with groups, such as Barón Rojo, Obús, Medina Azahara, Raimundo Amador, Marcus Miller, B.B King, Manolo García, Luz Casal, Rosana, and many more. He has formed a group with Carlos Benavent on occasions. He comes with a band consisting of himself, Pepe Bao (bass), El Amir (guitar & Arab lute), Joaquín Migallón (drums), Gabriel Peso (piano & keyboard), Isidro Suárez (percussion) & Kike Perdomo (sax).
Multi-faceted, multi-instrumentalist bandleader Philip Lassiter has been knee-deep in funk since his days as trumpeter and horn arranger in Prince’s New Power Generation. Born in Mobile, Alabama, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, he gravitated to the thriving Dallas music scene, where he came under the wing of mentors keyboardists Bernard Wright, Bobby Sparks and saxophonist Keith Anderson. With ‘Live in Love’, the trumpeter-composer-arranger mixes socio-political messaging with humorous, earthy storytelling and some forays into old school funk inspired by James Brown. About his music, he says “a whole lot of large ensemble neo-soul/hip-hop/jazz. That’s what we do.” The Line-Up at the festival is Philip Lassiter (trumpet, keyboard & vocals), Josje (vocals), Jordy Kalfsvel (keyboards), Glenn Gaddum (bass), Richie Reichgelt (guitar), Niek De Bruijn (drums) & Álvaro Jiménez (trumpet).
Founded in 2016 in Odessa by the pianist & academic composer Andrew Pokaz, the Pokaz Trio put into motion a new wave of contemporary jazz in Ukraine. The trio successfully combines jazz, classical & ethnic music with electronic contributions. Their first album, Kintsugi, was released on the Norwegian label ‘Losen Records’ in June 2019. On 10 March, Pokaz Trio released its latest single. “We felt that Ukraine needed to be heard and this was our freedom manifesto”. ‘Voices’ appeared on Spotify’s best international jazz compilations. The Pokaz Trio are Andrew Pokaz (piano), Eugene Myrmyr (bass) & Alex Poliakov (drums).
Founded in 1995 in Santiago de Cuba and with Fernando Dewar at the reins as its director, Septeto Santiaguero is a group considered among the main exponents of Cuban traditional music, affirmation endorsed by his outstanding career plus the recognitions and awards achieved throughout it. From its foundation until 2010 they released another five albums that were and are a luxury for music lovers and dancers. With two Grammy awards to their name, they come to the ‘Canarias Jazz & Más Festival’ presenting their new album, titled ‘Y sigo pa’lante’ in a formation directed by Fernando Dewar Webster (‘tres cubano’ (chordophone) & vocals), Rudens Matos Matos (guitar & vocals), Inocencio Heredia Castillo (minor percussion & vocals), Giraldo Bravo Ramírez (minor percussion & vocals), Dayron Robert Salazar (bass), Alain Antonio Dragoni Cotorruelo (trumpet & chorus), Gabriel Montero González (congas) y Carlos Danger Plana (bongos).
Yusan is a group created in 2016 after an unexpected artistic residency in Chamonix. This is a genuine friendship story that results in a common desire to make music together. An obvious alliance for these artists with very strong musical signatures, but share influences as a collective legacy, and a complicity that they put at the service of creation. Their jazz travels from Caribbean music to African rhythms, through songs, gospels sounds and urban influences. This mix is the sextet’s signature, where everyone naturally finds his own place. Line-Up is Mickaëlle Leslie (vocals), Romain Cuoq (sax), Ralph Lavital (guitar), Kevin Jubert (keyboard), Gwen Ladeux (bass) & Mathieu Edward (drums).
The young Canarian trumpeter & composer, Ernesto Montenegro, presents his ensemble to the audience as leader, with a repertoire consisting of compositions by Montenegro himself; in which he seeks to make his own vision of Afro-American music known, from total respect and devotion towards the same, and strongly rooted in the language inherited from legends like Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Elvin Jones & Wayne Shorter. And not forgetting the new trends and the tutoring that in his current stay in Amsterdam he has received from great exponents of this music, such as Terell Stafford, Dick Oatts, Bob Mintzer, Ben Wendel, Reinier Baas, Gregory Hutchinson & Kendrick Scott. For this assignment he decided to get together four musicians of three different nationalities with whom he has shared experiences & stage venues in Holland, besides having recorded some of the compositions that we will hear in the show. The quintet consists of Ernesto Montenegro (trumpet), Francisco Nascimiento (alto sax), Óscar Ployart (piano), Ton Felices (contrabass) & David Puime (drums).
The Canarian pianist, composer & arranger Rayko León continues to produce his own projects. On this occasion he presents a disc performed by a jazz quartet and recorded in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It is the spiritual continuation of ‘A Night in London’, the album recorded in London in 2018 after having performed at various local venues in the city, like the famous ‘Ronnie Scott ́s’. Rayko León (piano) will be accompanied by Renato D’Angelo (tenor sax), Alberto García Navarro (drums) & Carlos Meneses (contrabass).
The ‘Festival Internacional Canarias Jazz & Más’ will again have the support of the Canarian Government through the deputy minister of Culture & Heritage as main sponsor; the Island Councils of Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, La Palma, El Hierro, La Gomera, Tenerife & Gran Canaria; the Gran Canaria Tourist Board; the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria & Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Halls, the Santa Brígida, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, La Laguna, Puerto de la Cruz, Adeje, Los Llanos de Aridane, Alajeró, Arrecife & Teguise Town Halls; and stage venues, such as the Tenerife Auditorium, Theatre Leal, Auditorium-Theatre Foundation, Theatre Guiniguada, Theatre Cuyás, place of interest ‘Espacio La Granja’; the Elder Museum of Science & Technology, the ‘Paraninfo’ at the ULPGC, the Santo Domingo Convent in La Laguna, ‘Espacio R, Café Theatre Rayuela and Fábrica La Isleta.
