PROGRAM

Mendizorrotza Sport Arena

Monday, 14th · 9.00 pm, 15 €

Electronic Night

Parov Stelar

Marcus Ferüder, austriaco, es mas conocido como Parov Stelar. Es considerado por muchos una de las grandes revelaciones de los últimos años. Mezcla el jazz y la electrónica de una forma bastante particular,  bastante difícil de describir pero que en Centro Europa ha alcanzado un enorme éxito. El austriaco lo describe como “la libertad del jazz combinada con el groove del house y break beat”.

Galactic

Galactic es un grupo de jazz y funk formado en 1994 en Nueva Orleans, Lousiana, integrado por sus fundadores Jeff Raines (guitarra), Robert Mercurio (bajista) así como por su rotundo batería Stanton Moore, Ben Ellman (saxofón), Rich Vogel (Hammond) y Theryl DeClouet a las voces. La banda ha desarrollado un sonido único como resultado de sus múltiples influencias: hip hop, Go-Go, electrónica, world music, música latina, rock, blues y jazz, que los convierten en unos auténticos rompepistas. Sus álbumes más recientes, From the Corner to the Block y Ruku son una mezcla de Medeski Martin and Wood con James Brown salpimentada con Los Beastie Boys.

Tuesday, July 15th · 9.00 pm, 33 €

Wayne Shorter Quartet

Wayne Shorter has had a profound impact on jazz history. He has broken rules as an improviser, composer and conceptualist and has made a great contribution to  hard bop, fusion and funk. He was musical director of the Jazz Messengers from 1959 to 1964. John Coltrane recommended him to Miles Davis but at that time Shorter was involved in musical commitments with Art Blakey. Finally, in 1964, he signed up with Davis and formed one of the greatest quintets in jazz history together with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. In 1970, Shorter formed “Weather Report” with Joe Zawinul, a band that pursued the kind of expansive, electronic jazz invented by Miles. This band, a reference of jazz rock, disbanded in 1986. Since then, Wayne Shorter has become one of the most important sax players in jazz history and many of his compositions are considered standards. A perfectionist, he can be cerebral or lyrical, depending on the moment. Shorter confirms that his creativity has no limits.

Herbie Hancock

2008 Grammy Award for the Best Album and Grammy for the Best Jazz Album by “The River”, Herbie Hancock has been  one of the great names in jazz since his first album as leader, “Taking Off” (1962), which included his hit “Watermelon Man”. He was in one of the most important groups in jazz history, the Miles Davis Quintet, together with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. After that, he formed The Head Hunters to perform funk music and electronic music, although he got back together with his colleagues from Miles’ group in V.S.O.P. (Very Special Onetime Performance) in which Freddie Hubbard replaced Miles Davis, and years later he was substituted by a very young Wynton Marsalis. Hancock is also a prolific composer of sound tracks like “Blow up”, and he got an Oscar in 1987 for “’Round Mignight”. The great impact and the excellent music of his last album “The River” won him an absolute Grammy Award, something that  has not happened in the jazz world for 43 years.

Wednesday, July 16th · 9.00 pm, 26€

Javier Limón

His name has been a constant in the last few years with respect to the most important recordings produced in Spain: “Lagrimas Negras” Bebo Valdes y el Cigala; “Cositas Buenas” Paco de Lucia, Ana Belen, Montse Cortes, Enrique Morente, Luz Casal, Andres Calamaro, … it is a very long list. He has received five  Grammy Awards and now he releases his third album “Son de Limon” with a group of Cuban musicians making music with a magnificent aroma of Latin jazz.

Chucho Valdés Quintet & Bebo Valdés

Two unique and superlative piano players. There is no piano player in the world who plays like Chucho, Bebo’s eldest son. For Cucho, there is nobody in the world like Bebo, his father, an unquestionable legend, the living memory of Cuban music, a melting pot which unites a unique mix of African, Spanish and  European classical music roots.
Chucho Valdés, is one of the most vigorous piano players in Cuban Jazz, he was member of Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna together with Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D’Rivera. He has been the leader of Irakere for 35 years, a band that has mixed afro-cuban rhythms and  jazz with magnificent arranges that plays value on the quality of its members. Chucho is an excelent piano player influenced by Art Tatum and McCoy Tyner but with roots in the deepest tradition of his land. 

Thursday, July 17th · 9.00 pm, 26 €

Maria Schneider Big Band

For the last 15 years, Maria has arranged, conducted and written for a big band. And write is the key word for Maria Scheneider, fundamental for her music. Behind the moving “Sky Blue”, for which she has just received a Grammy Award for the Best Composition, we find an accomplished musician and a composer with rich and vibrant imagination. An Inventor of emotions who expresses doubts and convictions. In the style of  Duke Ellington,  Maria knows how to conduct and give freedom to her musicians to get the best from them. Her work with Gil Evans is well known, and today “Sky Blue”, her sixth album, has made her a composer, an arranger and a big band leader of great importance.

Cassandra Wilson

She has a sensual, rich and bluesy voice and she has become one of the most outstanding  contemporary jazz singers.  In fact, she has been nominated the best jazz singer by  Jazz Times magazine and best vocalist by Down Beat magazine for many years. In her repertoire, besides the Mississippi blues, there are reverential covers of Miles Davis, whom she admires, or Billie Holiday, and pop songs by Bob Dylan. She has also collaborated with the famous M-Base of Steve Coleman.

Friday, July 18th · 9.00 pm, 40 €

Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins “The Colossus” comes back to Vitoria. After his spectacular concert in the Vitoria Jazz Festival two years ago, the great tenor sax player will return to perform  with an exclusive concert in Spain in the Summer of 2008. His concert will be on Friday July 18th. He was elected Musician of the Year and Best Tenor Sax Player in 2007 by the readers of Down Beat magazine (issue of December 2007). Sonny Rollins is one of the greatest jazz innovators. He has been described by The Village Voice newspaper as “the last jazz immortal” and he is one of the survivors of the golden era of jazz, a master who probably will never be equalled. “The Colossus” is in good shape. That was proved when he received the 2006 Grammy Award for the Best Solo Instrumental by “Why I Was Born”, the Polar Music Prize or the Honoris Causa Doctorate of Colby College.

Saturday, July 19th · 9.00 pm, 26 €

50 anniversary of bossa nova

Rosa Passos

To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the  first recording of Bossa Nova (“Chega de Sadudade” recorded by Joao Gilberto and composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes), the Vitoria Jazz Festival will celebrate it in a very special way because  Bossa Nova is very close to the hearts of jazz fans and musicians.

The evening will begin with the singer from Bahia Rosa Passos, considered the female Joao Gilberto. Passos has a warm and sweet voice with an extraordinary swing (balaço). She has collaborated not only with Brazilian musicians like Ivan Lins and Chico Buarque but also great names like Ron Carter or Paquito D’Rivera, and the great cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Henry Salvador or Chris Botti. 

Milton Nascimento & Trio Jobim

In the second part of the evening we will have Milton Nascimento, one of the greatest Brazilian musicians who had his first hit when Elis Regina recorded one of his compositions. His collaborations with Wayne Shorter and Pat Metheny won him many readers votes at the beginning of the nineties and he won a Grammy Award in 2000. The Jobim Trio features Paolo Jobim (guitar player and Tom Jobim’s son, who also played with Milton in 1979), Daniel (Jobim’s grand son, piano player and singer) and Paolo Braga who almost always accompanied Antonio Carlos Jobim.

The repertoire of this evening will be not only be a tribute to Jobim’s compositions but also to one of the richest eras of  Brazilian music.

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