14º Festival Internacional de Jazz de Loulé (English Text)

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Saturday, 5 of July

ALLGARVE CONCERT

Monumento Duarte Pacheco, 10 pm

Herbie Hancock Quintet

• Herbie Hancock - piano
• Chris Potter - tenor sax
• Lionel Loueke - guitar
• Dave Holland - double bass
• Vinnie Colaiuta - drums

We don’t need words to introduce great American composer and pianist Herbert Jeffrey Hancock. Anyway: he was born in Chicago (1940, April, 12) and is an Academy Award and Grammy award-winning. He started with a classical music education and he played the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 5 in D Major at a young people’s concert with the Chicago Symphony at age eleven. Herbie grew to like jazz after hearing some Oscar Peterson and George Shearing recordings, which he transcribed. His music embraces elements of rock, soul and jazz. In the sixties, as part of Miles Davis's quintet, Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section. Later, he was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers and Fender Rhodes piano. As a composer, everybody knows Hancock's works; among others: Maiden Voyage, Cantaloupe Island, Watermelon Man, Chameleon… His 2007 tribute album, "River: The Joni Letters" won the 2008 Grammy (Album of the Year), only the second jazz album to win this award.

Friday 25 of July

Near Convento do Espírito Santo, 10 pm

Júlio Resende Quartet

• Júlio Resende - piano
• Perico Sambeat - sax
• João Custódio - double bass
• João Rijo - drums

One of the most significant forces in the new generation of jazz musicians in Portugal, pianist Júlio Resende was initially taught by one of the leading Portuguese jazz pedagogues, Zé Eduardo, and then followed by Rodrigo Gonçalves and Pedro Moreira. Resende had a classical background, but soon he found out he was not satisfied to play compositions he could not improvise over. He decided to study and work with the best masters from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, the Berklee College of Music, and the Bill Evans Academy, in between spending time at the Université de St. Denis in Paris. “Da Alma” (“From the Soul”) is the first title he has recorded under his name and it is a promising debut. Rooted in the bop tradition, but with a creative, open, and modern approach, the music is bright, full of colour, seductive, and sometimes exquisite. Resende has a strong flair for melody. The future and the present of jazz in Portugal is already coming from here.

Saturday, 26 of July

Near Convento do Espírito Santo, 10 pm

Cyminology

• Cymin Samawatie - vocals
• Benedikt Jahnel - piano
• Ralf Schwarz - double bass
• Ketan Bhatti - drums

Cymin Samawatie, daughter of Iranian emigrants, was born in Braunschweig, Germany. She made classic musical studies at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater and graduated (Hanover University) and vocal jazz at the Hochschule der Kunste (Berlin).

Cyminology presents not only a unique musical genre, but also brings to the stage an intercultural view of life. Always presented with great virtuosity in a strictly acoustic setting, this is a flavour of vocal jazz somewhere between “new” jazz and the “old” classical style; an intense musical colour is created to support the mystical Persian Lyrics. Cymin knows very well the poetry of Cymin worked with artists such as Steve Coleman, Mark Dresser, Dianne Reeves and Bobby McFerrin. In 2003, she shared the stage with Bobby (Braunschweig) to sing a vocal remix of Persian poems from the 11th century. It succeeds in connecting the fairytale-like language of Persian poetry with first class World Jazz of American and European influence. This is Cyminology, a voice and the meeting of true artists. They prove with their music that interculturality is already a part of everyday life.

Sunday, 27 of July

Near Convento do Espírito Santo, 10 pm

SF Jazz Collective

• Joe Lovano - tenor sax
• Stefon Harris - vibes
• David Douglas - trumpet
• Renee Rosnes - piano
• Miguel Zenon - alto sax
• Mattew Penman - double bass
• Eric Harland - drums
• Robin Eubanks - trombone

Every year these artists in jazz – some of them visited us in recent years - would set aside their numerous other high-profile projects and devote all their time and energy to the Collective. The group would annually divide its repertoire between new works written by and for the Collective’s members (and commissioned by SFJAZZ) and new arrangements of compositions by a modern jazz master—to date, Ornette Coleman (2004), John Coltrane (2005), Herbie Hancock (2006), Thelonious Monk (2007), and now Wayne Shorter.

The Collective is distinguished not just by degree, but diversity of talent: each member is not only a celebrated instrumentalist, but also an outstanding composer and arranger, and most are among today’s most lauded band leaders.

Now in its fifth season, the Collective has become one of the leading ensembles on today’s international jazz scene, appearing in prestigious concert halls and festivals throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Asia, earning “#1 Rising Star Jazz Group” honors in DownBeat’s 2006 Critics Poll, and placing high in 2007’s year-end “best albums” lists from the likes of National Public Radio (#3 album) and JazzTimes (#14).