Avantgarde Jazz Festival
A Nostalgic Look Back 2011- 2014

Avantgarde Jazz Festival: China Moses Quartet

09.05.2014 | www.rovinj-tourism.com

China Moses, singer, composer, producer and actress, amongst other things also an MTV star, dedicated one of her projects, which she published on the album “This One’s For Dinah”

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The China Moses Quartet opened the fourth instalment of the Avantgarde Jazz Festival with an exceptional performance and in the upcoming period jazz lovers will be able to enjoy seven more attractive concerts by some of the best jazz vocalists, musicia

China Moses, singer, composer, producer and actress, amongst other things also an MTV star, dedicated one of her projects, which she published on the album “This One’s For Dinah”, to the legendary singer Dinah Washington. Not without reason. Namely, “the queen” foretold the singer’s destiny to her mother, at that time a baby and today the famous singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, whose mother took her after one of her performances to her dressing room. Like Dinah Washington, China Moses also bases her approach on blues and sensitivity. This is felt in the performances of “the queen’s” hits, as well as in the author’s composition “Dinah Blues” dedicated to Dinah Washington. China also shows her respect to Dinah on her new album “Crazy Blues”, which she has dedicated to her and other great dames of blues and soul who have been inspiring her throughout her whole career, amongst whom are Mamie Smith, Helen Humes, Ma Rainey, Esther Phillips, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Etta James and Donna Summer. However, this blues and jazz statement is just a part of this versatile artiste’s creativity.

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4TH AVANTGARDE JAZZ FESTIVAL HAS KICKED OFF

China Moses Opens the Concert Season

The China Moses Quartet opened the fourth instalment of the Avantgarde Jazz Festival with an exceptional performance and in the upcoming period jazz lovers will be able to enjoy seven more attractive concerts by some of the best jazz vocalists, musicians and composers of today.

The quartet fronted by singer China Moses, a daughter of legendary Dee Dee Bridgewater and director Gilbert Moses, has met the expectations of music fans whose loud applause and a demand for an encore brought the singer back to the stage for additional performances of Tine Turner’s song I Can’t Stand The Rain and Dona Summer’s disco hit Hot Stuff. However, most of her repertoire was inspired by Dinah Washington, to whom China Moses dedicated her album This One's For Dinah, and her interpretation of Mammie Smith’s Crazy Blues was deeply inspiring.

With this concert of a famous jazz star who was only sixteen when she recorded her first single and video and eighteen in 1996 when she released her debut album China, followed by solo albums On tourne en rond (2000), Good Lovin (2004), This One's For Dinah (2009) and Crazy Blues (2012), the Avantgarde Jazz Festival has again proved itself to be a world-renowned and widely acclaimed jazz festival putting Rovinj, its picturesque host town, on the map of must-see destinations for travellers with a penchant for music and culture.

Regular visitors of jazz evenings are familiar with the After Party at Kantinon, which has become a great place for exchanging impressions, meeting renowned musicians and having a great time until early morning hours. All of the above accompanied by house specials, selected wines and Istria’s delicacies matched by Maistra’s top chefs and sommeliers, makes Avantgarde Jazz Festival an experience not to be missed.

RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA'S GAMAK QUARTET

The Avantgarde Jazz Festival opens the best alt saxophone today

www.tportal.hr April 24 2013

American jazz musician Rudresh Mahanthappa has earned his prestigious title a year earlier, and his high position in the elite world of jazz is confirmed by the International Association of Jazz Journalists who has been honoring him for the past four years. His talents have been noticed by legendary jazz musicians who like to cooperate with him. So Rudner Mahanthappa has so far collaborated with Clark Terry, Jack DeJohnette, Bunky Green, and Dani Perez.

Saxonist, composer (winner of several prominent awards for his composing work) and music instructor, Mahanthappa is a versatile artist who combines in his work the musical heritage of various cultures enriching his contemporary jazz vocabulary. She is extremely reliant on the tradition of Indian music, which is particularly convincingly conducted through collaboration with another respected American musician of contemporary jazz Indian roots, pianist and composer Vijay Iyer. Together, or each and every one of them, with great curiosity and enthusiasm, as well as knowledge, are competently exploring new musical possibilities in joining the various elements of these two genres of music, experimenting with an effort to create a new amalgam, launch new models and point to the direction in which jazz creativity of the twenty-first century could have developed. In order to make India's music as convincingly as possible in jazz language, Mahanthappa explores it in the spring, in India, through learning and collaboration with the carnathic and other idioms of Indian music, which, among other things, is realized through improvisation.

Like Iyera, he also releases for the German record label ACT, devoted to documenting the achievement of newer creative musicians. For this publisher he has released a prominent album 'Gamak' in January this year, which combines all the musical experiences he has had so far and will present at the 3rd Avantgarde Jazz Festival in Rovinj. The concert starts at 9 pm.

July 2012 Issue 5 MCM | docplayer.net
BROJA ISSUE THEME Avantgarde Jazz festival

all Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life - said a famous American jazz musician Art Blakey once, thus concisely and picturesquely explaining the beneficial effects of this particular type of music. If, at the same time, you have the opportunity to enjoy in the first-rate jazz for as long as a couple of months, then you can really be sure your soul will be well nourished, and your mind will escape from the everyday life at least for a short while at the Avantgarde Jazz Festival in Rovinj. Big-League Names The first edition of the Avantgarde Jazz Festival was held last year in Rovinj, and the first-rate jazz program took place during three months.

This year, we are in for an even richer program and even more all that jazz moments. This is supported by the selection of jazz critics from the eminent magazine JazzTimes, according to whom as many as seven performers, performing at the 2nd Avantgarde Jazz Festival, have been included high on the charts among the best in the world! Already last year, when it was held for the first time, the unique concept of the festival (the concerts are held from May to July) managed to reach through to numerous fans of jazz music and to enrich the cultural and tourist offer of the town. Avantgarde Jazz Festival, with Maistra as the general sponsor, has this year managed to gather some of the most significant names of the world jazz scene.

After Christian McBride Trio, which will open the festival at the hotel Eden on 4 May, the performance by the Yellowjackets is eagerly awaited at the former Tobacco Factory Rovinj on 18 May. In their several decades long career, the Yellowjackets have won a series of awards and acknowledgements, among which a few Grammy awards and nominations for this prestigious award.

The day after that, the 3 Cohens Sextet ft. Anat, Yuval & Avishai will perform at the same place. The best jazz groups consist of soul mates, but we can rarely find family groups with something more than that: an intuitive feeling for each other which surpasses any words or gestures, and which is actually an innate telepathy. The ensemble The 3 Cohens are such kind of a rare team.

 In June, to be more precise on 29 June, we expect the performance of John Scofield’s Hollowbody Band ft. Kurt Rosenwinkel, Ben Street, Bill Stewart. The project Hollowbodies is a real big band: improvisation is, as always, the key ingredient, while the true magic lies in their interplay.

After them, on 30 June, The Tierney Sutton Band will hold a concert. Three-time Grammy nominee in the category for the Best Jazz Vocal Album, Tierney Sutton is often described as a favourite singer among singers, but also as a favourite singer among musicians, who uses her voice as an instrument. The Jazzweek has proclaimed Tierney as the vocalist of the year; she was awarded with the vocalist award by the LA Jazz Society, while she is at the top of the charts according to the choice by the critics and the public.

In July The Bad Plus will open the first concert in July, on 6 July to be more exact. The group has constantly been on tour since their debut album, playing and creating a versatile and extatic hybrid audience for themselves in jazz clubs, symphony halls and rock concerts (as support to The Pixies, Wilco, itd.) in the USA and the world. Ana Moura will hold her concert on 7 July. She was born in Santaremo, the hurried center of the province Ribatejo in the heart of Portugal, and she has made her way through as the leading voice of the traditional fado precisely at the moment when this esteemed idiom has restored its popularity.

Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter will be performing on 13 July. Kurt Elling is one of the standout jazz vocalists of our time. The Jazz Journalists Association has chosen him the Male Singer of the Year six times in the past ten years, and the DownBeat Critics Poll named him the best Male Singer for twelve years. He is also a Grammy winner, and every record he has made has been Grammy nominated.

Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet will be playing on 15 July. Omar Sosa received the life achievement award by the Smithsonian Associates program; he was nominated for the Grammy award five times, and twice for Gary Burton... Start planning your trip to Rovinj, and by the way, be sure not to miss the opportunity to wash out the dust of everyday life with jazz...
The BBC world music award. In a unique and cosmopolitan way, Sosa combines cultural traditions of Africa and Europe, North and South America. He articulates a brilliant and simultaneously modern global jazz idiom, which assumes a new form through a joyous, open and cooperative approach to musical creativity.

This year’s festival will be closed by Playing for Change who will perform at the former Tobacco Factory Rovinj on 22 July. Using innovative mobile audio and video techniques, the project Playing for Change (PFC) includes recording musicians on the field, in the cities and communities all over the world. The talented artists were recorded in extremely diverse situations - under the sun and street lamps, in public parks, on squares and promenades, on stone-paved roads and hilly villages. Their performances were then combined into a whole that enabled them to cooperate - although they are separated by hundreds, even thousands of miles. What else can we say but - start planning your trip to Rovinj, and by the way, be sure not to miss the opportunity to wash out the dust of everyday life with jazz. Ensure your place on the concerts at unique locations where you can experience Rovinj in the best possible way - through music.

MEDIA ANNOUNCEMENT
Avantgarde Jazz Festival presents Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio feat. Jonathan Kreisberg & Jamire Williams
Rovinj, 30 May 2011
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Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio is the next great name of this  year’s Avantgarde Jazz Festival, and the concert of this jazz virtuoso, the famous organ keyboardist will be held on 10 June on the terrace of Maistra's hotel Monte Mulini in Rovinj starting at 9 PM.

Dr.  Lonnie Smith  has  the  reputation  as  one  of  the  best  organists  and  the  status  of  the forefather of acid jazz, a nd his unique  style and a rich musical opus include  him among the music  icons.  He  has  been  one  of  the  jazz  scene  leaders  since  1969  when Down  Beat  critics voted him as the best organist. Since then he has made an impressive career with more than 30  album s  he  recorded  as  a  band  leader.  He  played  at  the  most  prominent  festivals  and cooperated with the famous jazz players such as Dizzy Gillespie, Randy Brecker , Ron Carter, Lee Morgan,  Joe  Lovano , Lou  Donaldson,  Ron Holloway and Grover Washington  Jr . He  has b een  very  active  in  the  last  decade,  releasing  six  solo  albums  and  the  Jazz  Journalist Association voted him Organ Keyboardist of the Year for several times - in 2003 , 2004 , 2005, 2008 and 2009 . Dr. Lonnie  Smith has promoted the organ sound in jazz for mor e  than five decades and we can easily say that his name has become the synonym for this instrument.

The concert starts at 9 PM, entrance opens at 20 PM.

Tickets for Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio can be purchased in Maistra’s hotels: Monte Mulini, Eden, Park  an d  Adriatic  and  at  Eventim  selling  points  and  online  at www.eventim.hr .  The  presale ticket price is 200 HRK and 160 HRK. Soon we will have more information on the tickets  for other concerts of the Avantgarde Jazz Festi val.

This season, Avantgarde Jazz Festival, with Maistra as its general sponsor, will present some of  the  most  significant  names  of  the  world's  jazz  scene,  enriching  the  cultural  life  and tourism  offerings  of  the  town,  gifting  the  local  and  international jazz  audience  with  the pleasure of listening to music at the prestigious locations in Rovinj. After the performances by Julian Lage Group, Anat Cohen Quartet and Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio , the audience will enjoy in three excellent jazz concerts. The first one will be held on 1 July in hotel  Monte  Mulini by  the  New Gary  Burton  Quartet  headed  by  Gary  Burton, the musician who presented his style of playing the vibraphone with four sticks and popularized the duet format in jazz. One week after the performance of t he New Gary Burton Quartet , on 8 July, George  Benson, one of the most  famous pop and R&B singers  and a supreme  jazz guitarist and  a  multiple  Grammy
A ward  winner,  will  hold  a  concert  in  the  premises  of  the  former Rovinj  Tobacco  Factory.  On  17  July the  forme r  Rovinj  Tobacco  Factory will  host  Return  to Forever IV, the leading group of the jazz fusion movement of the 70s headed by Chick Corea.

Avantgarde  Jazz  Festival is  sponsored  by : Maistra, Tourist  Board  of Rovinj, Zagrebačka banka, Coca - Cola, Ožujsko, Jutarnji list, Otvoreni radio, Tportal.hr, Muzika.hr.