Burghausen: That was the 52nd International Jazz Week – Bavaria

The Burghausen International Jazz Week celebrated its 52nd edition last Sunday, making it the oldest continuous jazz festival of the first category in Europe. This is also evidenced by the bronze plaques of the “Walk of Fame” on which – similar to the Sunset Strip in Hollywood – the biggest stars who have played here are immortalized.

At the same time, they refer to the dilemma of the jazz week: almost everyone who is there is dead, there are hardly any new stars who carry a festival with their name alone. What is due to the mechanisms of the music market, not because there are no more great musicians. This is reliably demonstrated by the European Burghausen Young Talent Award, with which the festival started for the 13th time in the town hall.

Once again this year, the competition between five young bands – this time chosen from more than 60 applicants from all over Europe – which was sold out weeks in advance – was a reliable highlight. That the Munich Nils Kugelmann Trio against two Italian bands – including the excellent vibraphonist Michele Sanelli, who came second with a refreshing prog rock jazz project – that fenix-Quartet of Dutch singer Kika Sprangers and the third-placed Polish Jarecki Jazz Octet ended up coming out on top has nothing to do with local patriotism. Here a bassist presented himself who, like few others, raises his instrument, which usually serves as an accompaniment, to an equal status. By allowing each individual note to sound defined at the highest tempo, making complex compositions that are open to improvisation irresistible and catchy.

What drummer Sebastian Wolfgruber also played a part in, with the Leo Betzl Trio LBT had won here before and is the first double winner of the competition. And of course guitarist Philipp Schiepek with his classically trained and incredibly lyrical tone, even on the Stratocaster. Just two days earlier, Schiepek could not have dreamed of this success, as he had stood in for the sick, no less talented pianist Luca Zambito. The victory of this trio also stood for the wealth of grandiose young jazz musicians that the Jazz Institute of the Munich Music Academy is constantly producing. A jazz festival could and should reflect the fact that the same thing is happening in many other German and European cities. But more on that later.

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As in previous years, the opening act had a hard time keeping up with the winning band. This time it was veteran guitarist Lee Ritenour, whose well-hung West Coast smooth jazz, for all its easygoing virtuosity, seemed harmless and dowdy by comparison. On the following day, this also applied a bit to the veteran Swiss bassist Heiri Känzig, who felt like he only released the handbrake at the very end of his world-music Travelin’ sextet. Which was all the more striking because the highlight of the festival did not only follow visually.

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The New York alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin underlined why everyone is talking about her at the moment (and why she has also been nominated for the German Jazz Prize, among other things). After years of orientation and a serious accident, she has obviously found her way. Out of demonstrative, overwhelming jazz, as she presented it in the same place in 2017, unconventional, real music-making has now emerged, which she, apart from with her own songs, also has, among other things, a famous ballad version of “Amazing Grace” and both the standard model and Coltrane -Adaptation condensed and expanded version of “My Favorite Things” proved.

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After that, of course, jazz was over for the time being. The French Septet super gombo made the Wackerhalle dance, but musically it would be better off at the Africa Festival in Würzburg or the cabaret fair in Freiburg. And the lapsteel virtuoso Robert Randolph, who was persuaded with an obscene amount of money to his only European performance, was absolutely convincing with his funk blues – but it was more or less an extension of the traditional blues afternoon on Saturday, where the bands played the southern style Singer Trudy Lynn and the Chicago blues player Toronzo Cannon, two equally convincing but puristic representatives of their genre, were guests. The Finnish singer Ina Forsman, on the other hand, delivered flawless soul-pop until the Wackerhallen finale at the “Trumpet Summit” with Jon Faddis, James Morrison, Thomas Gansch and Gileno Santana, although back to jazz, but with a repertoire of “Take The A- Train” until “Caravan” was paid homage to tradition without surprise.

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The Saturday concerts in the Stadtsaal weren’t able to fly the flag of current jazz developments this time either: because New London Scene tubist Theon Cross didn’t even come because of the traffic strike. But also because you Jaga Jazzist booked a band from Norway, a pioneer in innovation, that has been doing the same thing for 30 years. After all, the final “Next in Jazz” Sunday didn’t have any of the countless next big things to offer either. The heart of the jazz week beat more than ever during the sessions in the jazz cellar.

Without wanting to start one of these tiresome discussions of terms: Precisely because jazz has now broken down all genre and style boundaries, there are enough musicians available who process all possible sound worlds in the jazz spirit. Communicating this to an audience that is finding it increasingly difficult to access is the primary task of a modern jazz festival.

What the Jazz Week and in particular the organizing IG Jazz lack is expertise. For decades, the festival had a competent artistic director in Joe Viera, until he, well over 80, slowly fell out of time. The Jazz Week needs someone like that again, otherwise it may still generate impressive numbers of visitors, but it will continue to lose importance in the scene.