Jazz à Vienne (perso)

2019

Chucho Valdés 5tet "Jazz Batá 2" / Omar Sosa & Yilian Cañizares: §§

2020

cancelled

2021

Anne Paceo / Tigran Hamasyan Trio / Youn Sun Nah: §§

2022

Layth Sidiq and Vasilis Kostas Duo: ££

2023

I finally splurged and bought a 7-day pass to the Roman theatre!

28/06 Opening night (antique theatre) Brilliant set from André Manoukian & company. The big band from Toulouse was also very good, as was Dee Dee Bridgewater, who has amazing energy at 73. Her Louis Armstrong imitation, and her trombone imitation, are both top-notch.

29/06 Only a storm kept me away from this show, which the outgoing artistic director had particularly recommended seeing.

30/06 Sampa the Great / Loyle Carner / Oxmo Puccino & Yaron Herman. Hip-hop night started with poetry, continued with a very popular Londoner, and finished with Sampa the Great's set, which was pure fire. Lots of people were leaving (as always, unfortunately, during the last act), but even more stayed and gave the group a standing ovation.

01/07 Amin & Luna. A duo from Lyon, who, despite the passing traffic, managed to enchant an audience of around 100 at Place de la Futeraie with Eastern melodies (Persia, Iraq, ...)

04/07 Selah Sue & Faada Freddy: Fadda Freddy was the opening act and also the one I preferred!

09/07 Electro Deluxe / Meute : the lead singer spoiled Electro Deluxe's performance (at least for me), which is too bad as the band is quite good. But Meute is a hard act to open for... and unsurprisingly they ended up being, hands down, the highlight of (what I saw of) the festival, at least in terms of energy: everyone was up and dancing (the average age was surely a bit younger than some other nights, but still, even the papies were cutting 'emselves up some rug stone).

10/07 Melody Gardot | Célia Kameni / Alfio Origlio | Yessaï & Marc Karapetian x Terri Lyne Carrington: You definitely got the feeling that most of the crowd preferred Célia Kameni's passionate performance to Melody Gardot's act (despite her amazing skillz). You could also see why the Karapetians chose Carrington as their (fellowship-funded) guest artist, even without the story they told of hers being one of their first jazz records.

13/07 I'd been planning to go to see Norah Jones and Mavis Staples, but all day I'd been grumbling to myself about the storm that was forecast for the evening. I left work late and didn't feel like climbing up the hill and then the stairs in the muggy heat to stand in the ominous-looking clouds where the last free centimeters were likely to be, so I decided to try my luck the next night. (Radio France covered Norah Jones show live, but unfortunately I missed Mavis Staples.)

12/07 Pat Metheny Side-Eye / Sixun: Sure enough, the next night the weather was beautiful (despite the forecast)... and Pat Metheny was by far the most magical opening act I have ever seen.

ognito-samara-joy-ajate-voilaaa-sound-system-lou-rivaille 13/07 closing night. Goran Bregović / Incognito / Samara Joy / Ajate / Lou Rivaille. Each act was excellent in its own way, but I decided to head home after the temperature dropped into the low teens around 4am... so I didn't earn my survivor pins. :)

Hats off to the whole crew, but especially to Benjamin Tanguy, who left the festival this year on a very high note.