Programme 3.11.
The final night of Jazzfest Berlin 2024 features a flurry of German and European premieres and concludes with one of the city’s most exciting new bands.
New York alto saxophonist and composer Darius Jones may be a new name to many European listeners, but he’s been turning heads in the US for years through a series of conceptually disparate projects. Still, the group he brings to Berlin stands among his greatest achievements. Alongside the wildly imaginative drummer Gerald Cleaver, Jones has assembled a remarkable stringdominated ensemble featuring some of Vancouver’s best musicians – cellist Peggy Lee, violinists Jesse and Josh Zubot and bassist James Meger – as the leader puts his spin on Fluxus tradition. Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier returns to the Jazzfest Berlin with a brand-new quartet that deploys the same instrumentation of the Modern Jazz Quartet, as she blends her expansive piano playing with the inventive, electronics-kissed contributions of vibraphonist Patricia Brennan. The group is rounded out by the all-star rhythm section of bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Dan Weiss. Japanese underground icon Otomo Yoshihide shows his abiding love for jazz tradition with his 17-member Special Big Band, melding a seething high volume energy with emotionally potent melodic shapes.
The jazz club A-Trane plays host to the remarkable duo of British pianist Alexander Hawkins and Swedish vocalist Sofia Jernberg. As heard on their spectacular new album “Musho”, the pair have expanded upon their shared interest in Ethiopian music – which remains at the core of the collaboration – to include haunting folk material from Armenia, England and Sweden, to say nothing of the singer’s original composition “Correct Behaviour”. While they draw upon folk material, their connection transcends it. This year’s festival comes to a raucous conclusion courtesy of Oùat, the genre-defying improvising trio of Berlin locals Michael Griener and Joel Grip, drums and bass, as well as French-based pianist Simon Sieger – who all add other instruments and vocals to the mix. Although firmly rooted in jazz tradition, their brand of improvising pulls in ideas from around the globe, but in the end it all sounds like music from Oùatland: population, infinite.
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