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26 Sep 2015
Follow the white rabbit, a lecture by Bogdan Benigar, director of the Ljubljana Jazz Festival, at the European Jazz Conference
Festival began life in 1960 as the Yugoslavian Jazz Festival. For the first six years it took place in Bled, then in 1967 it moved to Ljubljana to Tivoli Hall and in 1970 finally found its traditional domicile in the attractive outdoor venue of Križanke. Due to organisational problems and controversies about its music and artistic direction in the mid-1980s the festival was moved for two years to the then newly established Cankarjev dom, Cultural and Congress Centre, but Križanke remains as its primary venue. Cankarjev dom became its regular organiser with relatively stable public funding in 1982.
In 1982 the organisation of the Ljubljana Jazz Festival was taken over from the local Jazz Society, its conventional jazz milieu and close-tied connections with the institutionalised RTV Slovenia Big Band, bastion of Slovene jazz traditionalism. Not without resistance and public polemics the first enlarged programme council which also included younger jazz connoisseurs was the start of musical opening toward new jazz, various forms of improvised music, and new trends associated with or inspired by jazz. This was the turning point of festival orientation till now, an orientation that was followed by appointments of various art directors with different "success", often publicly attacked from various interest groups, "jazz angles" and aesthetic positions.
Till now the festival has presented the most eminent world jazz and improvising musicians from Europe, the USA and other parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Many open air or interdisciplinary events accompany the festival, including street performances, a film programme centred on film documentaries, exhibitions of posters, round tables, exhibitions of jazz photography and art works made by jazz musicians. In recent years the Ljubljana Jazz Festival has been cooperating more closely with Maribor (Lent and Izzven) Jazz Festivals and Jazz Cerkno Festival, establishing a kind of Slovene triangle of jazz festivities.
In half a century the Ljubljana Jazz Festival has presented jazz artists and groups from numerous countries, among them: Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet (DE, 1962), Modern Jazz Quartet (US) & Laurindo Almeida (BR), Krzysztof Komeda Quintet (PL, 1965), Jean-Luc Ponty (FR, 1967), Martial Solal Trio (FR/CH, 1968), Memphis Slim (US, 1968), Kimiki Kasai & Akira Tanaka (JP, 1969), Bill Evans Trio (US/GB, 1972), Archie Shepp Quintet (US, 1973), Yosuke Yamashita Trio (JP, 1974), Odetta (US, 1974), Elvin Jones Quartet (US, 1975), Cecil Taylor Quintet (US, 1976), New Terje Rypdal Group (NL, 1977), Sončna pot (Ljubljana, YU, 1978), Leb i sol (Skopje, YU, 1978), Tone Janša Quartet (YU/CH/AT, 1978), Paul Bley (US, 1979), Airto Moreira Group (BR/US/JP, 1980), Pharoah Sanders Quartet (US, 1981), Steve Lacy & Mal Waldron (US, 1982), Sun Ra Archestra (US, 1982), Irene Schweizer (CH) – Rüdiger Carl (DE, 1982), Lester Bowie Ensemble (US, 1982), Willem Breuker Kollektief (NL, 1983), Keith Tippett – Peter Brötzmann Quartet (GB/DE/DD, 1984), Vienna Art Orchestra (conductor Matthias Rüegg: int., 1985), Anthony Braxton Quartet (US, 1985), Julius Hemphill Jah Band (US, 1985), Dudu Pukwana & Zila (GB/ZA, 1986), McCoy Tyner Trio (US, 1986), The Art Ensemble Of Chicago (US, 1987), Max Roach (US, 1988), Gilberto Gil (BR, 1988), Sergey Kuryokhin's Pop-Mekhanika Ensemble (SU, 1989), Henry Threadgill Sextet (US, 1989), Sony Sharrock Band (US, 1990), Steve Coleman’s Five Elements (US, 1990), Miles Davis (US, 1991), Don Byron Klezmer Orchestra (US, 1994), Ray Barretto & New World Spirit Orchestra (US, 1994), Bill Frisell Group, Defunkt (US, 1996), Tito Puente & His Latin Jazz Ensemble (US, 1997), Muhal Richard Abrams Quartet (US, 2000), Zlatko Kaučič (SI, 2000), Italian Instabile Orchestra (IT, 2001), David S. Ware Quartet, Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos (US, 2001), Peter Brötzmann "Chicago Tentet" (int., 2002), Femi Anikulapo – Kuti & The Positive Force (NG, 2002), Maya Homburger & Barry Guy (CH/GB, 2003), Jan Garbarek Group (NO, 2003), Ornette Coleman Quartet (US, 2004), Pat Metheny (US, 2004), Abdullah Ibrahim (SA, 2005), David Murray & The Gwo-Ka Masters (US/GP, 2006), Alexander von Schlippenbach & Die Enttäuschung (DE, 2006), Tomasz Stanko Quartet (PL, 2007), Roscoe Mitchell Chicago Quartet (US, 2009), Louis Moholo Viva La Black & Keith Tippett & MinAfric Orchestra (SA/GB/IT, 2009), John Zorn Dreamers (US, 2009).
The 51st edition of the festival will be held in various venues from June 29 to July 3 2010 featuring Pat Metheny, Bob Ostertag & Phil Minton, Samo Šalamon Trio, Louis Sclavis, Kip Hanrahan, and others.
Culture.si offers information on Slovene cultural producers, venues, festivals and support services, all in one place. It encourages international cultural exchange in the fields of arts, culture and heritage. The portal and its content is owned and funded by the Ministry of Culture, funded by the European Union Recovery and Resilience Plan and developed by Ljudmila Art and Science Laboratory.
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