Murcia Jazz Festival: 2020 programming – The GO!

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The festival is celebrated from February 29 to March 28 in different spaces of the municipality of Murcia, both theaters, auditoriums and halls as well as streets and squares in which formations from within and outside the Region of Murcia will perform to bring the public a wide range of proposals close to jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and other related genres and styles.

The contest gathers the witness of the Murcia International Jazz Festival, which held its last edition, the thirtieth, in 2010, and thus once again endows the city of Murcia with its own festival dedicated to a musical genre that has more and more followers.

With a parade by the Dixieland Train Jazz Band The Murcia Jazz Festival will begin on the weekend of February 29 and March 1. Starting at 12 noon, the Murcian group made up of seven musicians and created in the purest New Orleans style will surprise passersby with its adaptations of early 20th century Dixieland jazz classics.

Likewise, other outdoor activities have been programmed such as a Morning Swing, with Dan Barrett Swing Party (March 15), and a Matinal de Blues Murciano, with Baboon Blues County, Santiago Campillo Trío and Oh, Brother! (March 22). Both activities will take place in the Plaza de la Universidad at 12:00.

Also outdoors, in the Plaza de los Apóstoles, a Murcian Jazz marathon will be held on Saturday, March 28, which, from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., will put an end to the Murcia Jazz Festival and in which they will participate la Big Band Cotijazz, la Big Band Groove In and other formations in the Region.

Concerts in halls

A total of eight concerts will be held within this first edition of the Murcia Jazz Festival in different venues in the municipality of Murcia. Four of them will bring together national and international jazz greats at the Teatro Circo Murcia (TCM): The first concert (March 6, 9pm) will bring together three greats of music in our country on stage: Javier Colina, Marc Miralta and Perico Sambeat, CMS TRIO, who will show that his recipe for jazz, Latin standards and popular roots music is more alive than ever.

On March 12 (9pm) it will be the turn of Clarence Bekker Band; the current line-up of the Dutch musician who went from being a dance music star in the 90s to playing in the streets of Barcelona where the American producer Mark Johnson listened to him and invited him to participate in the ‘Playing for Change’ project, led by stars like Bono, Keith Richards and Manu Chao. With them he has performed all over the world and they have videos of more than 100 million visits, as is the case of the legendary ‘Stand By Me’.

Israeli jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger Eli Degibri will perform at the TCM on March 20 (9pm) with his band; accompanied by three young and promising musicians with whom he maintains a great complicity: award-winning pianist Tom Oren, bassist Alon Near and drummer Eviatar Slivnik. The latest work from the Eli Degibri Quartet is ‘Soul Station’, a well deserved tribute to the great Hank Mobley. Currently, he is also the artistic director of the prestigious Red Sea Jazz Festival, Israel’s largest jazz festival.

The last of the concerts scheduled in the Murcia Circus Theater will be the March 27 (9pm) and will be conducted by the Catherine Russell Quintet; formation led by one of the great international ladies of jazz-blues. Russell has become one of the most versatile and dynamic players in jazz, whether accompanied by a solo piano or a band. She often looks back to Bessie Smith’s heyday, but she also performs with the ardor of the great singers of her main jazz lineage.

Tickets for the four concerts, which range between 10 and 18 euros, can be purchased at the theater box office and through its website (www.teatrocircomurcia.es). Likewise, a subscription is available for all performances with a 25% discount on the price of Zone A.

Another of the Murcian stages that opens its doors to the Murcia Jazz Festival is the Bernal Theater, which will host, on March 7 (9pm), the performance of Curro García Quintet. The formation led by the Murcian drummer Curro García will present their first album, ‘Five cities and a bitter truth’; an album that is, in itself, a catharsis in the face of a life experience full of drama told through four original compositions and some arrangements. Tickets are on sale, for 6 and 8 euros, at the Bernal Theater box office and the www.teatrobernal.com.

The municipal auditoriums of Guadalupe and Beniaján will also host two concerts on the days March 13 and 21 (9pm). In the Guadalupe Auditoriumwill make the audience dance the Zoot Suiters, with its rhythms and sounds from the golden 1920s; while Patxi Valverde Quartet will present its repertoire in Beniaján, combining his own arrangements and compositions with a good dose of swing and great improvisations. On both occasions, tickets can be purchased through www.enclavecultura.com.

Finally, the Jazzazza Jazz Club de Algezares will host the Felix Schneider Quartet on March 14 (10:30 p.m.); a formation born in 2014, while the German pianist resided in Valencia for a season, and resumed as of November 2017, when Schneider returned to Spain to present his new compositions with a modern jazz style, where various atmospheres are experienced without forgetting the tradition . The price of this concert is 16 euros at the table, 12 euros in advance standing and 14 euros at the box office.

The Murcia Jazz Festival will be complemented with two activities that go beyond the musical. A round table that, under the title ‘The jazz scene. Looking out from Murcia ‘, will take place on March 26 in Pavilion 2 of the Artillery Barracks (7:00 p.m.). And the screening, at the Cine Rex (March 23, 9pm), of Harol Lloyd’s film ‘Why Worry?’, To which the Andrés Santos Station Band will play live music.

All the programming can be consulted at eventos.murcia.es

Source: Murcia City Council

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