Cool & Hyggilig (Cool & Cozy)
Stan Getz, Kenny Drew, Thad Jones, and Dexter Gordon are just a few of the legendary musicians of this genre who made this Northern European city their home. The hygge (coziness) and the cool cosmopolitan flavor of the Danes offered a welcome home to jazz.
By 1979 the first festival was put on by a small group of aficionados. Now, some 25 years later, it is attended by approximately 200,000 people in just over a week.
Places such as La Fontaine and Montmarte became famous year-round as Danes such as drummer Axel Riel and bassist Neils-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (who died in April) eagerly embraced the gift of the international musicians who came to town in the 1960s and 1970s. Now it's Chick Corea and others who are on the scene.
Growing, Flowing, Going....
Walk through Copenhagen when the festival is underway and you will find yourself at the festival at any given moment. That is because, like jazz itself, it winds, takes sudden turns, twists and explodes into venues that are all over the capital city. The festival riffs into fluid events that take advantage of various places. It could be a public house, a square, a plaza, a little café or the lawn of Rosenberg Sløt (Rosenberg Castle). There are no rules and no one looking to enforce them when it comes to where the music happens. The festival IS a happening, from classic jazz to fusion to whatever.........
Copenhagen's Cornucopia
Festival chair Anders Laursen is proud of the nearly 800 performers who played this year at almost 100 venues across the city. The Wonderful Churches of Copenhagen festival category provided not only a reason for the Vor Frue Kirke, a famous Lutheran church in Denmark, to be filled, but it also gave a blessed space for the soulful homegrown Black gospel roots of jazz to be heard. Groups like Soweto Kinch reached out and grabbed the souls of people at the Pumpehuset (Pump House).
The Giant Jazz category featured some of the more celebrated names in jazz such as French accordion player Richard Galliano and his septet at the Tivoli, as well as Chick Corea and Touchstone at the new Copenhagen Opera House on the harbor. The 2005 festival also featured Jan Garbarek & The Hillard Ensemble. The Future Sound of Jazz category and special children's concerts added even more to the mix.
Go To Page: 1 2
