The 39th edition of the Jazz festival will open with the group Eve Risser's Red Desert Orchestra, which brings together European and African musicians, opens on July 27, and takes place at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

To explain what will be presented at the 39th edition, the organisation of Jazz in August recalls that the "idea of a universe in permanent expansion that has long been in jazz, due to its African-American matrix, led to a deep dive into the waters of the enormous African rhythmic wealth", with musicians such as John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders or Art Blakey walking these paths.

"New possibilities continue to reveal themselves to today's musicians regarding, for example, its hypnotic and trance-like characteristics. This quality of trance with African origin is one of the traits of this 39th edition of Jazz in August, taking place between July 27 and August 06," reads a statement released today."

In this edition, the opening is down to Eve Risser's Red Desert Orchestra, whose debut album, "Eurythmia", released last year, "brings together European and African instrumentalists in an infectious sound built from polyrhythmic cycles".

In the same vein, the organisation highlights the performance of the Natural Information Society, the "reference figure of the Chicago scene of the 1990s" Joshua Abrams, with saxophonist Evan Parker, scheduled for July 29.

The "hypnotic mark" that exists in Eve Risser's Red Desert Orchestra and the Natural Information Society "is still in the group Trance Map + [which performs on July 28], followed by the Ghosted project [August 03] and in the solo music of Susana Santos Silva [July 29] and Julia Reidy [July 30]."

In the 39th edition, the Jazz in August festival has 15 concerts, which will be divided between the Open Air Amphitheater and the Auditorium 2 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and guitarist Julia Reidy are part of a solo program "assumed by four women", along with Marta Warelis (August 05) and Camille Émaille (August 06), in an edition in which "there are several projects of enormous prominence in the most creative music of 2022 with female leadership – by Eve Risser, Hedvig Mollestad, Zoh Amba, Myra Melford and Mary Halvorson."

The guitarist Hedvig Mollestad presents, on July 30, a new line-up, Ekhidna, in which she "decided to dispense with the bass, doubled the presence of the percussions, and invited the keyboardists Marte Eberson and Erlend Slettevoll, plus the trumpeter Susana Santos Silva (with whom she had crossed paths in Mats Gustafsson's NU-Ensemble)".

Saxophonist and flutist Zoh Amba performs as a trio on August 02 with double bassist Luque Stewart and drummer Chris Corsano, and pianist Myra Melford performs on August 04 with "improvisers Mary Halvorson, Lesley Mok, Ingrid Laubrock and Tomeka Reid, shaping the astonishing Fire and Water Quintet."

Guitarist Mary Halvorson will present her album "Amaryllis" on 05 August, which "was, by consensus, one of the biggest albums of the last year – in jazz and outside of it".

The program of the 39th Jazz in August also includes performances by drummer João Lencastre, in quartet (July 31), The Attic, which brings together Rodrigo Amado, Gonçalo Almeida and Onno Govaert (August 01) and the Supersonic Orchestra, drummer and composer Gard Nilsen, which closes the festival on August 06.

Information on schedules and prices of individual tickets and passes for the Jazz Festival can be found in www.gulbenkian.pt.

from www.theportugalnews.com