Richie Beirach's Quartet

Omer Avital

Silije Nergaard

'This Is Jazz': The Taichung Jazz Festival covers a truly global musical spectrum

Words by Douglas Habecker
Translated by Angel Pu

Any musical/cultural event that has been around over a decade, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors and features performers from as far away as Israel and Denmark is certainly world-class in almost every sense of the word.

Taichung's largest, best-known annual event will take place for the 11th time over nine days between Oct. 19 and Sunday, Oct. 27 in its usual location. Given the massive crowds that fill Civic Square and the Calligraphy Greenway to near-overflowing, it's not surprising that this year's festival will be making a small, but significant, expansion up the Greenway to Taichung Port Road (Taiwan Boulevard), giving it even greater exposure to the city's busiest thoroughfare. This new stretch will also include a third festival stage--two along the Greenway and a giant Main Stage on Civic Square.

Musically, this year's festival matches the impressively-high bar set by previous events with the full range of styles and variations classified as "jazz", from traditional to contemporary, big band to modern, hard bop to bebop, and swing to fusion. The nationalities and backgrounds of performers are equally eclectic. Naturally, artists from the birthplace of jazz will be strongly represented, with the likes of innovative American jazz pianist and composer Richie Beirach (see Sep. Compass "Taichung Jazz Festival Artist Spotlight" article or www.taiwanfun.com), or German-born, US-based Hendrik Meurkens, a master of the chromatic harmonica and vibraphone now considered the most important jazz harmonica player since the revered Toots Thielemans.

Then there's Idaho-based songwriter and jazz/blues performer Steve Eaton, whose compositions for The Carpenters and Art Garfunkel helped earn those artists gold and platinum records. Or youthful beatboxer/singer/pianist Antoinette Clinton--better known by her stage name Butterscotch--who also plays the sax, flute and guitar, and won the first World Hip Hop Beatbox Women's Championship in 2005.

Almost as young is Japanese jazz pianist and flautist Kaori Kobayashi, who began her relationship with jazz as a teenager and to date has already released nine albums. Even younger than both Butterscotch or Kobayashi is China's Li Gao Yang, a talented, acclaimed sax player who had the honor of opening for the Hong Kong international Jazz Festival 2011 and the Ninegates Jazz Festival in Beijing in 2012 at the tender age of 18.

Other non-American performers from almost every corner of the planet include French jazz diva Anne Ducros (see separate article in this edition) and Moroccan-born Australian jazz guitarist Albare iTD, the nom de guerre of Albert Dadon, whose music has been described as a "positive blend of the late Wes Montgomery and an early George Benson" and has been very influential in the jazz scene Down Under as the Melbourne Jazz Festival director and Australian Jazz Awards chairman.

Besides Australia, other nations represented at this festival for the first time include Norway, Israel and Denmark. Danish group Postyr Project will feature its unique blend of acapella meets avant-garde electro music, while Israeli jazz bassist, composer and bandleader Omer Avital has repeatedly earned high praise and attention from the New York Times for his impressive jazz achievements in the Big Apple. From Norway, there's jazz vocalist and songwriter Silje Nergaard, one her nation's all-time top-selling jazz artists and world famous for her release of international hit "Tell Me Where You're Going", featuring Pat Metheny on guitar.

As always, dozens of top-rate Taiwanese jazz musicians will also get the chance to showcase their talents. These range from favorite veterans to up-and-coming artists from the next generation, playing with a number of youth/student bands, or performing as winners of an affiliated "Jazz New Talents" competition.

The 2013 festival also includes over 80 food/drink vendor booths, plus 16 booths selling jazz-related creative products. Other events include a 2 p.m. opening-day parade on Oct. 19, plus outdoor showings of jazz-related films at 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday (Oct. 21-24).

For more information and updates, visit the Chinese/English official festival website at http://www.taichungjazzfestival.com.tw, visit the Facebook fan page at https://www.facebook.com/taichungJAZZfestival or call (02) 2711-2320 ext. 117.