The sea, the sun, and music... What can be better than leaving city fuss for four September days during the velvet season and find oneself at the Jazz-Koktebel 2011? All three stages featured stars and young performers from Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Spain, the US, Russia, the Netherlands, France, and Ukraine.
The headliners included the British Red Snapper Quartet, Polish jazz-folk singer Maria Jopek, US blues singer Debbie Davis, Boris Grebenshchikov with the broadened lineup of Akvarium, Austrian electric-swing sextet Parov Stelar Band and other performers.
Traditionally the Voloshin stage – chamber atmosphere in the open air in the garden of the Voloshin House-Museum, NuJazz – is a huge open-air in the middle of the nudist beach and lineup performers who know well what the real drive is. In the garden of the Poet House you could plunge into the magic of the music of world masters of jazz and improvisation, intertwined with the mystic aura of Voloshin’s house. The participants of the four-day music marathon included Oliver Lake, Anna Christoffersson, Abraham Burton, Yurii Kuznetsov, Lush Life, Debbie Davis, etc., whereas the curator and permanent host of this stage was Oleksii Kohan. It should be admitted that not only jazz was performed at the festival. As the chairwoman of the organizing committee of Jazz Koktebel Lilia Mlynarych said, the program was formed to satisfy various tastes of the audience, and modern improvisation music gives an opportunity to everyone to choose what s/he wants to listen.
“Jazz died in the mid-1960s, when Miles Davis started to play electric music,” Grebenshchikov stated in a categorical manner. The performance of his band jointly with 11 more musicians was a kind of experiment, but after the concert which included the hits and new songs from Akvarium’s album Archangelsk, Grenbenshchikov admitted, “The experiment was a success.”
The audience saw the renowned Ukrainian rock musician and front man of the VV band Oleh Skrypka as a DJ of the festival, on the smallest stage Chilean Pablo Donald performed the world famous standard Oye Como Va, and expressive music was heard on the main stage of the festival. The concerts lasted till late at night and many guests saw the dawn on the beach near the stage. Incidentally, this year the festival was attended by over 5,000 people.
The audience rejoiced at the performance of the hope of Swedish jazz, singer and composer Anna Christoffersson, cult American saxophonist Oliver Lake, Latin-swing trio from German Potsdam Kitchen Grooves, the vocalist of the world renowned De Phazz Karl Frierson, Austrian Trio Generations, as well as fusion avant-garde musicians from Kyiv, That Crazed Girl, who were amazingly expressive.
Koktebel was “occupied” by tourists this time. Not only did the crowds of people walk along the coast and the quay, but they also listened to jazz.
