This year Umbria Jazz Festival (UJFF) in the ancient hill town of Perugia was the most successful edition ever with 42,000 tickets sold, representing a gross turnover of 2.4 million euros. The festival included over 250 concerts in 12 venues with a total of 600 musicians playing during the 10 festival days. Umbria Jazz is a comprehensive experience with three distinctive elements.
The main acts perform at the Arena Santa Giuliana. The program here is designed to appeal to as many people as possible. There are two shows each night, starting at 9pm, and a second stage that opens at 7.30pm for those who want to have something to eat and drink before the main show. There is also an after-show concert. If you only Looking at the festival’s main acts, you might easily think that it’s not really a jazz festival, as there was only jazz on four nights – the rest was a mix of pop, world and rock music.
The second element of the UJF are the two dedicated jazz venues – the very cool Sala Podani on the top floor of the National Gallery of Umbria and the wonderful Morlacchi Theatre – a typical Italian theatre with stalls and five floors of boxes – perfect for listening to jazz. The theatre has a nice little bar which usually hosts a jazz photography exhibition during the festival. There were 28 shows on the programme at these two venues.
The third and probably most popular part of the UJF with visitors is the free program. Each day starts at 11:30am with a street parade by the excellent marching band “Funk Off” which repeats at 6pm. During the day there are two large free stages which play concerts from 1pm until the early hours. The UJF uses a rotating list of artists who play both stages at different times of the day, so if you miss a concert you can still catch it. These stages cater for big band, soul and blues fans. The third free stage, new this year, was the Swing Stage in the Mercato Coperto – every night you can get some food, drinks and Lindy Hop dancing and listen to DJ sets much later.
Perugia also has buskers who fill the city with live music on every corner. This abundance of music combined with the street cafes and restaurants make the heart of Perugia a happening place. There is an atmosphere and vibe at UJF that you really don’t find at many other festivals. All stages are within a 5 minute walk, except for the Arena Santa Giuliana – the largest of the paid stages, which is only a 15 minute walk and escalator away. There are dinner jazz venues and a late night jam session if you haven’t had enough.
The biggest ticket in the arena this year was Lenny Kravitz – his concert had a standing audience of about 16,000 people, which I estimate was more than all jazz concertgoers combined. The other big bands in the arena were rock bands Totothe excellent Raye, Nile Rogers and ChicItalian pop star Vinicio Capossela, Fatoumata Diawara and the Brazilian singer-songwriter Djavan.
For the festival, it is clear and rightly clear that this formula is the only sustainable way to continue the festival with the current program and to expand it in the coming years.
With so many concerts I have seen and heard here, I have selected some of my personal highlights.
The main arena is a bit soulless for most jazz styles due to its size, but both singers Raye and Liz Wright managed to captivate their respective audiences with a feeling of warmth and intimacy. Raye has a superb voice and her songs with their almost jazzy arrangements really fit in here. The audience for her show was a mix of her obvious fans and the, shall we say, “older jazz crowd”. No one went home muttering “that’s not jazz” and the entire audience, young and old, got up and danced with her after a few numbers. Raye has a strong voice and is a great entertainer – I can’t wait to hear her album “American Songbook” in a few years…
Lizz Wright also captivated the audience and held them in her hand. Her choice of material seems to have subtly changed towards blues/soul with less gospel. Her touching interpretation of Neil Young’s ‘Old man’ more than did the song justice. Her catchy song “Sparrow” was followed by Sandy Denny’s, “Who knows where time will go” that was just amazing. I probably haven’t heard that song in 40 years but she made it sound fresh while retaining the poignancy of Denny’s original – for those with a good memory, there were tears everywhere. Lizz Wright’s show was a wonderful moment and the crowd loved every minute of it.
Chris Potter played the same night as the Gil Evans remembered the orchestra – The orchestra consisted of some of the musicians who had played here with Evans in 1974.
Potter is probably one of the best saxophonists in the world and his performance here consisted of an excellent band with Brad Mehldau (Piano), John Patitucci (bass) and John Blake (drums) who were great. I play the material from his CD “Eagles Point” – The sights The combination of Potter and Mehldau was irresistible. Each musician played breathtaking solos and as an ensemble they played off each other superbly.
Enrico Rava and Charles Lloyd are two giants of jazz who are still innovating and pushing musical boundaries – both are in their mid-80s and neither shows any signs of slowing down. Particularly notable is Enrico Rava – he was in hospital for a month earlier this year with a chest problem but has since recovered and is able to not only play but also tour in Italy.
Rava presented his, “Fearless Five” Band with Matteo Paggi (trombone), long-time employee Francesco Diodati (Guitar), Francesco Ponticelli (bass) and Evita Polidoro (drums). Rava and Lloyd share a passion for playing with talented young musicians – giving these musicians both experience and the opportunity to showcase themselves to a wider audience.
Paggi is a hard-working player, spitting out a stream of notes, providing a perfect contrast to Rava’s more relaxed and mellow style, while Diodati (who also played the festival with his own excellent group Weave4) adds an electronic edge to the sound, giving the band triple the strength when things really get going.
The highlight of the show was the gentle song “Amnesia’ with wordless, ethereal vocals from drummer Polidoro. Diodati plays a beautiful melody and Ponticelli adds a great bass solo. Since Rava is not featured in this song, he stood right behind Polidoro while she sang. At the end of the song, he put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her head, a beautiful and touching gesture that brought Polidoro to tears as she accepted the applause. She told me after the show that she would never forget that moment.
Charles Lloyd, as I have already mentioned, is currently playing the best music of his career. His Sky Quartet presented Jason Moran (Piano), Larry Grenadier (bass) and Eric Harland (drums).
The music for this concert comes from his “Heaven will still be there tomorrow” Recording with this band. The concert was stunning in every way. Lloyd’s playing was superb throughout – smooth, incisive and heartfelt. Moran has an incredible bond with Lloyd and his interjections and solos were fantastic. Lloyd never spoke so there were no introductions but as the music flowed so freely between numbers it didn’t matter much – better more music than talking.
Each band member contributed equally and Lloyd sat between his plays listening to the people around him smile and nod in appreciation at the end of their main parts. As the last tune ended, Lloyd let out an emotional cry and was visibly so moved that Eric Harland came over to him, put his arm around him and gave him a big hug.
For Lloyd it was an emotional and exhausting concert in which he gave his all – the quality of his playing and his compositions was exceptional.
Piano music was well represented, including seven solo performances. The two that particularly caught my attention were the two trios by Christian Sands And Dado Moroni. Sands and Moroni both played at the Morlacchi Theater, Perugia’s jazz mecca. The warm atmosphere and dark intimacy bring the audience as close to the musicians as possible without actually being on stage.
Sands is a very talented pianist and composer and his band with brother Ryan Sands (drums) and Jonathon Muir Cotton (Bass) fit together perfectly. The selection of originals and standards was well chosen – Sand’s own composition ‘MMC’, an uptempo fun, was fun and his covers of Brubeck’s ‘Strange Meadowlark’ And Steve Winwood‘I can’t find the way home’ were both well arranged and showcased his excellent playing skills and technique.
Dado Moroni played the last jazz concert of the festival at the Morlacchi Theater, which is always a bittersweet concert. His trio with legends Eddie Gomez (bass) and Joe LaBarbera (drums) is world class. The concert was called ‘A kind of Bill’ a reference not only to Bill Evans – with whom Gomez and Barbera had of course played – but also to his contemporaries such as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Victor Young. They began with the melody of La Barbera “A kind of Bill” which set the tone for the rest of the show – a beautifully melodic yet contemporary set that was the perfect end to a very busy festival.
The Umbria Jazz Festival is an absolute must-see. The music here is top-notch and the location in Perugia is breathtaking. Ignore the headline-grabbing names and dig deeper into the program where you’ll find what has always been the festival’s true treasure – fantastic jazz.
Listening list
Liz Wright
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ItXOSUCRU – ‘Who knows where time goes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIGncbJquBI – ‘Old man’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GHPVfhdK5k – ‘Sparrow’
Raye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI9gL9CuEaI – “UJF 2024: The thrill is over”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boGxzoLJpUo – ‘UJ2024′
Chris Potter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yiNPTVrIY – “Eagles Point” – The sights
Enrico Rava
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yiNPTVrIY – “Fearless Five”
Charles Lloyd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy32CiJ38QI – ‘Heavenly Quartet’
Christian Sands Trio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEWXbPaFlnw – “UJF2024”
Dado Moroni
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQj1NtRLAdU – “A kind of Bill”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26baT5ggXbc – “I get sentimental about you”
Umbria Jazz 2024 Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57eG244MByM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC1la339QUo
