The location of the Gǎrâna Jazz Festival is appropriately called Poiana Lupului, meaning “wolf’s glens”. Perhaps it reflects the attitude of the musicians: playful, sharp, fearless and cunning!
A main focus of the first few days of the festival, which takes place in the foothills of the Carpathians in the Banat region of Western Romania, and which has now reached its 28th edition, was on the Nordic and ECM. Festival Director Marius Giura had booked a range of musicians from Amiira (the trio of Klaus Gesing, Björn Meyer and Samuel Rohrer), through the bands of bassist Mats Eilertsen (which included some great drumming from Thomas Strønen), pianists Tord Gustavsen and Helge Lien to the superstar members of the tribute to 30 years of EST, “EST 30”.
Slotted into this lineup were the German trio Melt and two American groups: the Ursa Major group of Christian McBride (reviewed here) and the NY downtown intensity of guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg. The last day, meanwhile, also included more fusion-oriented groups from Italy and Poland.
Amiira set a standard to open the festival, with such clever and joyful interplay, interspersed with mellow thoughtfulness between the three instruments, that others would have to follow! Of the next bands, perhaps the most intriguing evolution was by Tord Gustavsen. Lacking his usual bass, he played as a duo with his drummer Jarle Vespestad. He steadily opened up, through taking more and more advantage of the effects with which he enhanced the piano. He created a memorable set mainly based on Norwegian hymns, folk music and a climax of Bach’s chorale “Jesu Meine Freude”.
Helge Lien Trio has broken away from the ECM roots of some of the other Norwegian groups. Shimmering and melodically dynamic, they exuded an uplifting energy. Much was dedicated to Lien’s main piano teacher, Misha Alperin (originally of Moscow Art Trio), which unsurprisingly meant a lot of oblique imagination. To his regular trio was added Tore Brunborg, who had a plaintive Scandinavian saxophone sound.
A particular highlight of the festival was the EST 30 celebration, bringing to life the recent album, recently reviewed by UK Jazz News. Led by the original rhythm section of Magnus Öström and Dan Berglund, they had selected some of the great songs that Esbjörn composed, starting with “From Gagarin’s Point of View”, including songs like “Good Morning Susie Soho” (which reflected their love of Pizza Express and where I spent many happy hours with them around 1998) encoring with “Dodge The Dodo”. It was an education to hear Magnus explain the background to the choices. And of course the top guests, including Marius Neset, Ulf Wakenius and Verneri Pohjola, really drew us in and proved the strength of the compositions. Meanwhile, pianist Joel Lyssarides manfully stepped into the challenge of being himself while sitting at the piano chair.
They had been preceded by Girls In Airports, from Copenhagen. Cut from a totally different cloth, Anders Vestergard on drums and Victor Dybbroe on percussion worked well together, sometimes dervish-like. Indeed Dybbroe seemed reminiscent of Danish percussionist superstar Marilyn Mazur. Over that we had Martin Stender on saxophone and Mathias Holm on keyboards. Intriguing that their attitude seemed to have some of the alternative surprise inspired by Django Bates, who at the time was running the jazz course in Copenhagen.
There was great energy and variety in the set of Jonathan Kreisberg, who managed to carve out his own style separating him from such a strong NY scene which includes the likes of Kurt Rosenwinkel and Gilad Hekselman. He was ably supported by pianist Marko Churnchetz and a driving rhythm section of Luca Alemanno on bass and Colin Stranahan on drums. This was clearly shown in a gorgeous version of ‘Moonlight In Vermont’ in 15/8.
Perhaps the most show-stopping performance was by Ariel Bringuez, an up-and-coming Cuban saxophonist living in Spain. Bright and passionate, he even had us all singing along in Spanish. The performance exuded a positive spirit in us all.
In the church in nearby Vāliug, there were fascinating daytime double bills showing some of the young musicians coming out of Romania today. Many took advantage of the strong awareness of what, to us, seem ‘tricky’ time signatures of folk music in Romania and Bulgaria to give the music a warped momentum. Such particularly was the case with Nonconformist Anthology from Timisoara. Amphitrio, by contrast, was a piano trio which had some intriguing contrapuntal elements, with subtle quotes from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Also an intriguing set by guitarist Sean Brie: relatively mainstream, but whose own work extends to touring in a freer improv trio with John Edwards and Mark Sanders.
Overall, it’s really quite a festival, and yet just one of many now in Romania. Worth putting in the diary for 2025!
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Marius Giura, the promoter here, has just been forced to cancel his other main festival of the year, in the nearby main city of Timisoara, due to his main funding being withdrawn. Let’s hope that this doesn’t extend to Gărâna!