JAZZ LEGACY
BELGRADE JAZZ FESTIVAL, 40th EDITION, 2024
24–29 October 2024
Belgrade Youth Center | MTS Hall
The Belgrade Jazz Festival, the oldest and most prominent jazz event in Serbia, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. With the slogan Jazz Legacy, from October 24 to 28, the audience will get the chance to experience first-time guest appearances, performances by the most sought-after local and international artists, new musical projects and walk down memory lane of the event's highlights.
This rare jubilee, even in world terms, coincides with celebrating three other major anniversaries. The Belgrade Youth Center, with the City of Belgrade as its patron, initiated and organized all editions of the Festival and celebrates its 60th anniversary. This will be the 20th edition in the recent history of the event, revived in 2005 after a 15-year break, and the 10th Serbian Showcase, presenting the best of the young forces that have been seen at the Festival since 2015, when the showcase was established.
The four anniversaries challenged the Festival with a special responsibility to approach the program in a celebration mode, with greater ambitions, in a slightly different format while keeping the basic program features that put the Festival on the world jazz map.
This year, two program nights with four concerts will be held in the MTS Hall - the opening and closing of the event, with a program for jazz enthusiasts and everyone who values quality music. At the grand opening on October 24, the RTS Big Band and respected conductor, pianist and arranger Alan Broadbent will perform with the program From Newport to Belgrade, conceived as a celebration of the event's glorious history in the spirit of this year's slogan. We will enjoy original Broadbent arrangements of compositions by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Haden, as well as works inspired by Newport and the legacy of Dizzy Gillespie. The same night, for the first time in Belgrade, today's world's leading jazz singer, the American diva Cécile McLorin Salvant, winner of three consecutive Grammys for the best vocal jazz album, will perform. This year's summit of jazz grandmasters on October 28 will be rounded off by a grand premiere - Bill Frisell is finally coming to Serbia! Along with John Scofield and Pat Metheny - who also performed at our Festival - he is one of the Golden Guitar Three with top positions reserved in prestigious world polls since the 1980s. The Buena Vista All Stars band will close this year's Belgrade Jazz Festival with the ONE NIGHT IN HAVANA program. ensemble is led by trombonist Demetrio Muñiz, who was the musical director of the Buena Vista Social Club Orchestra for many, the lead singer is Ibrahim Ferrer Jr. and their repertoire includes, among others, classic Cuban songs from the album Buena Vista Social Club.
The Belgrade Youth Center program is designed to bring back memories of the event's best days since its revival in 2005. Among the 12 concerts in the Great and Americana Hall, as many as 10 will be performed by artists who marked some previous editions. Among them are today's great stars of world jazz, American and European jazz grandmasters of different generations and styles, presenting current programs in new formats compared to their first performances in Belgrade. Jason Moran, Anat Cohen, Gianluca Petrella, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Émile Parisien, Kompost 3, Rodrigo Amado, Kris Davis, Daniel Erdmann and Théo Ceccaldi will once again perform for the Belgrade Jazz Festival audience. James Carter and the young Brazilian team Quartabê will appear here for the first time. The Serbian All Stars band, comprised of the best Serbian jazzers of the younger and middle generation, in cooperation with the Department of Jazz and Popular Music of the Faculty of Music, will celebrate the memory of Serbian jazz icons.
Besides the main program in the MTS Hall and the Belgrade Youth Center, Studio 6 of Radio Belgrade, in cooperation with the Serbia Creates initiative, will host The Best of Serbian Showcase for professionals and jazz enthusiasts. The selection will include bands that have previously performed at the event to further evoke memories of previous Festival editions.
