Day 6 - Jazz for the little ones / guest excursion


There’s a place dedicated to the little ones at JazzFest and on Friday afternoon the Dokkhuset was transformed into a school playground and Ulfs winebar became the venue for a number of performances throughout the afternoon. The festival invites local primary schools to experience the festival – hula hoops, bubble making machines, balloons and jazz performances. It’s all free and a great way to introduce jazz to young ears.  



This afternoon it’s the excursion for the International Guests – a whistle stop tour of the city by bus followed by a visit to the local brewery, at which there is an exhibition of work by local artist Håkon Gullvåg.
 
 

What’s great about attending a festival like this is that it gives you the chance to discover new music and this afternoon I caught a performance by the Nils Berg Cinemascope, described as one of the most original music experiences on the Swedish independent jazz scene. Their performance is based around a movie projector which includes YouTube clips of a Japanese lady and her flute, giggling teenagers from Brunei and an Indian dance group. It’s original, fascinating and I loved it. Jazz vs YouTube.

CHECK IT OUT: https://vimeo.com/181648515

This afternoon’s Fokus programme includes a talk by Kenneth Killeen (Artistic Director at Improvised Music Company and 12 Points Festival) on the subject of how to market yourself as a jazz musician. He talked about the importance of a good website which is kept up to date with high res images, video files, press quotes, a biography, having a strong visual identity, a USP, using social media... things that make my job as a marketing professional much easier. For us, a high quality striking photo can mean the cover of our brochure of which 70,000+ are printed, mailed and distributed across the North East of England - hundreds of pounds worth of free marketing for the price of just one hour with a professional photographer.

Tonight, London’s multi-instrumentalist and YouTube sensation Jacob Collier plays the Verkstedhallen - the first of two British artists headlining this year’s festival. It’s a sell out and the concert was just even better than I had expected.
 
Photography credit: Arne Hague
https://www.jazzfest.no/

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