Jazz music knows no limits

TALLINN - Spring and Jazzkaar are inseparable. Tallinn International Festival Jazzkaar is the biggest Jazz Festival in the Baltics, held from 1990. In 2014 the Festival celebrates its 25th birthday. Combining an interesting and unique program with bold solution, Jazzkaar’s team is able to create the best festival with the smallest budget in the Nordic countries, bringing the biggest and most interesting findings of the world’s jazz scene to Tallinn and Estonia. The ten-day festival has also the biggest number of concerts per year in Estonia with more than 3,000 performers from 60 countries.
“Nowadays, Jazzkaar is the star event of Estonian jazz, bringing the world’s best performers. The name of the festival recalls the Estonian folk party Jaskar; it also reminds us of the variety of colors in jazz music – like in the rainbow, which all can be put under the umbrella of jazz. Jazzkaar is the arc uniting musicians, audiences, different periods and styles of jazz,” says Anne Erm, Artistic Director of Jazzkaar.

The goal of the festival has always been the same: the introduction of music on as large a scale as possible, starting with avant-garde and ending with mainstream jazz, including also the more interesting styles of world music and blues.
This year, the main performers are soul-jazz talent Zara McFarlane from the UK, Japanese charming piano virtuoso Hiromi, American new-generation star vocalist Gregory Porter and the New Quartet of the legendary composer-sax player Charles Lloyd featuring Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Gregory Hutchinson. That concert is also a part of the maestro’s 75th birthday tour. For this occasion also a documentary of one of the most important and colorful musicians in the jazz world was made.

The first weekend of the festival will focus on young talents. The festival will be opened by Zara McFarlane Quintet from London; at Theatre NO99 Jazz Club perform musicians from Norway, Sweden and Estonia’s Hanna Paulsberg Concept, Heliotroop and MaiGroup. At Marina Pavilion the Ergo Jazz Session concert-series is continued by the German pianist Nils Frahm.

The best European jazz is offered by the French masters Andy Emler Trio, Michel Portal and Bojan Z, Austrian accordion-cello duo Klaus Paier-Asja Valcic; fashionable and magnetic Hildegard Lernt Fliegen from Switzerland; Kruglov – Sooaar Quartet and many others. The internationally acknowledged Italian trumpet virtuosos Fabrizio Bosso with his Quartet are playing to the Italian cult film “The Easy Life” (1962). Her fresh album “First Moments” will be presented by the marvelous Hedvig Hanson. World music is represented by Serbian guitar trio Balkan Strings and Portugese young fadista Claudia Aurora.

On Sunday the tradition of free concerts will be continued at unfamiliar locations in Tallinn Old Town. Young musicians from Georg Ots Music School will fill the streets and parks of Tallinn with vibrant music during the whole festival period. Meet them at the harbor, in the airport, shopping centers, streetcars and elsewhere!
On Friday and Saturday evenings the Marina Pavilion is transformed into a club with some really hot performers, such as Estonian Ultima Thule, American Naturally 7, some young club bands and DJs.
The 24th Jazzkaar takes place from April 19 – 28 at the specially built and unique Marina Pavilion at the Port of Tallinn grounds. Traditionally concerts also take place in other Estonian cities including Viljandi and Tartu, where smaller festivals also take place.

For more information on the event program, locations and tickets please visit: www.jazzkaar.ee