50 Culture
Years of the Jazz Flame in Belgrade
Vojislav Pantić, Artistic Director of the Belgrade Jazz Festival While visitor numbers are falling at many festivals and audiences aren’t getting any younger, in Belgrade the halls are always over 80% full and the majority of audience members are in their early thirties. With a hunger for good music that’s in short supply throughout the year, they explode with emotion at the festival
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he aim is to devise a programme of the highest artistic value, uncompromising and bold, representing both the mainstream and the avant-garde, alongside interesting jazz fusions with some branches of popular music ~ Vojislav Pantić This year, under the slogan “Jazz Flame”, the Belgrade Jazz Festival is celebrating the 50th year since it was founded. Which moments would you single out as being the most important in the festival’s history? First and foremost is the amazing start. Thanks to collaboration with Impresario George Wein,
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under the title of the Newport Jazz Festival in Belgrade, as early as 1971 we hosted some of the greatest icons of jazz (Duke, Dizzy, Monk, Ornette, Miles), which contributed to the festival attracting great public attention immediately.The abandoning of the Newport salon concept just three years later confirmed the swift maturing of the Dom Omladine team when it came to independently engaging in festival organisation and selection, seeking authenticity on the map of European jazz. The return of the festival after a long break was implemented in a revolutionary way: the 2005 slogan ‘Tradition and Futurism’ illustrated the new team’s ambition to present the jazz of contemporary and future times, but also with great respect for the festival’s glorious past. Finally, with the 2007 declaring of the festival as an event of special interest, the City of Belgrade not only secured stable funding for the festival, but also prompted numerous of other institutions to join this high-quality project. Or it can be stated like this... The shock caused by Miles Davis in 1971, who performed Bitches Brew funk to an audience that was expecting bebop.
Jam sessions at the Dom Omladine Dance Hall by Freddie Hubbard (1977, 1979), Tony Scott (1984) and Chet Baker (1985) – to the burek pie at the bakery across the street and the first morning buses. The opening of the 1980 BJF in front of several thousand people at Pionir Hall, featuring the most important fusion band of all time, Weather Report. The Modern Jazz Quartet in 1989 - the most poetic performance that Belgrade has ever witnessed. Dizzy Gillespie and the United Nations Orchestra in 1990 - the largest gathering of jazz stars in one place. The BJF’s 2005 renewal - a bubbling atmosphere in Dom Omladine’s Great Hall, which was heated at the opening by Dave Holland. Encounters with the pioneers of the European jazz path: Duško Gojković (eight times), the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (2006), Tomasz Stańko (2009), Enrico Rava (2010, 2018), Joachim Kühn (2011), Tord Gustavsen (2016), Henri Texier (2019). All three Charles Lloyd concerts: the sublime spirit of Go Down Moses (2011), the energy of the Wild Man Dance Suite (2014) and the lyrical encore of La Llorona (2019).
