It’s the 34th annual Copenhagen Jazz Festival. MAGNET’s Mitch Myers translates the action.
Welcome to the jazz capital of the world, at least for this week. With countless musicians performing at more than 100 different venues during the jazz festival, Copenhagen feels like New York City back when musicians would perform three or four gigs in the course of the day and evening, then go find the best after-hours jam session to unwind with their peers. I began the evening watching saxophonist George Garzone play with some local Danish musicians, and it was one great experience. Garzone is a Boston-based musician who’s also an educator. Many modern jazz stars like Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis and Danilo Perez have studied with Garzone, and in Beantown he’s the man.
Drawing from powerful influences like John Coltrane and gentler ones like Stan Getz, Garzone is a monster player with his own chromatic and harmonic sense that other musicians can only emulate. This show was no unrehearsed jam session, as Garzone has been coming to Copenhagen and playing with these same crazy Danes for the last 13 years. Pianist Rasmus Ehlers, bassist Jonas Westergaard and a drummer whose name I can’t recall backed Garzone with a swinging, structured sound, allowing the saxophonist to climb up to some amazing heights. Not surprisingly, musicians in town like Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Jorge Rossy came to pay homage to the master. No jamming, but it felt like old home week by the time the gig was finally over.
From there we all went over to the legendary Jazzhus Montmarte, which originally opened in 1961 (and revived for the third time in 2010) and was home to American expatriate musicians like Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon. There was a big crowd of people just hanging out on the street in front of the club and another heavy crowd inside watching the jam session led by Brooklyn-based pianist David Bryant. Among the onlookers were almost all the guys from Cuban-American jazz band 90 Miles, including saxophonist David Sanchez and vibraphonist Stefon Harris. People were chattering in every language you could imagine and before long the 90 Miles rhythm section (maybe bassist Ricky Rodriguez and definitely drummer Terreon Gully) went up onstage and played with lord knows who. Then, finally, Garzone, drummer Rossy and American bassist Josh Ginsburg joined Bryant and Danish saxophonist Niels Nogel for a tune and burned things up real good. Talking to Garzone after the show, he said that he absolutely loves playing in Copenhagen and always hopes that he can find a way to come back the next year.
Me, too.
