Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival, 2022
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Loading... - Jayden Moore
- 06 Sep 2022
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Ystad, the gem of the Swedish “riviera”, is not only a must-see place to visit but also the home of a wonderful jazz festival founded in 2010. Under the artistic direction of renowned pianist Jan Lundgren, the festival attracts thousands of visitors every year. This year, from 3-6 August, a total of 170 musicians spread across 35 full-length concerts made the four-day festival a very successful event with many sold-out concerts and an overall 90% attendance.
As with many other festivals, the 2020 edition programme had to be postponed but unlike others, the Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival (YSJF) still happened that fateful year under strict rules and with a programme of only Swedish jazz. Originally scheduled in 2020, Stacey Kent almost did not make it again this year due to one of many BA cancelled flights. Another organisation soon found a solution and her set was moved from an evening concert to a midday one on day one, so that she and her band could catch their new return flight. For the singer, Sweden holds a very special place in her heart: she recalls how she was hugged upon her very first tour outside her native USA. Hence her idea to play in Ystad the same repertoire that made her famous back then, some 25 years ago.
Having moved the Stacey Kent gig, Jan Lundgren still had to fill out the gap for the original 8pm concert. Luckily the award-winning young Swedish vocalist Ellen Andersson accepted this last-minute offer. With her second album released in 2020, the singer returned to the quartet format she would also perform at the festival. Her sensual and hypnotising voice revived Rezso Seress’ Gloomy Sunday, a song originally written about despair caused by war. If there ever were a “Sheila Jordan test”, she would definitely pass brilliantly with her duo with bassist Johan Löfcrantz. Their take on Honeysuckle Rose illuminated the stage of the beautiful Ystad Teater, an old theatre dating back to 1894. In fact, this year, the YSJF spread its wings through eight different venues. As usual though the main gigs were held in the old theatre that has long been the cultural hub of the protected medieval city of Ystad.
Female vocalists are particularly welcome in Ystad and something good was still to come with Cyrille Aimée. The French-born vocalist, now based in New Orleans, gave an amazing performance together with New Orleans native piano player David Torkanowsky and Italian double-bass player Matteo Bortone. You could feel that from the first notes of her take on celebrated Bechet’s tune Petite Fleur. As she explained, Bernie Petkere’s famous Close Your Eyes (written the same year as Gloomy Sunday, by the way) became one of her favourite standards following her listening to the eponymous 1997 Stacey Kent album. I didn’t follow the lyrics’ advice and instead kept my eyes wide open for the remainder of her set. How she moved and sang definitely energised the crowd. Her repertoire mingled classics and originals, including some songs she wrote in Spanish, the language of her mother, a native of the Dominican Republic. She notably accompanied herself with a small guitar on Casa De Piedras, a song she composed while building her own house in Costa Rica during Covid times. Whatever she decided to sing, she made the songs her own and kept everyone on the edge of their seat. From Gainsbourg’s La Javanaise to the standard Almost Like Being In Love, her rich and diverse set list took us slowly through a gig that ended with a Monk tune: “It’s Over Now”, she sang, when we all wished it needn’t be. But then came the encore, her take on La Vie En Rose. That’s how life was for an hour and a half in which we could forget about all the bad news on the TV. Read More…
