Jazz fans will be warmed to hear that the Ibiza Jazz Festival (Festival Eivissa Jazz) returns for a four-day event with new September dates for 2016 from the 7th to the 10th in Ibiza's old town. The event is expected to attract lots of young artists and ones from across Europe in this popular gig for jazz fans, now in a more comfortable spot outside the high season.
This year's Ibiza Jazz Festival will feature the newly formed City of Ibiza Big Band, made up of the Big Youth Band and many professional musicians from across the island. The band together with its director Vicent Tur will kick off the festival with a free concert at 8.30pm on 7 September at the old market, Mercat Vell. This will be an interpretation of some classic jazz repertoire based on the arrangements of the Count Basie Orchestra, one of the classic big jazz bands of the 1920s and 1930s.
The remaining concerts then move to the main location of Baluard Santa Llúcia from 8-10 September and will require an entry fee of around €12 to be paid on the portcullis gate. Here on 8 September from 9.30pm the Gorka Benítez Trío, featuring a cool bit of tenor saxophone will start off the evening. The Eivissa Jazz Experience will follow swiftly on from the trio to finish the night. The next day (9 September), there will be music from the Eva Fernandez Group from 9.30pm and then closing the evening is the Moises Sanchez Trio.
The final night of the festival on 10 September begins with the 2016 Getxo Festival winner Daahoud Salim and his Quintet who will kick off the night. This concert will showcase this multi-talented jazz virtuoso, who has worked with many of the greats of jazz all around the world. To end the festival, Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and the Rava New Quartet, a group that works to preserve and grow European jazz traditions.
So jazz aficionados – it's time to get out the dress shirts and dresses and make like a cool cat to get some exciting Ibiza jazz sounds.
For more information, you can contact the organisers via their Facebook page.
WORDS | Julian Heathcote
