IF YOU'RE in the Comunidad Valenciana any time between now and the early hours of March 20, you may notice an awful lot of noise and colour on the streets. It's the season for the region's biggest festival,...
All that jazz: The smouldering, soul-filled festivals rocking the Mediterranean
02/08/2022
JAZZING up your summer, Spain's east coast is aflame with music this August: Two much-loved festivals barely 10 kilometres apart mean the final full month of summer is always an excellent time to plan a trip to the beautiful, cosmopolitan enclave known as the Marina Alta.
Home to well over 100 nationalities, but still very 'typically Spanish', tastefully built up on its coastline and with pine-covered, mountainous green wilderness just minutes inland hiding a multitude of villages that feel as though the passage of time took a detour and circumnavigated them – think working donkeys, whole families living off their cherry orchards and vineyards, and life revolving around the local bar where everyone knows your name – the northernmost shire in the province of Alicante sees several worlds collide.
Beach towns such as Dénia – the Marina Alta's capital – Jávea, Calpe, Benissa, Benitatxell and Teulada-Moraira are lively in summer, quiet and pleasant in every other season, multi-national and multi-cultural (although we're not talking about a 'little Britain' of chip shops or pubs with Union Jacks flying; a mix of European and wider-world influences maintain a discreet and harmonious presence with the ever-evolving 'real Spain'), oozing with history, attractive, bright and colourful; smaller coastal villages such as El Verger and Els Poblets, close to the Valencia-province border, retain their close-knit community feel.
All these, dominated by the majestic Montgó mountain, standing 753 metres above sea-level (and you can climb to the summit without needing to be Edmund Hillary – just follow the footpath) enjoy some of the warmest weather in mainland Spain, including the mildest winters.
Rarely does a month go by in a non-pandemic year without something fun happening in one or several of the Marina Alta's 33 towns and villages, so any time is good for planning a trip; local fiestas abound from June to August inclusive (the iconic Moors and Christians festival hits Els Poblets on Friday this week, and El Verger on August 15), and two of the district's favourite musical events are now back in full swing, unrestricted, for the first time since 2019.
Jávea Jazz Festival is a three-day event, with all shows this year free of charge; Dénia Jazz Festival is spread throughout the month and, as its concerts are much larger, tickets still come at a fee, but they're worth it.
And as these two seaside towns are neighbours, and the jazz concerts on different nights, you could hop between them if you're staying in the area over the next week or so.
Back to Jávea: Grammys, swing, and Amy
Jazz in the 80s still rocks and is still classic. That's not the 1980s – that's the artist's age. But Chucho Valdés' piano fingers haven't cottoned onto the fact they're 16 years overdue for retirement, and we're crossing our own that the memo to said members remains lost in the post.
Cuban legend Chucho, son of the even greater legend Bebo Valdés, shares a birthday and birth city with his intergalactic star dad – October 9 and Quivicán – as well as talent and relative youth. Bebo lived to be 95 (he passed away in 2013), and Chucho, born in 1941, is still touring the planet and wearing out piano keys.
In fact, just shy of his 82nd birthday, Chucho has already scooped up a Latin Grammy this year for Best Jazz Album.
It's merely one more of these now old-hat awards to plonk in his trophy cupboard – Valdés the Younger is in double figures with them, having netted six Grammys and four Latin Grammys over his career, an average of one for every six years.
So we calculate that, if he's still at it when he's 87-and-a-half, Chucho ought to be due for Grammy number 11 in 2028.
Given that both these iconic jazz supernovas were born on its 'regional day', it seems fitting Valdés Junior should include the Comunidad Valenciana on his international schedule, and it's hard to believe that an artist of his magnitude, whom you'd pay the price of an air fare to Cuba to see in your home town, is set to perform in Jávea on Saturday (August 6) for free.
He has lengthy experience fronting jazz orchestras, but also as a soloist, although he won't be pianoing on his tod in the Marina Alta. Coming with the rest of his quartet, Chucho's legendary Afro-Cuban, classical, rock, and a blend of all of these with an extra, personal touch will ring out across the Plaza de la Constitución (which, handily, has a huge underground multi-storey car park beneath it) from 22.30.
All shows are in the same place and at the same time, on different days, and Sunday (August 7) is set to be a hit with a whole generation, or several. Soul, blues, jazz and R&B prodigy Monique Makon puts the vocals to the Big Band instrumentals with The Original Jazz Orchestra – or OJO, which translates as 'eye' in Spanish.
And an eye for an Original show is exactly what this winning Catalunya-based combination - part of the Taller de Músics academy - has, wide-open and shining: Their gig, titled Back to Amy, is a tribute to the world-beating angsty blues-pop sounds of the late Miss Winehouse.
Her sudden death at age 27 rocked the planet, and Guitarras Bros in Gata de Gorgos – Jávea's northern neighbour, a town famous for its traditional local craft industries – was reeling to hear of the loss of one of the family firm's most iconic clients. Every time you play her award-winning album, you'll be hearing strings lovingly strung at the Gata guitar-makers', tailored to Amy Winehouse's commission (fellow customers at Guitarras Bros have included Will Smith, Ed Sheeran and Mick Jagger), and this weekend, a whole 12 of her biggest hits will be brought back to life in Jávea's 'Constitution Square'.
The roarin' twenties didn't get off to a great start this time around – there's still hope of a flapper-dress and sidecar-cocktails revival replete with Gatsby-style parties (ideally without the murders) before the decade is out, but until then, the previous roarin' twenties are a time our human DNA feels nostalgic pangs for. And Le Dancing Pepa Swing Band will take you straight back to that halcyon between-the-wars era with all the energy of the earliest east-coast jazz clubs of a century ago – your genes will remember, even if you don't.
Beats that revolutionised the dance floor in 1920s' New York, recreated by one of the nation's biggest and best International Swing bands in its global World Jam première Hat 'n' Dance, will round off a thrilling three-day festival on Monday, August 8.
No need to book this year – just turn up, grab a terrace table with a champagne cocktail and swizzle-stick, and let the music drown out the white noise of everyday life.
Down Under in Dénia, Europe's cool north and Hot off the Paris press
You might just catch the opening act of Dénia Jazz Festival if you're on the doorstep or able to drop everything for a lightning-quick road trip – all the way from the US of A, Carole Alston brings tracks from her world-acclaimed albums Tribute to a Blue Lady, For My Sisters and In the Fold to the Torrecremada Park – the one where Dénia holds its weekly flea market on Monday mornings – seducing your eardrums with her delectably smooth brand of soul and powerful voice that have not aged a day in over 40 years. She joins Italian bassist Paolo Furio Marasso and one of our home-grown, up-and-coming jazz prodigies, Carles Pérez, from Petrer, in the heart of shoe-designer country at the south end of the province, on Thursday, August 4.
If you need a bit longer to plan, though, the festival has only just started and Carole Alston, whilst 100% epic, is only 25% of the Dénia event – and act two comes from even farther afield.
You could be forgiven for believing that all Australian singers started their careers in the recently (and tragically) ended soap opera Neighbours at some point during its 37 years on screen; after all, Ramsay Street and Erinsborough (it's an anagram. Did you realise?) brought us not only Kylie Minogue, but her on-screen husband Jason Donovan, Holly Valance, Natalie Imbruglia, Delta Goodrem and, even, for just one catchy hit, Stefan Dennis, aka Paul Robinson.
But Jessie Gordon has never mixed with Scott and Charlene, Fliss, Beth Brennan and the gang, and comes from the opposite end of the country – Perth – so her non-appearance on Neighbours is no more surprising than a Dutch resident's never being seen on a soap opera in Turkey.
She is, however, every bit as international as the Fremantle show, and takes in Dénia on her tour of Planet Earth – a 'sun-shy redhead who enjoys Swing music, dancing in her kitchen to Otis Redding and eating cheese', Jessie's charismatic vocals are strongly influenced by massive household names like Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day and Dinah Washington and, with the huge personality of her rare voice and her equally-huge presence on stage, all three of these legends would be sweating nervously and doubting their own talent if they heard her.
Joining the southern hemisphere star is the remainder of her quartet, led by Buenos Aires-born 'king of the keys', pianist Federico Mazzanti, on Thursday, August 11, also in the Torrecremada Park.
For the first time in the festival's history, Dénia Jazz has created and produced its very own band; quite a feat for a town council fiesta department in a municipality of barely 45,000 inhabitants, when you look at the sheer magnitude of its members.
The Ellingtonia Jazz Ensemble, set to hit the stage in the Torrecremada Park on Thursday, August 18, is a tribute to the life, lyrics and musical genius of Duke Ellington, brought to you by the crème of global artists.
British trumpet treasure Paul Evans, the versatile, multi-instrumental Frank Roberscheuten from The Netherlands, French trombone great Samuel Marthé, Polish piano pro Richard Busiakiewicz and, as a swift nod to the opposite end of the continent, Valencian vocalist Enric Peidró – an omnipotent presence backstage as well as on stage in the region's jazz scene – would make the Duke himself proud of the association with his name.
Peidró, part of the festival organisation, says the full Ellingtonia gig will be recorded, honed, and released as a 'Live in Dénia' album in the next few months.
A 'Berry' well known Trad Jazz great from the very cradle of piano bar country, trumpet-major and singer, modern-day Louis Armstrong and veteran human album factory, Paris' loss on the night of Thursday, August 25 is your, and Dénia's, gain.
Jérôme Etcheberry won't be allowed to stay away from his home in the French capital for long, because jazz fans north of the Pyrénées wouldn't have it – just enough time to perform his lifetime's worth of hits and show you why his lockdown album Satchmocracy won the Prix du Hot Club de France award in 2020, - while his native land suffers musical withdrawal symptoms.
Accompanying this long-running, prize-winning jazz veteran on the Torrecremada Park stage is his regular band, The Hot Berries, putting the instrumentals to tracks inspired by Red Allen, Roy Eldridge, and the other Armstrong, the one who didn't land on the moon.
Jérôme is considered to be one of the best musicians and vocalists of all time in his home nation – a land with a long tradition of blues and jazz and where this is every bit as mainstream as its trademark rap, heavy rock and floaty, dreamy, introspective pop – and a global Trad Jazz flag-bearer whose name is familiar on the scene in most continents.
All concerts start at 22.30, and tickets bought in advance (online from Notikumi.com, over the counter at Hotel Chamarel, Casa Benjamín and Ale-Hop stores in Dénia and nearby Ondara's El Portal de la Marina shopping centre) cost €14 a head per gig.
You can still grab your ticket at the gate on the night, for the slightly higher price of €17.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
JAZZING up your summer, Spain's east coast is aflame with music this August: Two much-loved festivals barely 10 kilometres apart mean the final full month of summer is always an excellent time to plan a trip to the beautiful, cosmopolitan enclave known as the Marina Alta.
Home to well over 100 nationalities, but still very 'typically Spanish', tastefully built up on its coastline and with pine-covered, mountainous green wilderness just minutes inland hiding a multitude of villages that feel as though the passage of time took a detour and circumnavigated them – think working donkeys, whole families living off their cherry orchards and vineyards, and life revolving around the local bar where everyone knows your name – the northernmost shire in the province of Alicante sees several worlds collide.
Beach towns such as Dénia – the Marina Alta's capital – Jávea, Calpe, Benissa, Benitatxell and Teulada-Moraira are lively in summer, quiet and pleasant in every other season, multi-national and multi-cultural (although we're not talking about a 'little Britain' of chip shops or pubs with Union Jacks flying; a mix of European and wider-world influences maintain a discreet and harmonious presence with the ever-evolving 'real Spain'), oozing with history, attractive, bright and colourful; smaller coastal villages such as El Verger and Els Poblets, close to the Valencia-province border, retain their close-knit community feel.
All these, dominated by the majestic Montgó mountain, standing 753 metres above sea-level (and you can climb to the summit without needing to be Edmund Hillary – just follow the footpath) enjoy some of the warmest weather in mainland Spain, including the mildest winters.
Rarely does a month go by in a non-pandemic year without something fun happening in one or several of the Marina Alta's 33 towns and villages, so any time is good for planning a trip; local fiestas abound from June to August inclusive (the iconic Moors and Christians festival hits Els Poblets on Friday this week, and El Verger on August 15), and two of the district's favourite musical events are now back in full swing, unrestricted, for the first time since 2019.
Jávea Jazz Festival is a three-day event, with all shows this year free of charge; Dénia Jazz Festival is spread throughout the month and, as its concerts are much larger, tickets still come at a fee, but they're worth it.
And as these two seaside towns are neighbours, and the jazz concerts on different nights, you could hop between them if you're staying in the area over the next week or so.
Back to Jávea: Grammys, swing, and Amy
Jazz in the 80s still rocks and is still classic. That's not the 1980s – that's the artist's age. But Chucho Valdés' piano fingers haven't cottoned onto the fact they're 16 years overdue for retirement, and we're crossing our own that the memo to said members remains lost in the post.
Cuban legend Chucho, son of the even greater legend Bebo Valdés, shares a birthday and birth city with his intergalactic star dad – October 9 and Quivicán – as well as talent and relative youth. Bebo lived to be 95 (he passed away in 2013), and Chucho, born in 1941, is still touring the planet and wearing out piano keys.
In fact, just shy of his 82nd birthday, Chucho has already scooped up a Latin Grammy this year for Best Jazz Album.
It's merely one more of these now old-hat awards to plonk in his trophy cupboard – Valdés the Younger is in double figures with them, having netted six Grammys and four Latin Grammys over his career, an average of one for every six years.
So we calculate that, if he's still at it when he's 87-and-a-half, Chucho ought to be due for Grammy number 11 in 2028.
Given that both these iconic jazz supernovas were born on its 'regional day', it seems fitting Valdés Junior should include the Comunidad Valenciana on his international schedule, and it's hard to believe that an artist of his magnitude, whom you'd pay the price of an air fare to Cuba to see in your home town, is set to perform in Jávea on Saturday (August 6) for free.
He has lengthy experience fronting jazz orchestras, but also as a soloist, although he won't be pianoing on his tod in the Marina Alta. Coming with the rest of his quartet, Chucho's legendary Afro-Cuban, classical, rock, and a blend of all of these with an extra, personal touch will ring out across the Plaza de la Constitución (which, handily, has a huge underground multi-storey car park beneath it) from 22.30.
All shows are in the same place and at the same time, on different days, and Sunday (August 7) is set to be a hit with a whole generation, or several. Soul, blues, jazz and R&B prodigy Monique Makon puts the vocals to the Big Band instrumentals with The Original Jazz Orchestra – or OJO, which translates as 'eye' in Spanish.
And an eye for an Original show is exactly what this winning Catalunya-based combination - part of the Taller de Músics academy - has, wide-open and shining: Their gig, titled Back to Amy, is a tribute to the world-beating angsty blues-pop sounds of the late Miss Winehouse.
Her sudden death at age 27 rocked the planet, and Guitarras Bros in Gata de Gorgos – Jávea's northern neighbour, a town famous for its traditional local craft industries – was reeling to hear of the loss of one of the family firm's most iconic clients. Every time you play her award-winning album, you'll be hearing strings lovingly strung at the Gata guitar-makers', tailored to Amy Winehouse's commission (fellow customers at Guitarras Bros have included Will Smith, Ed Sheeran and Mick Jagger), and this weekend, a whole 12 of her biggest hits will be brought back to life in Jávea's 'Constitution Square'.
The roarin' twenties didn't get off to a great start this time around – there's still hope of a flapper-dress and sidecar-cocktails revival replete with Gatsby-style parties (ideally without the murders) before the decade is out, but until then, the previous roarin' twenties are a time our human DNA feels nostalgic pangs for. And Le Dancing Pepa Swing Band will take you straight back to that halcyon between-the-wars era with all the energy of the earliest east-coast jazz clubs of a century ago – your genes will remember, even if you don't.
Beats that revolutionised the dance floor in 1920s' New York, recreated by one of the nation's biggest and best International Swing bands in its global World Jam première Hat 'n' Dance, will round off a thrilling three-day festival on Monday, August 8.
No need to book this year – just turn up, grab a terrace table with a champagne cocktail and swizzle-stick, and let the music drown out the white noise of everyday life.
Down Under in Dénia, Europe's cool north and Hot off the Paris press
You might just catch the opening act of Dénia Jazz Festival if you're on the doorstep or able to drop everything for a lightning-quick road trip – all the way from the US of A, Carole Alston brings tracks from her world-acclaimed albums Tribute to a Blue Lady, For My Sisters and In the Fold to the Torrecremada Park – the one where Dénia holds its weekly flea market on Monday mornings – seducing your eardrums with her delectably smooth brand of soul and powerful voice that have not aged a day in over 40 years. She joins Italian bassist Paolo Furio Marasso and one of our home-grown, up-and-coming jazz prodigies, Carles Pérez, from Petrer, in the heart of shoe-designer country at the south end of the province, on Thursday, August 4.
If you need a bit longer to plan, though, the festival has only just started and Carole Alston, whilst 100% epic, is only 25% of the Dénia event – and act two comes from even farther afield.
You could be forgiven for believing that all Australian singers started their careers in the recently (and tragically) ended soap opera Neighbours at some point during its 37 years on screen; after all, Ramsay Street and Erinsborough (it's an anagram. Did you realise?) brought us not only Kylie Minogue, but her on-screen husband Jason Donovan, Holly Valance, Natalie Imbruglia, Delta Goodrem and, even, for just one catchy hit, Stefan Dennis, aka Paul Robinson.
But Jessie Gordon has never mixed with Scott and Charlene, Fliss, Beth Brennan and the gang, and comes from the opposite end of the country – Perth – so her non-appearance on Neighbours is no more surprising than a Dutch resident's never being seen on a soap opera in Turkey.
She is, however, every bit as international as the Fremantle show, and takes in Dénia on her tour of Planet Earth – a 'sun-shy redhead who enjoys Swing music, dancing in her kitchen to Otis Redding and eating cheese', Jessie's charismatic vocals are strongly influenced by massive household names like Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day and Dinah Washington and, with the huge personality of her rare voice and her equally-huge presence on stage, all three of these legends would be sweating nervously and doubting their own talent if they heard her.
Joining the southern hemisphere star is the remainder of her quartet, led by Buenos Aires-born 'king of the keys', pianist Federico Mazzanti, on Thursday, August 11, also in the Torrecremada Park.
For the first time in the festival's history, Dénia Jazz has created and produced its very own band; quite a feat for a town council fiesta department in a municipality of barely 45,000 inhabitants, when you look at the sheer magnitude of its members.
The Ellingtonia Jazz Ensemble, set to hit the stage in the Torrecremada Park on Thursday, August 18, is a tribute to the life, lyrics and musical genius of Duke Ellington, brought to you by the crème of global artists.
British trumpet treasure Paul Evans, the versatile, multi-instrumental Frank Roberscheuten from The Netherlands, French trombone great Samuel Marthé, Polish piano pro Richard Busiakiewicz and, as a swift nod to the opposite end of the continent, Valencian vocalist Enric Peidró – an omnipotent presence backstage as well as on stage in the region's jazz scene – would make the Duke himself proud of the association with his name.
Peidró, part of the festival organisation, says the full Ellingtonia gig will be recorded, honed, and released as a 'Live in Dénia' album in the next few months.
A 'Berry' well known Trad Jazz great from the very cradle of piano bar country, trumpet-major and singer, modern-day Louis Armstrong and veteran human album factory, Paris' loss on the night of Thursday, August 25 is your, and Dénia's, gain.
Jérôme Etcheberry won't be allowed to stay away from his home in the French capital for long, because jazz fans north of the Pyrénées wouldn't have it – just enough time to perform his lifetime's worth of hits and show you why his lockdown album Satchmocracy won the Prix du Hot Club de France award in 2020, - while his native land suffers musical withdrawal symptoms.
Accompanying this long-running, prize-winning jazz veteran on the Torrecremada Park stage is his regular band, The Hot Berries, putting the instrumentals to tracks inspired by Red Allen, Roy Eldridge, and the other Armstrong, the one who didn't land on the moon.
Jérôme is considered to be one of the best musicians and vocalists of all time in his home nation – a land with a long tradition of blues and jazz and where this is every bit as mainstream as its trademark rap, heavy rock and floaty, dreamy, introspective pop – and a global Trad Jazz flag-bearer whose name is familiar on the scene in most continents.
All concerts start at 22.30, and tickets bought in advance (online from Notikumi.com, over the counter at Hotel Chamarel, Casa Benjamín and Ale-Hop stores in Dénia and nearby Ondara's El Portal de la Marina shopping centre) cost €14 a head per gig.
You can still grab your ticket at the gate on the night, for the slightly higher price of €17.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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