Delhiites, want to jazz up your weekend? Gear up for a musical weekend as the three-day Jazz Utsav comes calling this Friday, to be organised at Siri Fort Auditorium, Delhi. Featuring nine bands from eight countries, the festival which was formerly known as the Jazz Yatra enters its 30th year this time. The festival has moved from outdoors to indoors, over the years. "We started out with big stars in the early years, playing by the swimming pool at the Ashoka and later at the Vasant Continental. Great musicians like Max Roach and Freddie Hubbard, Stephane Grapelli and Jan Garbarek," Astri Ghosh, Festival coordinator shares with Indian Express Online. "Having the festival outdoors was fun, the ambience was great, but in the nineties we moved indoors. Through the years we have had a loyal audience, some of whom started coming in 1984, and some people who have discovered jazz in recent years. I get very happy when I hear college students standing outside the gate before the show begins, talking with great enthusiasm about John Coltrane," adds Ghosh. So what can Jazz lovers and festival fans can expect this time? "We have never featured a band from Spain before, but this year one of the acts is the Diego Amador Trio, which combines flamenco jazz with gypsy music and classical and modern jazz. We have also established links with the San Sebastian jazz festival in Spain, and will have a small exhibition of photographs from that festival at Siri Fort," says Ghosh. "We have nine bands from eight countries at the Utsav this time, two bands from the US, the Steve Davis Quartet and the David Hazeltine Trio. Steve Davis is a well known trombone player, and we rarely get to listen to the trombone here at the Jazz Utsav, so I am excited about that." It seems Delhi is eagerly awaiting the fest for there's a lot of response on ticket windows as well as Facebook. "Usually people start asking us for tickets a few weeks before the event, and this year we have had a lot of people asking us for tickets ahead of time as well. There has been quite a lot of response on Facebook, so I hope that we will see a lot of people at the festival." The artists performing at the fest are excited about being in India. "The Deborah J Carter Quartet came on Monday and held a workshop at the India International Centre. They are really excited about being at the Jazz Utsav this weekend. For the Diego Amador Trio, the Spanish band that is here right now, performing at the jazz Utsav is a dream come true. They are a gypsy band and are thrilled to be in the land where the gypsies came from, playing jazz!" So if you have made up your mind about booking the tickets, here's the schedule Friday - October 31, 2014: - Diego Amador Trio (Spain) Diego Amador (piano), Jesus Garrido-Toro (bass), Jorge Reyes-Oliva (cajon), Diego Amador Blanco (drums) - Deborah J Carter Quartet (The Netherlands) Deborah J Carter (vocals), Leo Bouwmeester (piano), Mark Zandveld (bass guitar), Gunnar Graafmans (drums) - Francesco Cafiso Duo (Italy) Francesco Cafiso (saxophone), Mauro Schiavone (piano) Saturday - November 01, 2014: - Helge Lien and Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer (Norway) Helge Lien (piano), Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer (vocals) Steve Davis Quartet (USA) Steve Davis (trombone), Nat Reeves (bass), Jason Tiemann (drums), Anthony Wonsey (piano) Arne Jansen Trio (Germany) Arne Jansen (guitar), Andreas Edelmann (bass), Eric Schaefer (drums) Sunday - November 02, 2014: - High Definition Quartet (Poland) Mateusz Sliwa (saxophone), Piotr Orzechowski (piano), Alan Wykpisz (bass), Dawid Fortuna (drums) - David Hazeltine Trio (USA) David Hazeltine (piano), David Williams (bass), Joe Farnsworth (drums) - The Goa Collective (India) Elvis Lobo (guitar), Arjun Sen (guitar), Shayne Ballantyne (guitar), Llewellyn Lew Hilt (bass), Bosco d Souza (drums)
