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Last weekend I went to visit Saalfelden/Austria, where my favourite jazz festival takes place (almost) every year – this year celebrating its 30th anniversary! In the past 10 years, I have missed Saalfelden only once, 2006, after the festival had paused for financial difficulties in 2005. What makes this occasion in a little Austrian town so special among the hundreds of festivals all across Europe every summer?  A hymn to this unique celebration of new and creative music.

History

Saalfelden am Steinernen Meer (by the stone sea) is a town of about 16,000 people in the Austrian state of Salzburg, situated in an idyllic Alps valley close to excellent Ski resorts like Saalbach-Hinterglemm and Zell am See. There doesn’t seem to be a coherent history of Jazz Saalfelden, but here’s what I could gather from oral tradition, an entertaining photo exhibition on the occasion of the 30th anniversary, and press releases. It appears that the tradition was initated by some local students in 1978 under the simple name “Drei Tage Jazz” – “Three days of jazz”, because they were tired of driving hours and hours to concerts in the European metropolises. Maybe there is some understatement in the local students meme, since from the very beginning, the biggest names in (then) contemporary jazz, many of them from the US, crop up in the program listings. What motivated these greats to come here in summer, when you couldn’t even ski? The surroundings are breathtakingly beautiful, though. I heard that many artists comment on the exceptionally friendly treatment they traditionally received here, and maybe avantgarde jazz players even of the highest ranks grab any gig opportunity they can get. Still, there remains some mystery to the immediately star-studded program. Unfortunately, I couldn’t dig up any old schedules on the web, and I don’t remember the details from the photographs I saw.

Back then, the three days took place in some apparently louche tavern or hayrick nick-named “the Ranch”, that was rumoured to host unspeakable orgies among the local populace. The photos of this time speak of real hippie spirit until late in the eighties. I guess everything lasts a little longer in Austria. The initial ill will of the traditionally minded locals is nicely illustrated by a photograph of a pub sign that translates into “guests of the jazz festival are not welcome on these premises”.

A few years later, the festival changed its name to Jazz Saalfelden and moved to a specifically erected tent settlement on the city limits, further encouraging the hippie feeling. Yet, the people of Saalfelden have apparently softened up their views on the strange music rather quickly, given the global prominence and the economic boost in the normally slow summer months it lent to their home town.

I came to Saalfelden for the first time by accident in 2000, accompanying my girlfriend on an excursion with her university course on Afro-American poetry. We came to see Amiri Baraka, provocateur extraordinaire, who didn’t disappoint, reading hate poetry like A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR GIULIANI’S DISPOSAL
IN FORTY-ONE VERSES WHICH ARE ALSO CURSES over some free jazz by a group I do not recall. What I do recall is my fascination with acts like Sex Mob (one of the finest band names ever devised, I find), who played a schizophrenic version of Abba’s Fernando lasting about 17 minutes, and the ingenious Brazilian-New Yorker Arto Lindsay with his unique mixture of strangely poetic lyrics, decrepit-sweetly sung over bossa nova tunes and broken by a non-guitar-playing approach to playing guitar so magically noisy that some music journalist invented the onomatopoeic term “Skronk” for it. The latter I remember countering some local drunk who in deep Austrian dialect asked him to “play something that you know how to play” with the eternal words “speak French to me – coz I don’t understand that either!”. Indeed I was so taken that I drove long distances to Lindsay’s concerts whenever he performed in Germany in the years after. Though we only stayed one day back in 2000, I had also fallen deeply in love with Jazz Saalfelden, and returned every year, encouraging different friends and lovers to join me over the years.

Accordingly, my heart was broken when in 2005, the festival was declared dead because it was supposed to have amassed huge debts. But my prayers were answered in 2006 already: Jazz Saalfelden was reanimated, in a smaller and more grown-up form. Although the style and quality of the program has remained the same, the venue was moved from the huge tents in Ramseiden to the new and ultramodern conference center in the city center. This has further improved the professionality and sound quality (which has always been amazing, especially considering the tent environment), yet forced a drastic cut in audience size (tickets are a rare good nowadays, it is very advisable to book well ahead) and, although the hard core group of visitors seems to have remained stable since the eighties, diminished the hippie spirit quite a bit. So while the music and surroundings (plus the excellent Austrian food!) are still unmatched anywhere in the world, the festival atmosphere is a bit too clinical for my taste, now more than ever lacking the side benefits – sex, drugs, and rock’n roll – you would expect in, say, a rock festival.

How does it feel today?

The people

Indeed, the people visiting Jazz Saalfelden are rather particular. This time more than ever I noticed the same faces I have seen in the last ten years, and I got the impression that these are indeed the same old hippies that can be seen in their youth on the pictures from the eighties. There clearly is a very stable supporting group of mostly men who have grown old with the festival, then typically in their 20s, now in their 50s. The effect is much more pronounced since the audience cut down because these people obviously care to get a ticket way ahead, and there are less walk-in customers simply because there are less tickets. Maybe this has been amplified owing to the anniversary this year. Still, there are younger people and even some women here and there. What still amazes me is that this younger crowd seems to suddenly appear whenever there is one of what I call fun acts playing – bands that play funky, danceable fun music. This time, Dutch anarcho-punk-band The Ex stood out in this way.

The music

Of course, we are really all here for the music. In my opinion, it is simply the freshest, most interesting, daring, surprising, quality, fun, and plain best selection of bands you can dig anywhere one the planet. And this has remained a constant since the inception of Jazz Saalfelden. Every year, there are 15 acts on the main stage, plus on the order of 8 more chamber oriented smaller formats in what they call “short cuts”, plus about 6 free concerts in town and about 5 free concerts on some mountain meadows in the vicinity. The free concerts show a clear drop in ambition and quality.  Although by themselves, these would often constitute legitimately good concerts, to me, it’s usually not worth going there when you expect 5 to 8 really great, inspiring, and exhausting concerts later the same day. Even going to the short cuts (which cost a small extra price) is a question of true stamina and focus, because the program is so challenging even without it. Can you really concentrate on two or three more – mostly brilliant – acts per day? This year, me and my brother Christoph decided not to try.

The following is a personal account of the 15 main acts, which I find to perfectly represent the typical mix of styles that you can listen to in any Jazz Saalfelden year.

Friday

Driving into Saalfelden has become a beautiful ritual for me, the scenery along the way being worth the drive on its own. After we rigged our tent on the shore of the muddy but scenic Ritzensee, we strolled into town for what turned out to be a very challenging evening. This although the format had been changed to 4-6-5 concerts on friday-saturday-sunday instead of the former 5-5-5, which I found to be a good idea. Traditionally, the first concert is a commissioned piece by an Austrian artist, in this case Christian Muthspiel’s Yodel Group.

This year’s alpine-jazz experiment I liked a lot better than many before it. I had feared that there would actually be yodeling, but instead the group was just a rather brass-oriented band playing cute little jazz arrangements over traditional Austrian yodler forms. Technically brilliant, if a bit contrived, I felt. After everybody got the idea, it grew a bit old, but for the first concert, it was very good fare.

Little did we expect that Little Women, the second act coming up, would be, as Christoph put it afterwards “maybe the most horrible music I ever listened to!” Mind that this was said with full respect and admiration for a truly remarkable and courageous presentation:

As you can see, Little Women from New York are one of the nerdiest looking bands ever seen. But from the moment they entered the stage, they didn’t let up in delivering a torrent of precise yet terrible noise, monotonous yet original. The audience fled the room in droves. I especially liked guitarist Andrew Smiley’s unique style of playing simple riffs wrong in an incredibly original way. Mind you, the whole thing was hardly bearable, but its intensity and authenticity gave us the feeling of surviving a spiritual purification ritual, a real catharsis. I could not agree more with Impose magazine’s succinct way of putting it: “Anyone who has seen them live, has first–hand information on what terror can mean”.

The last two acts Big Air and Sol12 have faded in my memory, which has probably less to do with the bands than with my fading concentration that evening. I had been looking forward to Big Air, especially to drummer Jim Black, and he didn’t disappoint: This in one hyperactive, intense, obsessed even, fellow. Yet somehow I could not digest too well anymore what has been so aptly called “polyrythmic hub” – or, even more befitting in German/Austrian, described using the non-word “Gewurl” – on the Saalfelden website. Similar for Sol12. This is one of the typical anarchic free big bands led by Dutch energy source Luc Ex. They certainly had moments of brilliance, freedom, and inspiration, still at some point I could not help but notice little but the sheer volume of it all.

Saturday

Saturday was the day of inspired madness and great surprises, in spite of really awful weather (there isn’t much to do in Saalfelden when it rains). It began with Rova:Orkestrova’s Electric Ascension “21st-Century Coltrane”, a huge band filled with noise superstars like Elliot Sharp and Ikue Mori. Plus, they played the “40 minute orgasm” free piece Ascension by John Coltrane, so I was licking my lips in advance. I have to admit, though, this presentation was a little too intense for my presence capability, and so often enough I felt I could do little else but bear the brunt of noise coming at me. So I was aching for something a little more civilized and “easy”, and it came exactly at the right time:
Eric Friedlander’s Broken Arm Trio soothed me with beautiful acoustic chamber jazz confirming my observation that the cello is taking a more and more central position in contemporary jazz. I guess I wasn’t alone in my gratitude for this island of calm beauty. By the way, the name alludes to Oscar Pettiford who, when he broke his arm in 1949, temporarily replaced his heavy bass by a cello and in this way, at least that’s what Friedlander says, revolutionized the role of cello in jazz. Before the break, the Oliver Lake reunion trio played classical free jazz like they are supposed to have done 30 years ago. I have to admit that I’d never heard the name before, but I liked the simple free jazz format a lot.

Now I had feared that six concerts on one day would certainly lead to a mind overload, but the evening selection turned out to be relatively digestable and extremely entertaining, so I was able to pay attention till the very end. Steven Bernstein’s Diaspora Blues, this year’s klezmer-funk candidate, we found a true revelation, one of the absolute highlights of the festival. Complex and intellectual, yet ass-movingly funky, and featuring a perfectly working band where almost everybody seems to be one of Bernstein’s (who by the way has also been responsible for Sex Mob) childhood buddies, this is one of these acts that you should definitely see live if ever given the chance. It’s still nice recorded, but you’d miss a lot. Plus, Bernstein is one hell of a funny dude.

Eivind Aarset Sonic Codex Orchestra, this year’s melancholic Norwegians, was not only the first band I have ever seen perform in Saalfelden with their own video art background, but kept reminding me of Pink Floyd: Extremely sound oriented, very simple two-chord schemes, and totally ethereal/psychedelic. A welcome relief from complexity.

But things got even groovier, and funnier to boot, with Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Guests. Getatchew Mekuria is a 74-year old tenor player from Ethiopia, discovered and brought to Holland by the ever-fresh Ex. This year’s fun-dance act won everybody’s heart with simple, uplifting, African-inspired tunes, punk-rock attitude and even some vocals performed with a true feeling of heartfelt, goodhearted, anarchistic, communal fun. The traditional African attire of Mr. Mekuria perfectly fit the orange clothing and mood of the Dutch rest of the band. Suddenly the hall was filled with a young, eager, dancing crowd beckoning for more, misteriously appeared out of thin air. This was almost too positively spirited to be true. Another miracle.

Sunday

So finally the big day of superlatives was here. Not only would Ornette Coleman play, the festival’s headliner, but I was especially looking forward to Vijay Iyer. But before these heavyweights came onstage, the day started with Gianluca Petrella Cosmic Band „Coming Tomorrow – Part 1“. Gianluca Petrella struck me as the most inspired band leader, along with Steven Bernstein and Luc Ex, and his big band delivered a gripping cosmic experience, perfectly suited as a movie sound track, as I noticed when I closed my eyes. Next up was another wild card, a mainstay in Austrian jazz, Wolfgang Puschnig with “Room”, an eclectic roster featuring heavyweight vocalist Eric Mingus and Austropop guitarist Hannes Wildner, among others. Though they had some moments, I perceived this concert as a letdown in comparison with the other brilliant bands. Guitarist Rick Iannacone saved the day for me with his truly original style, yet on the whole I could not really see the point of this ensemble.

Jim Pugliese’s Big Easy is an extremely percussion oriented group featuring two drummers and one percussionist. This entails very complex rhythmic structures over simple song structures. I experienced the concert as soulful, even if I could not always connect with the drum-centric approach.

Finally, Vijay Iyer entered the stage with a classical, brilliantly functioning piano trio. Iyer, a physicist and mathematician by training, is said to never have had formal piano lessons. This makes him an entirely original, but still incredibly precise and effective pianist. Mine and Christoph’s personal favourite concert, this was nothing less than an hour of pure spiritual beauty. I felt that this experience alone had been worth the admission price. So if you ever get the chance to see Iyer play, don’t miss out!

Ornette Coleman is a legend. The man that coined the term “Free Jazz” as an album title is also one of the founders of this revolutionary music. And at 79 years of age, he is certainly a worthy headliner for the 30th anniversary Saalfelden festival. I saw him play with a similar group about two years ago in Essen, and already then I was impressed with his intuitive, emotional, and seemingly simple way of playing, that defies the idea of harsh, overly rational, hard-to-connect-to free jazz. This man plays some of the most touching ballads on the planet. Still, I found that he has grown a bit old in these two years. From the beginning, he seemed fragile and physically weak. His group (including his son Denardo on drums, who Christoph thought played really lousy ) appeared to be constantly carrying him, trying to cover the many weaknesses in Coleman’s playing. Moreover, in about one and a half hour, the other three members of the group did not get the opportunity to play a single solo. During the course of this concert, however, Coleman visibly perked up, as if tapping into the energy of his enthusiastic audience. In the end I couldn’t believe my ears when Coleman played his unique version of some J.S. Bach piece and “Beat It!” by Michael Jackson as one of his several groovy encores! In spite of everything this has been an impressive performance and he seemed quite taken by the seemingly endless standing ovations from a hall overfull with aficionados.

To cut an already long story short, if you are interested in getting your mind blown by truly inspiring, original, and brilliant music in an environment almost too idyllic to be true, get your tickets for Saalfelden 2010 ASAP!

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