This year the Belgrade Jazz Festival chose a programme more aimed at exploration than familiarity and featured many emerging artists plus a smattering of more familiar names to add balance to the line-up.
Jazz was just the starting point at an eclectic fifth edition of the So What's Next? jazz and beyond festival that took place in Eindhoven, Netherlands in early November.
At 87 Chris Barber is somewhat stooped and tends to ramble when addressing the audience.
Among the more obscure exponents of minimalism and classical avant-garde, the late Julius Eastman was nonetheless a compelling composer and all round agent provocateur whose oeuvre resonates loudly in the 21st century.
Those with long memories know that the precedent to this performance reaches far back.
Au Gres du Jazz Festival takes place in the beautiful setting of the tiny village of La Petite Pierre (59km from Strasbourg) in the Northern Vosges National Park region of Alsace.
Belgium is a crossroads country, with its capital Brussels not only the European Union's heart, but a national mid-point between Dutch-speaking Flanders to the north and the rest of French-speaking Wallonia.
Now in its 13th year, Jan Bang and Erik Honoré's PUNKT festival continues its path finder mission to melt genre boundaries with the 'leveller' of a live remix, performed by nearly every artist involved.
“He’s not just a roaring, swinging jazz saxophonist, he’s actually got the prog credentials as well!” shouts John Etheridge introducing bandmate and reeds player Theo Travis, who has played with Gong and King Crimson, to an audience eager to experience, or re-live, the legend.
Now in its seventh year, Sofia's A to JazZ Festival is both a surprise and a rarity.
