International Jazz Festivals – Things Are Looking Up
by Allan McGowan

The International Jazz Festivals Organisation (IJFO) is an umbrella organization to at present 13 leading jazz festivals worldwide. The members do not compete territorially and collaborate on scheduling to allow for the touring of common projects. Synergies are developed during four annual meetings: September - roundup (varying locations)
November - industry presentations (New York) January - IAJE convention (varying locations), and March - ILMC (London). This last location is where Vip News met up with the IFJO’s Fritz Thom.


Vip News: How was this seemingly very well co-ordinated Organisation created?


Thom: The history of IJFO goes back more than 20 years: Several European jazz festivals promoters met in Paris in 1982 to discuss a tour with Miles Davis. Three promoters emerged out of this Paris meeting as the core of what became the EJFO (European Jazz Festivals Organization): Paul Acket (North Sea), Jyrki Kangas (Pori) and myself (Vienna). In 1988, Paul Acket invited 7 European jazz festivals to meet in New York, among them were Molde, North Sea, Pori, Vienna (Austria) and Vitoria. This was the birth of the EJFO. Shortly after that, Umbria Jazz and Vienne (France) joined, followed a bit later by Istanbul and Montreux. In 2001we sponsored an international jazz award. This award is presented in partnership with the IAJE (International Associaton for Jazz Education) at their annual conferences and rewards upcoming talents in the genre of jazz After Montreal joined the organization a few years ago, the time was finally right in 2002, after Monterey and Vancouver came on board, for the original European association to go international. This was the birth of the IJFO - the International Jazz Festivals Organization.

 

Vip News: So how are things looking for this year’s festivals?


Thom: Our IJFO festivals are shaping up very nicely this year as there is a lot of interesting headliners out this summer. Additionally to the jazz greats Keith Jarrett or Herbie Hancock our jazz festivals present a wide spectrum of quality music. The top names this summer range from Stevie Wonder, Opera soprano Barbara Hendricks, Brazlian Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil to the hottest names in R&B (Alicia Keys, Macy Gray and Angie Stone).


Vip News: So you expect increased sales for this year’s festivals?


Thom: This season we are looking for another record of our IJFO festivals and we are expecting to reach more than 4 million people this year. Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stevie Wonder will perform at the Pori Jazz Festival on Sunday, July 18th, at the first weekend of the festival, and he is also scheduled at this time for three concerts in Scandinavia: Molde, Norway, on July 15, Stockholm, Sweden, on the 17th and Pori, Finland, on the 18th. Stevie Wonder is a musical genius, who skilfully combines soul, funk, jazz


Vip News: We are all aware of a resurgence of interest in jazz, and of the new talents that some are calling ‘nu-jazz’. Is this movement producing real benefits for your work and events?


Thom: With plenty of new talent as potential new headliners jazz and our jazz festivals are in a very fortunate position: within the recording industry jazz artists as Diana Krall and Norah Jones are amongst the top sellers, jazz sales increased last year by almost 10%. Strong new names as Jamie Callum, Michael Buble, Stacey Kent, etc will definitely create an additional boost in the near future and they will bring us a flood of new audiences
For further details go to : www.ijfo.org
:. www.vip-booking.com .: