Patsy Craig is from a fine art background, a painter. She has been producing international music events in London for the past 4 years as “t Wo Music,” a name which refers to two people, Zhenya Strigalev (Artistic Director) and herself – and is also extracted from the title of a book which she published called “Making Art Work. “

She explains here the background to the Partager Festival at Kings Place on May 5-8. The American musicians are better known and are a highly impressive list: (Fly – Mark Turner/Larry Grenadier/ Jeff Ballard, Hamid Drake and William Parker- above with Anthony Braxton). Here she focuses on some of the French guests.

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“For many years now, jazz festivals have been pretty broad churches, bringing in blues, gospel, world music etc.

“Partager, like all my programming, attempts to broaden the concept of jazz and improvised music. There is so much cross-pollination these days that to speak of specific genres now is almost a moot point… Now maybe jazz just means complexity and nuance through improvisation more then any specific musical structure. With a nod in the direction of those historical jazz structures. That nod can be a loud nod or a more quiet nod. To me jazz is music that challenges the listener even when it’s soft and sweet.

“Partager is a merging of sensibilities- it means to share, after all. It refers to the migratory pattern of musicians on tour- the organic connection that is brought on by the ease of travel and even telecommunications. A chain reaction- New York…London…Paris…like stepping stones across the water.

May 5th, 7 30pm: “Andy Emler (performing with his megaoctet including Marc Ducret) doesn’t seem to have come from a ‘strictly’ jazz background (in fact far from it) – but is there any such thing nowadays? Andy’s background is strongly linked to improvisation but probably has more of a classical reference. Again, I think it is about how strong the nod is in the direction of jazz’s historical roots.

May 6th, 7 30 pm: “The Matthieu Donarier Trio perform fascinating reworkings of classics from the French chanson including songs by Georges Brassens and Charles Trenet.

The full concert listing is on the Kings Place site HERE