Panorama of Nordic Jazz
The five individual, state-supported jazz support organisations of each of the Nordic countries presented their activities in turn. As is always the case, some impressions were reinforced and there were also surprises. A moment of strong reinforcement came in a single slide in the Norwegian presentation which showed the sheer scale of central government support for the Norwegian jazz scene: the slide listed various programmes which give over EUR11m per annum, with the speaker stressed that the central government is far from the only source of support. The Norsk Jazz Forum also came equipped with a newly-published and highly informative book about the scene, This is Our Music – Jazz Out of Norway.
The presentation by the Finns was particularly impressive, and for me surprisingly so, not least because it gave remarkably precise answers to the sort of questions one very often ends up asking in vain of music sectors in many countries, namely figures for industry turnover of live and recorded music and of the numbers of active musicians. Finland’s achievement goes beyond the statistical: the country was very well represented in the gatherings, and I would probably give the representatives of jazz the laurel for the obvious levels of passion and enthusiasm which they bring to their work as advocates for the Finnish scene.
The Danish and Swedish presentations gave exemplary demonstrations of one aspect which support organisations can get wrong: both these countries delivered a strong sense that the they have a sensitivity towards, and a mission to support, not just the larger and more visible festivals and promoters, but also the smaller-scale and more homespun that provide the lifeblood of the scene. This is where things have sometimes gone wrong in the UK, where similar networks, admittedly without the luxury of similar levels of core cost funding, have tended to “follow the money” and leave the small-scale promoter and musician-promoted events out of the picture.
The presentation of the tiny Icelandic scene was also there to give everyone a reminder that in smaller communities where particpants’ paths tend to cross every day, everyone really does need to collaborate and get on together. In Reykjavik that is unavoidable. In that process the innate humour of the Icelandic people must also serve them well.
One common feature which came from the presentations by the organisations from the larger Nordic countries is the imperative for the jazz “community” to “speak with one voice” in order to do effective lobbying of government. A good example is Norway, where the Norsk Jazz Forum in fact results from the mid -1990s merger of organisations of two different organisations representing promoters and musicians.
And another feature, of which several speakers noted how proud they were, is the fact that the five Nordic countries have taken to presenting as a unified yet diverse group. This outing is in fact the third. They appeared first in Berlin in 2017, then last year at the London Jazz Festival, and now here in Paris. This also chimes with the theme which Philippe Ochem of AJC and Jazzdor emphasizes in his introduction to the printed programme, that the aim of all of this is to show that there are “ways of defining success that go beyond ticket sales and breaking attendance records,” and which he alluded to in the only phrase of his speech at the opening reception for which he lapsed into French. The principle here is “vivre ensemble.”
Kaisa Maënsivu
Erlend Apneseth’s trio
Categories: Live reviews
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