This year, the Lithuanian Jazz Federation (LDF) has entrusted market leaders from the UK, Denmark, Poland, Estonia and Germany with the 2021-2022 selection of works for the jazz collection. The international commission evaluated Lithuanian jazz, which can compete in the ever-globalizing musical context.
According to one of the experts, the program maker for the most famous British jazz club “Ronnie Scott’s”, it was not easy to rank the works because “the range is great, the quality is quite consistent, so it is difficult to compare one work with another”.
The former president of the Estonian Jazz Federation, Kirke Karja, thanked for the opportunity to delve into the world of Lithuanian jazz, stating that “you have so much good music!”.
It is extremely important to hear what foreign experts have to say about Lithuanian jazz, because their insights provide LDF with new ways to reach a wider audience of jazz lovers.
This year, the compilation entices with a variety of works, ranging from free jazz, traditional jazz, electronica, minimalism, to swing, rock, fusion, avant-garde and improvisational music elements.
The newest “Jazz From Lithuania” CD, together with LDF, for representational and networking purposes, will be presented this upcoming spring in the biggest trade fair and festival for jazz jazzahead!, and, afterwards, at the European Jazz Network platform (EJN), which unites 183 jazz organizations, at the WOMEX fair and at other networking events.
Many active jazz artists living and creating not only in Lithuania, but also in Spain, France, Denmark and the Netherlands submitted works for the selection. More than fifty works participated in the selection, and 27 works made it to the collection.
This collection, which includes the innovations in the jazz market, is not only an important tool for archiving the history of Lithuanian jazz, but also one of the main tools of the Lithuanian Jazz Federation to introduce musical innovations to the local and foreign markets while also helping the works to get to radio stations, reviewers and event organizers.
Thanks to the funding of the Lithuanian Culture Council, the double LDF album will be released in December, and the Laivo Troupe, which scored the most points in the selection, will be delegated to the selection of the showcase program at the prestigious jazzahead! fair and festival in the spring. In order to implement one of the organization’s missions – the export of jazz – the Lithuanian Jazz Federation, for the first time this year, formed a selection committee including experts in the fields of jazz from different markets. They were managers of jazz clubs, a composer, a journalist, a digital festival program content compiler, and a member of the council of a cultural organization.
In 2022, the expert commission of the Lithuanian Jazz Federation:
Paul Pace – Program maker of Ronnie Scott’s, the UK’s most famous jazz club(UK)
Nigel Slee – Digital Content Compiler for Jazz North (UK).
Kirke Karja – composer, performer, former president of the Estonian Jazz Federation (Estonia)
Lukas Bjørn Leer Bysted – organizer of events and the Supernova Jazz Blast festival, manager of music groups, board member of the jazz association JAZZ9TUS (Denmark)
Anna-Marie Schluifelder – event organizer, jazz program maker Bergson Kunstkraftwerk München, long-time program maker at Unterfahrt jazz club (Germany)
Asia Pieczykolan – editor of Jazz Forum magazine (Poland).
