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LE
JAZZ REVIVAL IN BRITANNY
(This article appears by kind permission of the Editor of Just
Jazz, ad writer Andrew Liddle)
So
What's this got to with the North West?
Well Trevor was once the leader of the Liverpool Band, The Blue
Mags and
you can see him in action
here
In
the last ten or so years young people in increasing numbers have
begun to appreciate the sophisticated excitement of Big Band
Swing. Why not other forms of Jazz? Could we now be on the verge
of a Traditional Jazz Revival? Could we really be about to see
the big-time return of the music that has never gone away but
been out of the mainstream for decades? Are the bad times we are
living through crying out for the return of Good Time Jazz?
Trevor Stent, one-time clarinettist with the
Blue Magnolia Jass Orchestra, thinks
we could, and is the Co-President of the Association Jazz Kreiz
Breizh, based in Brittany, doing its best to promote it – with
the avowed intention of ‘encouraging young people to listen to,
participate in and play early-style jazz.' An association has a
formal status in France and each has to be regulated, approved
by local authorities and this one receives grants from the
regional council and local sponsors.
Trevor is a man with a mission, as we will see, and feels
passionately about what can be achieved to bring Jazz back as a
popular form of music. It is no surprise that he puts the accent
on youth, having started playing the clarinet when he was 12. By
the age of 15 he was performing in the back-street pubs of his
native Portsmouth with friend, pianist Jon Marks, who some
readers will remember having an impressive professional career
in New Orleans’ style Jazz until his sadly early death in 2007.
Trevor spent much of his free time while at Christ’s College,
Cambridge, where he read History, playing with the university
band, the Idle Hour Jazz Band, in the company of pianist John
Reade and guitarist Phil Probert. We may perhaps conjecture that
it was the band’s two memorable tours of the French Riviera, in
the mid-1960s, which gave him the taste for la vie française. It
was while teaching in Liverpool that he joined the Blue Mags,
with whom he stayed for a quarter of a century. ‘Disillusioned
with the effects of Thatcherism on Merseyside and the despair
and destruction it had caused, I decided in 1993 to move to
France with my young family and start a new adventure,’ he
explains.
He gradually met young French musicians and formed Good Time
Jazz, based around his home village of Châteauneuf-du-Faou, deep
in rural Brittany. ‘From the beginning, in 2003, it was a great
success with monthly concerts drawing a packed crowd to the Tal
ar Pont, a lovely auberge on the banks of the beautiful River
Aulne.’
2005 was the point of take-off with the band organising a
festival on the banks of the river with an atmosphere that was,
‘more Woodstock than Conservatoire’, as the festival’s slogan
had it, and placing the emphasis on encouraging young people to
listen, play and appreciate jazz.
The encouragement currently being offered may be seen as an
extension of this. It comes in several forms, starting perhaps
with visits of musicians to schools, in a project called Jazz à
l’Ecole, where young people are given the opportunity to listen
to, and learn the history of, what is to them a new kind of
music. Such visits have proved highly rewarding, stimulated much
interest and, occasionally, led to the discovery of very
promising musicians. ‘At a recent visit to a small college in a
rural area, for example, we unearthed two 14-year-olds who
played trombone and guitar and were very happy to sit in with
the group and play during the concert.’ Trevor glows. ‘They were
great!’
There is, of course, an intimate connection to Fest Jazz, the
annual Brittany Jazz Festival, held each July, which Trevor has
administered for the last 17 years. ‘We place enormous emphasis
on young people with every aspect of the four-day event. The key
is to get young people to organise it. That changes everything.
We have a team of three or four under-25s who work full-time for
10 months.’
The galvanising effect has been apparent in several important
ways. The advertising of the festival has, not least, become
demonstrably more contemporary. ‘When I look at the earlier
posters and visual supports,’ Trevor reflects, ‘I realise now
how toe-curlingly awful they were.’ In France, it seems the
festival’s poster defines the image of the event. ‘Young people
would not be seen dead at an event unless the image is right.’
Bands composed of local young musicians and introduced by young
people have proved very popular with all audiences, and with
special appeal to the same age group. The most remarkable
discovery was the bravura talent of Breton trumpeter, Malo
Mazurié, who made his festival debut in 2004, aged 13, and has
played at every such event since then. ‘Talents like Malo arrive
only once in a lifetime, but we are convinced that there must be
other young musicians who can be attracted by the idea of
playing Jazz,’ Trevor enthuses. “Unlike the UK, Europe has lots
of young people playing traditional jazz and at a very high
level indeed.’
‘Of course,’ he adds, ‘the God of teaching young people Jazz is
the amazing Joan Chamorro,’ from the Saint Andreu Jazz Band in
Barcelona. ‘Certainly he is one of the most remarkable people I
have ever met.’ He and his young stars, notably Andrea Motis,
Eva Fernandez and Rita Payes, came to the festival in 2013, 2014
and 2016. ‘The concerts by them and the 30- piece big band were
among the best moments in my musical life.’
One of the most recent developments was a Jazz Workshop for
aspiring instrumentalists in 2021. There was no shortage of
interest and 34 youngsters spent five days before the festival
in the local village college with 3 professional teachers and
performed as a Big Band on the big stage on the last day of the
festival. ‘And it wasn’t at all horrendous! Trevor says with
understated pride. ‘It will be repeated in 2022.’
With youth the driving force, the Festival in many ways more
resembles a modern pop concert. Spectators can wander as they
wish from stage to stage and are not confined to a concert room
for a couple of hours. ‘It’s all very ecologically sound,’ he
adds. ‘We have a ban on plastic. There’s no cash at the bars and
restaurants, no cars on the site…’
A good example of a change in tone are the publicity videos
produced for the event. ‘In 2019 the team came up with a short,
sharp, two-minute, promotion which was lively and dynamic but …
.’ Trevor pauses, thoughtful. ‘But …they wanted to use a sound
track that simply wasn’t Jazz.’ Evidently he was not entirely at
ease with their excursion into the world of Funky Pop. ‘Two or
three days of intense discussion followed before, in the end,
their view prevailed.’
He was much relieved to receive the seal of approval from the
great Marla Dixon, at the festival with the Shake’em Up Jazz
Band: 'I don’t much like the music on the sound track, but I
understand exactly why they wanted to do it. They were right. It
will attract young people and that is essential.’
‘As well as bringing new ideas and techniques,’ Trevor adds,
‘young people also bring their friends, dramatically reducing
the average age of the audiences.’ He thinks that this is
clearly the best way to reach the maximum number of people and
have the greatest proselytising influence.
The emphasis on youth receives an annual shot in the arm from
the irrepressible Swede, Gunhild Carling, now based in
California, whose talents seem to transcend the mere playing of
multiple musical instruments - sometimes at the same time -
taking her into the world of Dance and Show Biz. ‘With her
brothers Max on clarinet and Ulf on drums and daughter, Idun, on
trombone, Gunhild first came to the festival in 2017.
Immediately there was a two-way love affair between Fest Jazz
and these amazing musicians. The crowd love the showmanship, the
blistering technique and the superb phrasing of these world
superstars.’Gunhild and her family offer the warmest support.
‘They are so keen to speak with the other young musicians,
encourage them, advise them, praise them, inspire them.’ He
recalls Gunhild, after a physically demanding performance,
speaking with two young French trumpeters for over an hour,
discussing mutes and mouthpieces, embouchures and instruments,
everything a young instrumentalist would want to know. ‘Then she
blew her heart out - on several instruments - alongside the
youngsters in the jam session until four in the morning!’
Not entirely surprising, then, is it that Gunhild has been
invited to be Patron of Fest Jazz for 2022, where at least 4 000
spectators are expected and the programme will include the
wonderful New Orleans’ street band Tuba Skinny; Anastasia
Ivanova, the 20-year-old trombone sensation from Russia; young
French stars Malo Mazurié, Joe Santoni and Tatiana Eva-Marie;
the vivacious Mama Shakers and a host of other, mostly young
musicians.
Trevor fears, alas, that the music he loves faces extinction
unless musicians and promoters change their approach.
‘Traditional Jazz followers are obsessed with the past. They are
enthused by old trains, old cars, old trams, old radio and TV
programmes. I like these too! But they must not be afflicted by
the palsy of nostalgia.’ He adds forthrightly: It’s no longer
1957, get over it! They must also look to the future, accept
change and do everything possible to encourage the young to
discover our music and enjoy it.’
How wonderful if the epicentre of the great revival turned out
to be in rural Brittany!
Details: www.fest-jazz.com
; write for information to
contact@fest-jazz.com
Andrew Liddle
Read
Trevor's own experiences in The Jazz
Promoters |