The 54th edition of the Voll-Damm Barcelona Jazz Festival raises the curtain today with a performance by Madeleine Peyroux at the Palau de la Música (8:30 p.m.).
The presence of the American singer, guitarist and composer is the definitive confirmation of the return to full normality of the festival after the effects of the pandemic.
Some of the big international names that appear on the poster for this edition were already scheduled for previous editions but had to be postponed until now. La Vanguardia subscribers have a 15% discount on the price of the tickets, as long as they buy them at the Vanguardia Tickets.
For this and also for offering a program that is as ambitious as it is varied in taste, the organization has produced an edition with content that is as balanced as it is spectacular. There will be more than seventy concerts that will take over the city of Barcelona – apart from the Sant Cugat Theater-Auditori – from today until the end of the year (exactly, April Fools' Day) in a dozen emblematic venues: Palau de la Música, L 'Auditori, the Conservatory and the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Paral·lel 62, Apolo and Luz de Gas rooms, the Harlem Jazz Club and the Milano Jazz Club.
The foreign campus is especially seductive due to its breadth. The female voices, in addition to Peyroux, Melody Gardot, Dianne Reeves, Cécile McLorin Salvant or Samara Joy. Ever-active teachers like Ron Carter; the extraordinary quartet made up of Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride and Brian Blade, or the equally tempting Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Lionel Loueke and Eric Harland; Latin and Brazilian chapter with Toquinho, Chucho Valdés and Paquito D'Rivera, Hermeto Pascoal or Elíades Ochoa; or the transgressive guitars of Marc Ribbot and Bill Frisell.
On the other hand, it is praiseworthy that this festival continues to give visible space to projects and new works from the local and Catalan scene, also showing from a prestigious event that what is created and lived in these latitudes is remarkable, since in the form of other cycles of interest such as L'Hora del Jazz or with the opening, for example, of a new Jamboree room.
In any case, the local and Catalan harvest is very much alive, starting with the ever-present label of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band and whose one of its great exponents, Andrea Motis, returns on this occasion in tandem with the versatile Menorcan pianist Marco Mezquida.
There is also Jordi Rossy with jazzmen from the Liceu, in trio format or with Carme Canela and Jaume Llombart; local formations such as the Liceu Big Band, the Liceu Blam Collective or the Barcelona Art Orchestra, or the Per semper Tete tribute, in memory of Tete Montoliu.
In addition to the strictly jazz program, we must also add the lavish contributions of De Cajón!, subtitled Festival Flamenco de Barcelona, which will bring seven first-rate proposals: the voice, touch and erudition of Raúl Rodríguez, the heartbreaking cante of Miguel Poveda, the guitar playing of Rafael Riqueni (with his new Nerja project), of Vicente Amigo (with a new album) and of Tomatito, who will do tandem with the glorious live pianist Michel Camilo with the Aranjuez project.
There will also be the premiere at the festival of two enormous cantaoras like Rosario la Tremendita, with her new album Principio y Origen under her arm, and Niña Pastori, who will surely shake a packed Gran Teatre del Liceu.
