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Nordic Jazz Comets top the busy Nordic-French networking season in December

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Nordic Jazz Comets, the annual showcase for five up-and-coming Nordic jazz acts, and its French equivalent Jazz Migration, highlight this year’s General Assembly for the French club and festival network Association Jazzé Croisé. The assembly event in Paris on December 2–4 brings together jazz professionals from all over Europe to enjoy music and discuss topical matters. Les Rencontres AJC x Nordic Jazz Comets, is just a cherry on the top of a busy networking season this fall.

Text: Raisa Siivola

The Nordic Jazz Comets showcase is a collaboration of the Nordic jazz organizations: FIH Music School, Jazz Danmark, Jazz Finland, Norsk jazzforum and Svensk Jazz. The Nordic network has been developing their joint production concept since year 2000, when a competition called Young Nordic Jazz Comets was first introduced. In 2012 the competition for musicians under 26 years of age was re-launched as a festival showcase. Since that, “the Comets” partnered with four Nordic festivals, acting as an opener for Tampere Jazz Happening and Umeå Jazz Festival, among others.

Quickly the showcase rose to recognition in the Central European jazz scene, and the project was invited to festivals outside the Nordic countries. Due to the agile but ambitious nature of the Nordic collaboration, the project leveled up a notch by dropping the age limits (and the prefix “young” on its title) and taking up on the Europe Jazz Balance gender challenge. Soon the future of Nordic jazz was on display at the quirky Scope Festival in Berlin in 2017 and at the huge EFG London Jazz Festival in 2018. The two latter “exercises” in different kinds of partnerships and productions have brought invaluable experiences to the Nordic organization network and paved the way to this year’s culmination point: the 20th anniversary of (Young) Nordic Jazz Comets in Paris, hosted by the French promotor network Association Jazzé Croisé.

Nordic Jazz Comets showcase opens the assembly event on Monday, the 2nd of December, and on Tuesday night AJC showcase the fifth edition of their career project Jazz Migration. In Jazz Migration, four French bands are selected each year to first attend the AJC general assembly and showcase their music there, and then tour clubs and festivals the following year, both in France and abroad. Thanks to the French–Nordic relations and new contacts, the four Jazz Migration 2018 bands have a handful of concerts in the Nordic countries this year, mainly in Finland and Norway. Now that the Comets travel to Paris, the hopes are up for the young Northern musicians to win over the French programmers.

Jazz Migration project was founded in 2002 to organize and support extensive national tours annually for three French ensembles. In 2016 the project evolved to feature four bands and include one year of mentorship and coaching before a professional showcase, and then one year of touring.
  – Eight bands are supported by AJC every year: four bands are in training sessions, while four bands are on tour for around 20 gigs each, explain Antoine Bos, Executive Director of AJC and Tiphanie Moreau, Producer of Jazz Migration.

BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS

The recent partnership with the Association Jazzé Croisé has proven fruitful on both sides. The Nordic network have studied the French club and festival network and the Jazz Migration project and will apply some of their best practices in the future Comets editions. On the other hand, the French feel that their cultural exclusivity and conservatism in the past has become somewhat a hinder, and today they welcome the Nordic awareness and best practices of e.g. equality and accessibility into French jazz culture. It seems like a win-win situation when two artistically high-end, but culturally or geographically isolated communities come together.

The jazz community in the Northern countries is relatively small, compared to the German, British or French markets, where the Nordic Jazz Comets have recently visited. Yet, the Nordics have high-level education, plenty of talent and originality, and the interaction is vibrant within the region. Single success stories can have a massive impact on the whole community, and the professionals are curious to explore new ventures, both in programming and production-wise. New partnerships and creative experiments are easily picked up, and the scene is rather forward-looking and value-driven than conservative and commercial.

Obviously, the French and Nordic live jazz industries have existing connections before this latest partnership. Europe Jazz Network, the association for the industry’s key players, venues and events, has brought many organizations and professionals together. For example, AJC’s Antoine Bos and Øyvind Skjerven Larsen, the former programme director or the Norwegian Norsk jazzforum, met through the European network. The countries have warmed up their bilateral relations for a few years now by artist exchange between the Oslo-based club Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria and the French clubs and festivals.
  – When it was time for Norsk jazzforum to be the main coordinator of the next Nordic Jazz Comets, we naturally started to talk about building something bigger between our two projects that have so much in common, says Bos.
He also names another Nordic partner who has played a big part on building trust: Vapaat äänet manager Charles Gil and his Nordic Jazz Transit project, that brings French artists to play in Finland and other Nordic/Baltic countries and vice versa. AJC has supported the project since 2013.
  – There is a strong connection between our countries. Nordic jazz has such a big aura for many years now and it is one of the most interesting and vivid jazz scenes in Europe, describes Moreau, and concludes:
  – The new Nordic jazz scene will hopefully spread all over France!

FINLAND ON THE NETWORKING MAP

Nordic Jazz Comets x Jazz Migration, and other international projects, such as Jazz Finland International, play an important role in networking and building trust in partnerships. Jazz Finland International project lives its third consecutive edition in 2019–2020. The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and coordinated by Jazz Finland. The project supports the international development plans of 16 Finnish companies. In most of their strategies, the target markets for new initiatives included other Nordic countries and France, so the Finnish jazz businesses are really riding the wave. Some of the participants are attending the Paris assembly in December, while others are joining the various events in Finland, where the upcoming weeks before the year’s end seem to be heavily tricolored.

Helsinki Jazz and Vapaat äänet host a three-day Jazz Connective conference in Helsinki on October 28–30. Jazz Connective is a collaborative project between seven European organizations for sustainably strengthening the artistic scenes in seven cities. The project is coordinated by a French club Le Périscope in Lyon, and the artistic programme is supported by AJC. The concert programme features several French artists and also a Finnish-French trio of Sylvain Darrifourc, Verneri Pohjola and Eero Tikkanen. There’s also professional seminar content and networking events during the days, and the AJC representatives are throwing a crash course for entering the French jazz market.

After Jazz Connective, Helsinki passes the baton to Tampere. Three French Jazz Migration bands are performing in a French showcase at Tampere Jazz Happening’s opening Thursday, on the 31st of October, and a number of French musicians take the stages every night after that. Tampere Jazz Happening is annually visited by international journalists and other jazz industry professionals. *See writer's notes below.

As part of the Nordic Jazz Transit project, Vapaat äänet brings Sylvain Darrifourc’s IN LOVE WITH trio to an extensive tour in Finland on November 4–11. It wouldn’t be artist exchange, unless there was live Finnish music in France too: Esa Onttonen’s Gourmet sextet head for a tour in France and the Netherlands on November 13–17, opening the five-concert tour in the Lyonnese club Le Périscope.

On December 2–4 it’s time for the main course, Les Rencontres AJC x Nordic Jazz Comets in Paris. Over 60 French, Nordic and other European jazz professionals gather to the city of love, to hear concerts by Røgsignal (DEN), Kaisa’s Machine (FIN), Tumi Árnason & Magnús Trygvasson Eliassen (ICE), Erlend Apneseth Trio (NOR) and Fartyg 6 (SWE) on Monday, and by Jazz Migration bands Nefertiti, NoSax NoClar, Kepler and Y O U on Tuesday.

The three-day event hosts also a seminar and workshops for the professional participants. The Finnish attendees include members of Jazz Finland and participants of its Jazz Finland International project. A key topic in the conference is gender equality in jazz, which has been a hot potato in the Nordic countries too. **See writer's notes below.

Meanwhile in Helsinki, there’s We Jazz Festival on full throttle on December 1–8. The festival boasts with cutting-edge Finnish and other Nordic artists. So, if Paris is out of reach, We Jazz Festival is a great way to hear the latest on the Nordic jazz front and meet interesting international guests. ***See writer's notes below.

December 2–4, 2019
Les Rencontres AJC x Nordic Jazz Comets, Paris 

October 31–November 3, 2019
Spotlight on France / Tampere Jazz Happening, Tampere

October 28–30, 2019
Jazz Connective, Helsinki

Links:
Nordic Jazz Comets 
Association Jazzé Croisé & Jazz Migration 
Europe Jazz Network & Europe Jazz Balance Manifesto

Writer's notes:

* This year the guest list is even longer, as the event takes place the following weekend of the World Music Expo WOMEX. The 25th WOMEX gathers over 5.000 world music professionals from 90 countries in Tampere Hall on October 23–27. The annual trade and showcase event has become more and more popular among jazzers too.

** Four years ago, the Swedish jazz federation Svensk Jazz led a study pilot titled Europe Jazz Balance to analyse the jazz scene from a norm-critical perspective, studying jazz sector being aware of the norms and exclusionary structures of gender identity, ethnicity, religion or other beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, age. As a result to the process, 93 of Europe Jazz Network’s members – including Jazz Finland – signed the Europe Jazz Balance manifesto in Lisbon in 2018, committing to embrace gender balance in the jazz sector. So did AJC:
  – We signed a manifesto on Gender Balance in Jazz and Creative Music. In France, we started last year a common study [about gender equality] between three federations and the network, going from venues and festivals to musicians to students and teachers, says Tiphanie Moreau from AJC.
  In the Paris conference, the Europe Jazz Balance working group will meet and there will be a public discussion on the results and future actions.
Even though Nordic countries take equity and equality matters seriously, and they hold the pioneer reputation in advancing these values, the Nordics still have a lot to improve. In the manifesto, the members pledge i.e. to “put in place policies and action plans to involve more women as artists”. As a mere example, in 2018 the Nordic Jazz Comets showcased 14 male and 9 female musicians in London, while this year’s edition features 15 men and 4 women. The same figures for Jazz Migration were 14 male and 2 female last year and this year sees 8 men and 4 women in the showcase. This comparison – with the French going up in numbers of women on stage and the Nordics going down – shows that the topic is very relevant and the need for a study exists in Finland too.

*** If one is looking for a bit more traditional approach, then Umeå Jazz Festival in Sweden on October 23–27 is the go-to. At the same time though, the global world music industry and a bunch of jazz influencers gather to Tampere for the 25th annual WOMEX fair.

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