Trondheim's Dokkhuset turns into a stage for the freshest and most topical Nordic jazz of the year in the annual Young Nordic Jazz Comets showcase night on the 12th of September. The YNJC showcase features six bands from the five Nordic countries, and teh Faroe Islands. This year's Finnish representative is vocalist Kadi Vija's Kadi Quartet.
YNJC 2013 – Dokkhuset, Trondheim, Norway, September 12th
Young Nordic Jazz Comets started in 2000 and has since been a recurring event on the Nordic jazz scene. The main purpose is to create attention to new jazz talents, giving them the opportunity to meet their future audience and to play at professional venues.
Intill 2012 this event has been organized as an annual competition. Starting in 2012, the countries involved in YNJC, wanted to focus more on the aspect of promotion, and not the competitive elements.
The idea is to create a club night/venue event for young aspiring jazz talents at one of the key jazz venues in one of the Nordic countries each year. The goal will be to attract as much attention as possible from key people within the jazz community in the Nordic countries/the rest of the world, be it jazz clubs, festivals and the music press. In other words, this event has networking and promotion as its main purpose. There are many reasons for this shift in focus, the obvious being that it’s difficult (or impossible) to have a fair competition in music. But strict competition-rules can also put quite a few unnatural boundaries on presenting the best of young Nordic jazz. The growth of new talents is continuing to expand in all the Nordic countries, and new band combinations are often made across national borders. Having nations compete against each other therefore goes against this trend.
The importance of such a venture is based on the fact that it is extremely hard as an aspiring artist in an un-commercial business to get the chance to show your talent, no matter how great it is. It is increasingly hard for the young musician to get gigs when even established names are queuing up to get a chance to play.
The 2013 Young Nordic Jazz Comets happening will take place at venue Dokkhuset in Trondheim, Norway on September 12th. And be part of the European Jazz Networks annual meeting witch is also taking place in Trondheim, Norway at Dokkhuset statring on September 13th.
Read more about Kadi Quartet on Jazz Finland.
Read more about YNJC and the bands on www.youngnordicjazzcomets.com
Read Rob Young's essay on Nordic Jazz on Jazz Finland's 'Blogs' section