Clare Doyle’s
FRANCE 2010
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all that jazz
The Marciac Jazz Festival
The programme for the Marciac Jazz festival arrived today, and despite the unseasonably wintry temperatures, and the steady rain falling outside my window, a sudden shaft of sunlight lit up my life.
We live about six kilometres from Marciac, and although this was not a deciding reason for living where we do (or even any kind of influence), the festival is now a significant element in our lives.
Marciac is a small bastide town in the Gers, in the South West of France. These pretty medieval villages are a feature of the rolling countryside of the Gers, offering calm and shade in their galleried squares for obligatory long lunches in the height of the summer.
This year is the 33rd jazz festival, and as ever, the line-up of internationally known performers is truly impressive. There is something special about seeing world performers such as Wynton Marsalis or Herbie Hancock playing in a marquee in a place that generally could qualify as being the middle of nowhere, and for two weeks becomes the capital of jazz.
From the stage in the main square all day long there are free concerts, animated by a wide range of musicians, from the students at the local college, to professionals who come from all over the world. You can sit at one of the many bars, read your papers and enjoy your beer or coffee, you can take a seat closer to the stage and bring your own sandwiches, or you can eat at one of the restaurants that flank the square and drink in the atmosphere and the music.
An avenue of temporary restaurants leads to the chapiteau, the huge marquee erected on the local rugby pitch that houses the main concerts. For those of us who live here year round, this is one of the real treats of the festival, for suddenly one is able to eat Chinese, Thai, Spanish, and even Indian food. Marciac becomes a gastronomic world tour offering a range of cuisines close to that found in any large city.
Prices of seats in the chapiteau reflect the quality of the line-up, varying from 26 to 56 euros, depending on the concert, and there are reductions for buying a number of tickets. Or you could join the band of enthusiasts who sit outside the marquee under the clear star-filled skies of South West France, and listen to the concerts for free!
The surrounding area offers a number of options for accommodation, there are campsites, a vast array of gites, as well as a choice of hotels and bed and breakfasts in the neighbouring towns. What is guaranteed is that you will be able to escape from the crowds in Marciac within minutes and discover a tranquil landscape, rich in sunflowers and vines.
When I wax lyrical to friends about the jazz festival, which I do monotonously summer after summer, I am often met with the response that jazz itself is somehow ‘difficult’, some even say they don’t like jazz. I don’t get it, jazz takes in such a range of styles and rhythms through New Orleans to Blues to Funk to Latino, (and that’s only part of it), how can you dismiss it so carelessly? My more intellectual friends can become disparaging about types of jazz, seeing Dixieland as unchallenging, easy, as though one can only appreciate music if it is thought provoking and hard to grasp. Both reactions are in stark contrast to some of the musicians I have met and interviewed in Marciac.
‘Music is passion’ the Cuban pianist, Roberto Fonseca told me. His challenge is to express honest emotions without words. For him, struggling with definitions is not really of any great interest, and later, watching him perform, I was swept away with his enthusiasm, his joy. Was it jazz? Who cares? What is important are the feelings and the sharing of pleasure, and over time I have seen many musicians play at Marciac who did indeed seem to be infected with the magic of this little town.
Jazz isn’t difficult, nor is it undemanding; as Duke Ellington remarked when he was challenged as to whether his jazz was staying faithful to its roots, ‘It’s all music isn’t it?’
©Clare Doyle, 2010
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33rd
Marciac Jazz Festival
30 July – 15th August 2010
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Roberto Fonseca
plays at
the Barbican, London
6th July 2010
26May2010
Clare Doyle
interviews
ROBERTO FONSECA
Roberto Fonseca was born in Havana in 1975, into a musical family. He found success early, and toured extensively with many of the best known Cuban musicians, including the Buena Vista Social Club. His own compositions experiment with many influences - Afro-Cuban, classical, jazz, and traditional Cuban music.
I saw you at Marciac and was struck by your passion and precision.
Passion is what I’m trying to get over. For me music is everything. What is difficult, what I’m trying to do, is to express emotion without words. When I play I’m often overcome with sadness for the loss of my grandfather, of people who are no longer there, like Ibrahim Ferrer [who died 2005], and I feel an intense feeling, sometimes of love, of sadness. And then there’s rhythm. It’s also essential to what I do, to bring a sense of movement.
So what about the precision?
You have to be disciplined, otherwise you can’t give your best. I studied music and although I probably wasn’t the best of students, it was essential to learn the basics and to learn from others, such as Beethoven, Bach, Mozart.
At the end of the concert, you had tears rolling down your face. Does this often happen?
Yes, for all of the reasons I’ve given. I want to reach out, to communicate, not just for me, but for all those who have supported me over time, my family, my niece, but especially my mother. All that I have achieved is nothing compared to what she did for me. We had hard times when I was a kid, but we always stuck together because of her, of what she gave us all, and so I owe them all something. I owe them at least to do my best.
If we met in two years time and I asked you how things were and you said ‘good’, what would that look like?
I don’t know where I’ll be in two years. I’m loving what I do right now, I’m able to do all the things I want, and at present I don’t see beyond that, there’s no plan.
Do you enjoy touring? You seem to be always on the road.
Of course from time to time I get tired of the travelling, the hotel rooms, but I put that against the incredible experience of the audiences I play for.
Do you manage to get back to Cuba?
It’s a necessity. I spend at least six months a year in Cuba, I have to see my family, my friends. It recharges me. Here I am travelling and performing all over the world, but the moment I get back to see my mother, I’m a kid again!
Are there other musical influences on your work?
I am exploring more around classical music, because it seems to me that something around improvisation has been lost, perhaps because it’s become more formal. It’s a shame, because this means that people don’t see classical music as joyful, as reaching out to other people, the way I feel at its best all music does. Look at Bach, at the way in which he managed to build up themes and variations. A genius, he really understood the power and the range of music.
He might!
One definition I heard of jazz is that it is truth, that you can’t really play jazz if you have no real honesty.
Yes, it’s what I try to do, to strip it down to essential truths, and yes, I try always to be honest in what I do, to communicate that message to others.
You said that music is a way of finding out what sort of person you are, what have you discovered about yourself?
That I work really hard!
Have you had any surprises in the things you’ve found out about yourself?
I’m not going to answer that!
You’ve said jazz is one of the most free musical forms because of the element of improvisation. Do you always improvise?
I compose, I have a theme, but yes, I do improvise, sometimes more than at other times. It brings me pleasure.
You play quite frequently in France. Is there any special reason for that?
It’s always held a special place for me, the way it did for many jazz players who came to France from the USA because they felt more free, more equal. And of course, it’s the land of romance!
For some small nations, their music becomes something more than self expression. I’m thinking of Ireland, where their own music became a symbol of them freeing themselves from their powerful neighbour. Do you think that happened in Cuba with the USA?
The sense of music never left Cuba. In Cuba everyone plays music. The influence of the USA could never change that. I don’t think anything could change that, it’s the heartbeat of Cuba, it’s part of the identity of the country.
© 2010 Clare Doyle
Clare Doyle
is a bi-lingual freelance writer and management consultant based in south-west France. She has worked in the diplomatic service and elsewhere, and has lived in London, Brussels, Mexico City and the USA. Now she combines some of her previous experience with an ambition to grow the best tasting tomatoes . . . and then there's always the novel!
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Also by
Clare Doyle
on
London Grip
click below
in New Orleans & Marciac, 2010.
and
and
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Scroll down this page for archive article on
Marciac Jazz Festival 2010
L O N D O N G R I P . . . un point de vue français
Clare Doyle’s
FRANCE 2011
Estival MUSIC festivals
In French the word for ‘summery’ is estival. Add the F at the beginning, and you’ve got it all, a time of celebration in the sunshine. Here in the Midi Pyrenees, we’re beginning to gear up for the festive season, and there is a huge amount on offer, from the somewhat strange to the internationally recognised, and a great deal in between.
How about the strange and eccentric? Well, the outstanding event has to be Le Pourcailhade in a small town called Trie Sur Baise in the Hautes Pyrenees on 11 August 2011. This is a festival that celebrates the pig. There are pig races and pig markets, and the day’s major event is the pig squealing competition: contestants dress up as pigs, and compete for the most authentic pig sounds. Then everyone sits down for a meal and eats pig in all its iterations, charcuterie, rillettes, roast, sausages. This is France after all. Celebrate the animal, then eat it.
I’d also place Lourdes in the strange category. It’s a kind of holy honky tonk. The town itself, nestling in a beautiful valley in the foothills of the Pyrenees, is an extraordinary mixture. The centre is all commerce, and not surprisingly, the commerce is all around Bernadette Soubirous and the Virgin Mary. One or other of them is everywhere, their images adorning everything from lampshades to cigarette lighters to beer mats. There are statuettes that change colour and others that appear to wink as you pass. Closer to the grotto - where they have ‘shushing’ sounds coming over loudspeakers to remind you that this is a sacred place - there is more tranquillity but also the heartbreaking sight of seriously ill patients in wheelchairs beside the river. Because of the number of nurses, drivers, pilgrim guides, waiters, and hotel workers, Lourdes has a high proportion of young people, so unexpectedly boasts a thriving night-life. As for festivals, the 15th August is the big summer celebration and then the following week Lourdes becomes the gathering place for Romany travellers from all over France. Gitan music, colourful costumes, Lourdes absorbs them all.
If it’s music you’re interested in, there are a number of events celebrating Latin music. The reason for this apparent anomaly is said to be the result of the numbers of people who once left the region to farm in Argentina when times were hard but who kept their ties with home. So this year there is the Tempo Latino festival in Vic Fezensac (27-31 July 2011) one of the largest festivals of Latin music in Europe, which comprises concerts with some of the best of contemporary Latin artists. What is normally a small town becomes thronged with thousands of visitors, partying and dancing in the streets. Tarbes, the capital of the Hautes Pyrenees, celebrates the tango (20-28 August). The town gives itself over to dance, and many of the concerts and events are free. Then there’s Samba al Pais in Negrepelisse (1-3 July) which brings together Brazilian music and Occitan culture, music, dance, language courses. It seems a little unlikely, the rather formal traditional Occitan music, linking itself to the exuberance of Brazil, but it seems to work.
Classical and sacred music is also well represented. There are musical nights in Armagnac, a series of concerts in several of the beautiful little walled towns of the area - and then there’s the Armagnac! Many chateaux host chamber music and orchestras through July and August. Gavarnie, in the Hautes Pyrenees has a wondrous natural arena with the mountains forming the backdrop to the stage, where there are spectacular outdoor evening performances of drama and music. This year it’s Quasimodo (16-30 July). The arena is a thirty-minute walk from the town of Gavarnie and at the end of the performance flaming brands light your way back to the parking lots.
France has a strong tradition when it comes to jazz, dating back to the 1920s when black American jazz players began to settle in Paris to escape segregation. There are several well-established jazz festivals in the Pyranees region. The most important, Jazz in Marciac (29 July-15 August) attracts musicians from all over the world. The population of 1,300 swells to 100,000 over the course of the festival, transforming what is normally a quiet market town into the capital of jazz. A huge marquee on the rugby pitch seats six thousand people for the main concerts, and throughout the day there are free sessions in the main square.
If something more intimate than the formal concerts in Marciac are what you want, there are plenty of others. Take Souillac en jazz (19-24th July) which concentrates on bringing together European musicians, and those from other parts of the globe, this year there are Israeli as well as Lebanese players joining Italian and French performers. Many of the concerts are free, and the outdoor concerts have as their backdrop the magnificent romanesque cathedral, while others are held in the nearby caves at Lacave. If you prefer a view of the mountains then Jazz at Luz Saint Saveur (7-10 July) would be a good spot, the festival an extremely eclectic mix of the funky, the progressive, and the frankly weird.
Two country music festivals also take place in the region, the biggest at Mirande (13-17 July), those of us who live in the area know when Mirande is on, suddenly the roads are filled with the rich sounds of revving Harley Davidsons, the local markets see rangy men wearing cowboy hats haggling prices. On a smaller scale Gramat (18-21 August) also pays its dues to country music, concerts in the square, line dancing and western riding lessons.
In Fleurance, a beautiful bastide town in the Gers, for something more unusual, there is Cuivre’foliz (22-24 July) - a celebration of brass bands throughout the streets of the town. Over two days, there is heard nothing but the sound of brass - noisy, joyful, fun. If you want to escape the noise, you can spend time at La Ferme des Etoiles where a festival of astronomy is organised in August, star-gazing with expert input, exploring the gloriously clear skies of the South West. Then there’s riff mania in Castelnau Riviere Basse, (27-28 August) a celebration of rock, funk, noisy stuff.
Vaour has a festival dedicated to humour in all its guises, circus, one-man shows, story-telling, theatre. This town of 300 inhabitants has been host to the festival since 1986 when a group of friends, lovers of performance, decided to put on a few shows for the entertainment of the village, Vaour now welcomes upwards of 12,000 visitors during the 6 days of the festival (9-14 August) where most of the shows and performances are free.
Then there are others festivals dedicated to street theatre, marionettes, story-telling, the art of books, historical pageants, something for everyone, even a festival of fireworks. Between the beginning of July and the end of August, you could be attending a festival somewhere in the region more or less any night of the week, and that’s apart from the many local village celebrations. As far as the Midi Pyrenees is concerned ‘festive’ is the right word, and you don’t have to buy anyone presents.
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For more information www.midipyrenees.fr will fill you in on the 80 or so other events I haven’t had the space to describe.
Ryanair flies from Dublin to Carcassone, Biarritz, and from Cork to Carcassonne
Aer Lingus flies from Dublin to Toulouse and Bordeaux
Easyjet flies Belfast to Biarritz
Cityjet flies Dublin to Pau
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© 2011 Clare Doyle