Culture, Leisure: Jazz Maastricht brings yet another bridge to Maastricht

On a recent afternoon while waiting at a bank in Maastricht, I noticed a couple seated next to me. The man was looking through a Dutch newspaper and suddenly turned to his partner: “It looks like there is some kind of jazz event going on”. I realised that he could not read the paper except for the word “jazz”.

Assuming that they were newly arrived expats, I told them about the Jazz Maastricht festival that would be taking place in the next few days and offered them the programme booklet that I had picked up earlier at the Vrijthof Theatre. As it turned out, they were tourists who were originally just passing through Maastricht but who, enchanted by the city, had decided to stay on longer. Now they may have had one more reason to prolong their visit…

Pointedly enough, the Jazz Maastricht festival aims to close the gap between the local and international cultures in Maastricht. As its motto suggests, it wants to function as a ‘Bridge Between Cultures’.

The fifth edition of the jazz festival took place on 12-15 October and was bigger than ever. It included world class artists such as accordionist Richard Galliano, the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, Dutch jazz stars like the New Cool Collective and Jesse van Ruller, and as well as other rising talents like Le Monde de Kota, the Carlos Nardozza Quintet, and trumpetist Ryan Carniaux.

The agenda was varied and many of the cafés featured their own music choice from local celebrities to nationally and internationally established performers.

While the focus was on jazz, the festival also included a variety of other music styles such as funk, fusion, rock, soul, folk, blues, Tex-Mex, and many more. The city was gripped in this musical web with some 300 musicians participating in more than 45 venues across the city.

Maastricht: ‘THE’ place to be
For the time being, the Jazz Maastricht festival is a private initiative. It all started when Jean Haesen, a jazz piano player in his free moments, decided to do something about his passion for music upon his return to Maastricht after 25 years of absence. Combining his love for jazz and for his hometown together, he conceived the idea of a weekend full of quality music throughout the city.

Haesen explained to me that he would like to change Maastricht from ‘a place to go’ into ‘THE place to be’: an appealing and vibrant location for young creative professionals, a truly international city. He surprised me with the information that Maastricht welcomes 15 million visitors annually, almost as many as Venice’s 18 million.

According to Haesen, Maastricht boasts a strong local culture and an attractive Burgundian (‘Bourgondisch’ in Dutch) atmosphere, but needs to offer more than that.

Haesen does not think the municipality sees this angle. According to him, city officials mostly focus in promoting the existing local culture and do not do enough to attract and keep international people in Maastricht. This, in his opinion, is a narrow viewpoint and he believes that the festival will help create a bridge between the local and international cultures in the city.

Haesen nevertheless hopes to work together and receive some support from the municipality in the future. There are also plans to further intensify cooperation within the Meuse-Rhine euroregion and take advantage of the extensive and diverse musical agenda offered by the neighbouring cities of Liège, Aachen, Genk and Hasselt.

New Cool Collective and Le Monde de Kota
As an avid jazz listener, I was looking forward to the festival. The second opening act of the festival was a performance by New Cool Collective in the main hall at the Vrijthof Theatre. The room was relatively filled and the music was a mix of jazz and Latin swing that got even more swinging as the concert went on. Although the booklet mentioned that it was music to dance on, the audience was seated. I found this a bit disappointing as I had seen the Dutch band perform last year during another jazz event in Maastricht. The public had been joyfully dancing and swinging with the music back then and the energy of the music had been much more vibrant.

Later on I chose to listen to Le Monde de Kota, a young international group from Paris who, according to the booklet, had won the Jazz Hoeilaart International Contest in 2005.

What I like about jazz concerts and improvised music is that there is often an element of surprise involved. You can find yourself in the middle of a mind blowing concert or you might just end up going home earlier than expected.

Le Monde de Kota pleasantly surprised me. The band started with a trombone solo which was too experimental for a novice jazz fan, but the patient listener was well awarded. As the concert progressed, I noticed a melody and a story within each song building up to a climax. In the process I was left with a kind of curiosity that made me listen even more intensely because I wanted to know what would come next and where the music was leading to. The artists seemed to be in their own musical world, enjoying their sounds just as the public, which was only a handful of jazz aficionados…

While the music of New Cool Collective was easily accessible to a wide audience, I felt that Le Monde de Kota was something special, perhaps more suitable for a smaller public. I enjoyed the concert thoroughly, especially the final contrabass solo which sounded to my ears like a Blues number from Mississippi.

A jazz festival will certainly add to the cultural value of the city and attract many people from around the country and region. It is a move in the right direction, but whether the festival will lead to more bonding between the local Dutch residents and the international community in Maastricht is hard to say, as this might take time and also depends if people will come to see the shows. Day tickets at the Vrijthof Theatre cost EUR 29,50, a not insignificant amount of money for many people including students. But the fact that many café s around the city offered free concerts was a bonus and compensated those with a tight budget.

All in all, Jazz Maastricht is guaranteed to bring a cozy and vibrant atmosphere to the city just as we are reluctantly bidding the summer farewell. What better way to prepare for the winter months ahead of us than a weekend full of exciting music, a glass of something, and the company of friends…

By Kookie Habtegaber

Kookie Habtegaber does some freelance journalism and lives in Maastricht.