The long-anticipated Malta Jazz Festival 2023 is opening tomorrow, Monday, July 10, bringing together some of the country’s finest local talent alongside leading artists from overseas.

The festival is among the country’s longest-running and most respected musical outlets, providing an annual platform for jazz lovers in Malta to enjoy performances by a wealth of artists and helping to raise the profile of the genre on the island.

This year’s lineup features a mix of established and upcoming performers, with concerts, workshops and jam sessions taking place throughout the week in the lead-up to the festival’s flagship triple-bill concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings.

“At the Malta Jazz Festival, I strive to find a balance between the erudite and popular elements of jazz, while remaining true to the roots of this music,” said Artistic Director Sandro Zerafa.

“Most of today’s major jazz festivals have little place for jazz... They ride on the ‘jazz is always evolving’ rhetoric to justify pop headliners or watered-down jazz bands,” he continued.

“We live in an era of intense commercialisation and declining artistic standards and jazz does not sit comfortably in this environment. Yet the jazz scene has never been so fertile,” he said. 

Describing the festival as having built a “solid reputation internationally,” Zerafa stressed that one of its greatest achievements was having helped increase the genre’s popularity with the younger generation, something evident both in its audiences and programme.

The festival’s special opening concert on June 10 at the Embassy Hotel, for example, features William Smith, Dean Montanaro and Daniel Sant − young Maltese musicians currently studying overseas in the Netherlands and USA.

Meanwhile, two of the acclaimed headline acts of July 14 − The New York Times Jazz Album of the Year 2020 winner Immanuel Wilkins (saxophone) and two-times Grammy Award-winner Samara Joy (vocals) − are representative of a new generation of emerging artists bringing jazz to younger audiences.

Wilkins and Joy are far from the only international acts to appear on this year’s billing, which also welcomes fellow US musicians Kurt Elling (vocals), trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, pianist Jeb Patton and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel.

Also appearing are French artists Laurent Coq (piano), Flamenco trumpet pioneer Reynald Colom and bassist Fabien Marcoz and Russian-born New York saxophonist Dmitry Baevsky, among others.

The jazz scene has never been so fertile

Some of Malta’s most well-known jazz musicians are also represented, including Ukraine-based saxophonist Carlo Muscat, pianist Paul Giordimeina, Malta/Paris-based bassist Oliver Degabriele, drummer Joseph Camilleri and singer Nadine Axisa.

An important part of the festival is its programme of jam sessions and workshops at Offbeat Music Bar, Valletta, offering upcoming and veteran players alike an opportunity to meet new musicians and improve their skills.

For Zerafa, these, in addition to the festival’s varied and inclusive programme, are aimed at providing a lasting impact on the country’s musical scene and its reputation globally.

“I am not happy with just showcasing headliners… I want the festival to create a legacy,” he said.

The first edition of the Malta Jazz Festival took place in 1991, the brainchild of the late drummer and painter Charles ‘City’ Gatt, often regarded as Malta’s ‘father of jazz’.

The Berklee College of Music-trained musician received a lifetime achievement award at the 2020 Arts Council Malta awards and a gold medal from the Malta Society of the Arts in 2018, in recognition of his contribution to local music.

Gatt died in February last year, with that summer’s edition of the festival being dedicated to his life.

Since its beginnings over 30 years ago, the festival has gone from strength to strength, attracting such luminaries as Chick Corea, Tigran Hamasyan, Gregory Porter, Snarky Puppy and John Scofield.

According to Zerafa, while the calibre of artists welcomed at the festival has presented challenges, these have never proved insurmountable.

“Throughout the years, we hosted some of the most demanding artists and things were not always running smoothly, but we always managed to pull it off,” he said.

The Malta Jazz Festival will open on Monday, July 10. For the full programme, visit festivals.mt.