The Festival Internacional de Jazz in Sa Pobla has been going successfully and with plenty of attendance for seventeen years now. But, with the financial cut-backs and a lack of sponsorship or goodwill from the official political institutions it seemed doubtful that this year’s 18th edition could go ahead. Well, here’s the good news: The 18th Festival Mallorca Jazz de Sa Pobla 2012 will go ahead, starting on Tuesday, August 7th (22h30), with a concert in Sa Pobla’s Plaça Major (with Dani Wilde, guitar and vocals, Stuart Dixon, guitar, Will Wilde, harmonica and vocals, Victoria Smith, bass, and Richard Newman, drums).

A second concert will be held on Friday, August 10th (22h30) at Sala Rex, with Krissy Matthews, guitar and vocals, Keith Matthews, bass and vocals and Chris Shirley, drums. Advance booking will be necessary for this indoor-event by telephone: 639.432.550. An English and German service is said to be available under that number, plus a Spanish one, one would hope.

A third concert will be given on Tuesday, August 14th (22h30) at Plaça Major, with Fèlix Rossy, trumpet, Toni Vaquer, piano, Ernesto Aurignac, alto sax, DJ Foster, double bass, Jaume Llompart, guitar, Enrique Oliver, tenor sax, and Santi Colomer, drums.

The festival highlight, in my mind, will be the fourth concert on Thursday, August 16th (22h30), again in Plaça Major, with the Satoko Fujii Ensemble (Japanese Satoko Fujii, piano, Natsuki Tamura, trumpet, Lilli Santon, vocals, Toni Miranda, guitar, and Jimmy Weinstein, drums), performing an interpretation of the film music for “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925). [The same formation will also play the following night, August 17th, as the Jimmy Weinstein Group, at the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Palma (21h00) with variations of themes by John Cage, Erik Satie and Karlheinz Stockhausen.]

The last concert will be performed on Tuesday, August 21st (22h30) in Plaça Major, with Noah Preminger, tenor sax, Ben Monder, guitar, Masa Kamaguchi, double bass, Colin Stranahan, drums.

The Jimmy Weinstein’s Travelling School will once again hold a one week international jazz seminary, from Tuesday, August 7th, to Saturday, August 11th. The final concert of all Travelling School participants will be given on Saturday, August 11th (22h00) in Plaça Major (see photo [centre] of last year’s event). Information is available, and signing up can be done by telephone under the numbers 687.434.795 or 656.770.985.

The photo (top) was taken in Sa Pobla, Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: August 17th, 2011. The time was 23:58:16. The photo (centre) was borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of jazzistics.blogspot.com.es.

Thank you very much.