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The Jerusalem Jazz Festival Acclaimed Jazz Bassist Christian McBride says regarding Jazz " Make no mistake, this music is for everyone Black, white, young, and old. Jazz is not an exclusive, elite club." At Yabous, not only do we believe in that but we also believe in the strong ties between Jazz and struggling nations. Jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim's music was part of the revolution against apartheid in South Africa. Jazz in the USA was part of the black man's struggle against slavery, just listen to Louis Armstrong singing " Black and Blue". Jazz is a free art form that emanates from the soul of the ordinary woman and man and that expresses the joys and tribulations of their everyday life . More and more these days, Jazz is being fused with ethnic music from all over the world to give us different genres of Jazz music all with different ethnic character while maintaining the basic Jazz form. Jazz has become so eclectic and multiethnic that we hear and sea the Middle-Eastern oud being played with the saxophone. The Latin marimba jazzing along with the double bass, and the banging of African djembe setting the rhythm for the Western European violin. Let us also not forget about the artists who have just as masterfully preserved the old art form of Jazz and still play as if they live in 1930s New Orleans. In Palestine, The First Jerusalem Jazz Festival organized by Yabous Productions was attended by a large audience. Jazz is also slowly being introduced through small performances by international artists. On the radio, two of the largest Palestinian FM stations (Al- Manara 100.4 FM and Amwaj 91.5 FM) host 5 hours of Jazz programming per week in between them. We believe that bringing such vibrant, scintillating, and international Jazz to Palestine, through the proposed Jerusalem Jazz Festival will not only serve the goals aforementioned, but will also bring a high-caliber and very enjoyable event for everyone to relish. In the future, we see The Jerusalem Festival for Jazz Music as an annual event that will continue to get bigger as the years go by hosting more groups and bigger names. With everyone's effort we believe that this is well within our reach. Yabous Productions, we want to make this a truly international Jazz festival by hosting artist from different countries and who musically play different Jazz genres. The main genres we want to focus on in this festival are: Middle Eastern Jazz We believe that these genres will supply our audience with an introduction into the current Jazz scene in the world. |
