April 27 — May 26

Springtime in Basel is also Jazz Festival time! This year’s edition will be a diverse, complex, and stylistically open musical firework consisting of jazz, funk, soul, and global music, with many international stars of jazz, in and around Basel as well as at the Elefantehuus in Liestal.

The festival will kick off on April 27 with a tribute to the Esbjörn Svensson Trio—a trio founded in 1993 that would become the most influential European jazz band of the 2000s. In addition to a healthy dose of jazz piano and sax, you will be introduced to the sounds of instruments not traditionally found in jazz music, like the bouzouki (Greek lute) and the Kora (West Africa harp). There will be several thematic focuses this year in single and double-concert formats, including “Groovy and Funky,” “Piano Summit,” “Vocal Jazz & Chansons,” “Soul Jazz,” “Flamenco Night,” “Balkan & Greece,” “Spanish Fever,” and “West Africa.” New band projects from the current Basel jazz scene will be appropriately presented under the theme “Future Sounds—The Next Generation” at the Jazz Campus and at the Sudhaus Basel. This edition of the Jazz Festival Basel will also stage a musical production for children and families, “The Day Music Was Banned,” that will take the audience on a playful and captivating journey that sparks the imagination and invites reflection on the meaning of music and artistic freedom.

From April 27 to May 26, Jazz Festival Basel will present a varied program with many highlights, premieres, and over a dozen award-winning stars in jazz, such as two-time Grammy winner jazz guitarist John Scofield; 11-time Grammy-nominated saxophonist Joshua Redman; jazz pianists Iiro Rantala (Finland), Michael Wollny (Germany), and Stefano Bollani (Italy); and Brazilian music legend Marcos Valle. All in all, Basel will once again become the jazz metropolis of Switzerland. Be among the expected 8000+ jazz fans and concertgoers that will embark on a musical journey around the world.

Check out the individual entries on the calendar for more information about each individual concert; Jazz Festival concerts are specially color-coded in purple. Get your tickets soon, since many concerts are already almost sold out! Die-hard fans of great music should consider a festival pass that allows entry to all concerts, and the simply curious can get the four-concert trial subscription, which allows you access to four festival concerts of your choice.

https://www.offbeat-concert.ch/36.-festival/

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