There are festivals you cover in real time. And there are festivals that require time to digest. That’s how rich they are. Oslo’s 20th Anniversary Jazz Festival falls into the latter category. Both because it was nothing short of a royal banquet. And no wonder. Her Majesty, Queen Consort Sonia of Norway, long-time Patron of the Arts, gave this milestone event a regal kick-off to the tunes of Toots Thieleman and the Steven Kuhn Trio, accompanying Karin Krog, at the Oslo Concert Hall, following an exquisite reception with Per Ditlev Simonsen, Lord Mayor of Oslo, at the City Hall. Home to the annual Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony. Only after a brilliant lecture on jazz history delivered by Larry Applebaum from the Library of Congress.
And because, unlike the majority of jazz festivals I had attended over the course of the summer, where the plaint of the jazz purists was “where’s the jazz?”, in Oslo one’s head was virtually reeling with “all that jazz.” Indeed a surplus thereof, reflecting the health of an economy whose capital city had been rated that same week, for the second consecutive year, as the most expensive in the world. Welcome to Norway. Welcome to festival headquarters at the Grand Hotel, where an outstanding team of festival volunteers in midnight-sun yellow polo shirts served up coffee and cognac upon arrival to those of us lucky enough to be accredited.
From the Oslo Concert Hall, where Her Majesty reminded us of the years she used to camp out for nights as a girl just to get tickets to hear this “music from America”, I headed across town under a “maybe-it’s-not-midnight-but-it-sure-looks-like-a-midnight-sun” to catch the marvelous Marva Wright, Blues Queen of New Orleans at Muddy Waters, the city’s blues bastion of long standing. I recognized Marva leaving the Grand Hotel, en route and on foot, to her 9:30 pm debut – the first of over five command performances at a magical mix of biker/blues bars, cathedral-like church halls, medieval guest houses and regal jazz brunch venues next to the salon where I caught Yoko Ono at breakfast a couple of days prior coming off the Öya Rock Festival. An exclusive European appearance in 2006.
Marva Wright, also known as Bluesiana Mama, a cut from one of her latest CDs, is a veritable tour de force. Having arrived the day before from Tours, France, with her road manager, Llowelyn Brown, she hit that stage tirelessly. Night after night. Again it’s no surprise she headlined the festival with more concerts than any other band, group or orchestra, given her successful track record in this town in years past; travelling back and forth between jazz, rock, blues and gospel with the ease not expected of someone who’s lost everything they own to Hurricane Katrina, except their voice.
Muddy Waters rocked with Marva in Bayou mode. Soprano stage star, Terry Burrell, of Broadway fame, was in the audience to see her soul sister belt out everything from BB King ballads (The Thrill is Gone) to We’re Gonna Rock This House Tonight, to a beautiful version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” An anthem for a woman who, not unlike so many of her compatriots and compatriot artist friends, was obliged to leave Louisiana in her Navigator and head for higher ground. To Maryland in her case. “I CAN survive” she sang to a houseful of MW fans. She next to ran out of CDs at the mid-set signing session, which spoke both of her talent and the spirit of solidarity which reigned in regal Oslo, home to more peace talks than anywhere on the planet. Marva was accompanied by Dr. Bekken and the Blues Giants, a local Norwegian band you could have sworn was the BMWs who traditionally accompany her in the Crescent City. Just hearing them is worth the price of admission.
The next morning I had the privilege of talking to Marva intimately about her personal tragedy. About her plans and prayers for the future. And about her participation in Hurricane on the Bayou - a MacGillivray Freeman film to be released in 22 IMAX theatres worldwide on 22 December, where she appears alongside Tab Benoit, Cajun musician and Louisiana wetland advocate, Dr. John, Chubby Carrier, fiddler-prodigy Amanda Shaw and Allen Toussaint, music producer and composer whom I had the honour of meeting at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in June together with Elvis Costello, Jamie Cullum, Sam Roberts, Zachary Richards, Daniel Lanois and Holly Cole at the Paul Simon Tribute. She shared a preview of the music from the soundtrack she performs on screen. In between tears and sugar-free jelly beans.
I caught HOTB in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. The Science Centre there is one of only a handful of venues to catch what was initially a chronicle of conservation and consciousness-turned- celebration not swansong of the biological and cultural richness and diversity that is Louisiana and the prelude and aftermath of Katrina, which, as predicted by the more sensitive to these issues, caught the majority off guard, leaving the filmmakers documenting what went down in the eye of the storm. Don’t miss this whirlwind of a film that culminates with Marva’s performance extraordinaire at the Saint Louis Cathedral of On Higher Ground. Don’t miss HOTB to grasp the power that is nature, the power that is music and the resilience of both nature and the human spirit. Call me a Marva Wright groupie, but I must confess I took in all of her shows at the Oslo Festival.
I’ll be back with more about Day 2, featuring the incredible Italian trumpet icon, Enrico Rava, and pianist Stefano Bollani, with Bodilsen’s and Lund’s brilliant Danish jazz trio, at a funky theatrical landmark, and Mark Braud’s Spirit of New Orleans showcasing Lillian Boutté.