Lost & Found #37: Wellington Jazz Festival, 2009
Wellington Jazz Festival, 2009
The Wellington Jazz Festival of 2009 was quite a different beast from the previous festivals I've mentioned in the last couple of Lost & Found posts - this time, the management of the New Zealand International Arts Festival took on the programming and running of it, so the scale of production and calibre of performers was substantially different.
They designed a temporary floor in the Wellington Town Hall that would make it a single-level jazz club / cabaret venue, which was an amazing amount of work - and those floorboards were re-used in different forms for a good few years after that, I kept seeing the paint colour turning up at other venues!
Artistic director Lissa Twomey put together an amazing lineup of stars from around the world, and scheduled them all into a tight four days with shows starting just about every hour on the hour - it was intense, but incredible, and of course I had to be there the entire time...!
Credit where it's due, the artists involved in the Festival really embraced it, often staying for the late night jam sessions that started after 11pm. Here's a good example - Joe Lindsey from Fat Freddy's Drop, doing their own concert at 6pm in the evening, and (with a change of clothes) going back on 5h later for another lengthy session...good on you, Joe!
The festival is about to kick off again in Wellington - it's worth checking out if you get a chance...!