When you write about something where the background is well-known to some people and unknown or less known by others, you must decide how much of a background you want to give. The main subject of this article is the Sant Andreu Jazzing Festival, but without knowing basics about Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, an important dimension of the Jazzing festival will be missing. So, for those who are not familiar with Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, or those who want to refresh their knowledge, I present my short version of that background in the following section. Others may wish to go directly to the Sant Andreu Jazzing Festival.

Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Jazz Band

In 2016 I found a youth jazz band on YouTube, the Sant Andreu Jazz Band from Barcelona. I then got to know the band gradually through the enormous amount of well-produced video recordings from public performances and from studio recordings. I was amazed by the high quality of the music. More recently I have experienced a number of live performances – and many more recordings. There are recordings with the big band, as well as with smaller constellations of SAJB musicians – sometimes in collaboration with internationally acclaimed professional jazz musicians. All recordings are available on YouTube and audio streaming services.

The man behind all this is the jazz musician Joan Chamorro, who used to be a music teacher in a music school in Barcelona. He started the band in 2006 with eight very young music students, and since then he has developed the band, and a lot of spin-off projects, enormously. The young musicians pass through the band, leaving it when they are in their early twenties, and new young musicians are recruited to replace those who leave. The new ones can be as young as eight years of age. Many SAJB ‘alumni’ continue as musicians with professional careers of their own, and they often also continue to collaborate with Joan Chamorro and different constellations of current and former SAJB musicians. And there are often internationally acclaimed professional musicians within that frame. Thus, we are talking about an informal network of musicians around Joan Chamorro and the SAJB.

Ever since my discovery, my ambition has been to spread the word about Joan Chamorro and the SAJB. Many other fans have the same ambition, and they do so through social media, articles etc. There are links to some of my articles below. I also encourage you to search for articles by Garry Berman.

When writing about Joan and the band, I always mention the positive band culture that supports the successful education model that Joan Chamorro uses to train the young musicians. The culture is friendly and supportive, and the older members help the younger and serve as their role models. The culture strengthens the positive attitudes of the individuals in the group.

When the older members leave the band, the new seniors replace them as leading musicians and role models. New young members are recruited, and so the chain of the band’s development continues. With the leadership of Joan Chamorro, this model has made the SAJB a strong and sustainable educational music project in terms of music of high quality. Frequent performances and recordings are part of the project. They also provide the main financial resources of the project. There are some sponsors, but the students do not pay any fees.

The band now has many fans over the world, and there are two international Facebook groups following them with great enthusiasm – one in English (Friends of Sant Andreu Jazz Band with about 9,700 members) and one in French (Amis du Sant Andreu Jazz Band with about 6,000 members), and they are still growing. Recently, the association Friends and Amis du Sant Andreu Jazz Band was formed. Testimonials from the professional musicians who collaborate with Joan and the band make it fair to say that they can be counted as fans too, in their own professional way.

The fans, of course, appreciate the surprisingly high quality of the music, but also the wonderful culture of the band and the charm of youth. There is also a lot of interest in Joan Chamorro’s method and the importance of his personal qualities.

The Sant Andreu Jazzing Festival

In 2014, Joan Chamorro started a jazz festival in Sant Andreu, the district of Barcelona where the band has its home base, and where Joan lives. I believe that the official name of the festival still is Jazzing – Festival de Jazz de Sant Andreu, but the logo profiles the name Jazzing de Sant Andreu. Among fans the festival is referred to as the Jazzing Festival, or even just Jazzing. The location does not need to be mentioned among fans. These shorter names show the popularity of the festival.

The Jazzing Festival usually takes place in the beginning of September. For the first four years the festival concept was as is typically the case – a number of jazz concerts. Some of those concerts mirrored the activity of Joan Chamorro’s work with the SAJB big band, a number of its spin-off projects, and invited professional musicians. However, other jazz bands were also invited – in the first festival as many as ten big bands!

In 2018 Joan Chamorro expanded the festival to include the educational side of the SAJB project. The Jazz Education Stage was introduced as an important part of the festival, where Joan, invited professionals, and SAJB seniors/alumni led master classes and workshops in jazz music. SAJB members participated, and anyone else was invited to register for the sessions of the Jazz Education Stage. Those who played an instrument could bring it and participate, but you could also, as an ordinary festival visitor, register and sit in just to see and listen to what happened in the educational sessions – which meant that you did not have to be a musician to attend. Not least, the educational sessions became a way for festival participants to get to know each other, socially and music wise.

The Jazzing Festival 2023

Together with my wife, I have experienced quite a few concerts by SAJB and its spin-off projects, in Barcelona and in other European cities, but the festival September 1-3, 2023, was our first Jazzing Festival. There has been a lot of communication among fans about the Jazzing Festivals, but for some reason we have not until this year come around to visit Barcelona in September, when the festival celebrated its 10-year anniversary.

This festival was wonderful in many ways. The concerts with different groups and bands were exquisite, and members from different bands were mixed in several concerts. The formidable saxophonists Scott Hamilton and Joel Frahm played together with many constellations, to the joy of the audience and the young musicians who got the opportunity to play with these famous musicians. They both know the SAJB project well. Late Saturday night there was a jam session at which musicians of quite different ages played together.

Scott Hamilton, Joel Frahm and the trombonist Alba Pujalso also joined the Jazz Education stage for one session each, where they shared their experiences from music life with the participants. Many questions were raised by the participating young musicians.

The Jazz Education Stage sessions all took place before lunch each day, and Joan Chamorro himself led three master classes (one each day). Those three had the form of rehearsals of three songs that were performed by the participants after the last education session. Do remember that this constellation was a big band of musicians that had themselves registered for the Jazz Education Stage, meaning that they had different experiences of music, and that they had never played together as a band. It was very interesting to study all these education sessions, and then a joy to experience the ‘exam’ of the participants in their performance of the three rehearsed songs.

The very special experience of attending this festival made me analyse the different formats of how I experience live concerts. To attend a single concert is of course precisely that. You go to a concert and enjoy it, and there is after that nothing more than your memories of that particular concert, and maybe a CD that you bought at the concert venue. It can be a wonderful concert, which gives you wonderful memories, but there is nothing more around that single concert.

A music festival is generally a number of such single concerts arranged in one location (often a city), within a certain period of time, and within a more or less broad theme such as jazz. There need not be any other connections between the festival concerts. The bigger the city, and the more spread out the concerts are in time and/or geography, the less you get the feeling of a festival. When I visit such a festival, I do so to enjoy a few artists that I like, but the festival as such does not contribute much to these different music experiences. This is where I believe the Sant Andreu Jazzing Festival differs in an interesting way from most other jazz and other music festivals. I am aware of the fact that the Sant Andreu Jazzing Festival has developed over time. My analysis reflects the current state of the festival.

The multitude of SAJB constellations, and the diversity of jazz subgenres played by them, means that these constellations offer almost enough music to form a festival by themselves. However, an important part of the SAJB culture would then be missing – the welcoming of outside influences and the willingness to share and learn. So, a number of well-known professional jazz musicians are always invited to the festival, as well as other young big bands. Within many of the concerts, and in the sessions of the Jazz Education Stage, musicians meet, collaborate, and learn. And the festival visitors who cannot play themselves, but nevertheless love music, are invited to everything.

As the centre of a Sant Andreu Jazzing Festival is Joan Chamorro and the different SAJB constellations, there is at a Jazzing festival a base of the very special SAJB culture. As other invited musicians already have connections to Joan Chamorro and the SAJB, they easily contribute to that cultural frame. The collaboration on stage rests on a professional and serious approach, but at the same time it seems fun, warm and informal.

I would say that the audience also fits into the cultural frame. We are there because we love the music and the culture of Joan and the SAJB, and being there almost feels like being at a big (extended) family party. During breaks we meet and talk to both musicians and fan friends from other parts of the world. We can also meet and talk to the different important people who administrate SAJB activities, run the site of Joan and the SAJB, and who record concerts on audio and video. We might also get the chance to meet and say hello to parents and other relatives to the young musicians, which of course contributes to the feeling of a family party.

As does the fact that the festival is arranged at one single venue, an old textile factory in the local Barcelona district of Sant Andreu. In that complex, the concerts of the festival were played in a big hall, and the sessions of the Education Stage in another hall. Outside the concert hall there was a large foyer where you could mingle, have a drink and/or something to eat, and also buy CDs and SAJB T-shirts. But as the weather was beautiful, you could also socialize outside in the old factory area. A common meal, a paella (Paejazzing), was as a tradition served outside on the last day of the festival.

However, do not jump to the conclusion that the local aspect of the festival means that the music was not of high quality. Joan, the SAJB and the festival are world class in their cultural domain, which is shown by the fact that visitors of the festival come from many different countries of the world.

So, I recommend you to one day visit the Sant Andreu Jazzing Festival – a festival with a soul.

_____

The program of the 2023 festival is still on the festival site. You can find it, and more information about the festival, here. On the site of Amis & Friends du Sant Andreu Jazz Band, the festival activities are reported.
And just to get a flavour of what we experienced at the Jazzing Festival 2023, here are a few videos, shot by festival visitors. Four of them are shared on YouTube and two on Facebook.

“The Masters Show” with Élia Bastida, Scott Hamilton and Joel Frahm.
Recorded by Philippe Aubert.

Jazz Education Stage with Maestro Joan Chamorro. Rehearsal of ‘Moanin’ before the big evening show.
Recorded by Philippe Aubert.

Links to earlier articles about Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Jazz Band

The Sant Andreu Jazz Band Formula, October 2018

Joan Chamorro, August 2019

Why do we love the Sant Andreu Jazz Band?, June 2020

The Sant Andreu Jazz Band in pandemic times, April 2021

Dear Joan, December 2021

We meet Sant Andreu Jazz again, in Stockholm!, June 2023



Sant Andreu Reunion Jazz Band at the Blue House Youth Jazz Festival

Early this year (2023) I discovered that Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Reunion Jazz Band from Barcelona would be guests of the annual Blue House Youth Jazz Festival in Stockholm, March 24-26. The festival welcomes 400 pupils/students and teachers for three intensive days of workshops, lectures and concerts. Invited professionals give the lectures, lead the workshops and perform. There is also a competition between the participating young jazz groups and another one between the participating young big bands.

Sant Andreu Reunion Jazz Band is a combination of members from different generations of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, albeit not the youngest. Joan and the band’s role at the festival was to lead workshops, give concerts and in general to be a role model band for the young Swedish bands and their leaders. Maybe some of you, by this description of the festival, are reminded of Joan Chamorro’s own Jazzing Festival in Sant Andreu, Barcelona. But there were of course many differences and one significant difference is that Joan Chamorro would never organise a competition in music. (I will come back to this.)    

Of course, my wife Margareta and I decided to attend the festival. Our aim was to enjoy the different parts of the festival, not least the closing concert by Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Reunion Jazz Band, but also to study the methods of the workshops. We also agreed with Joan Chamorro to meet for an interview after the concert.

However, the arrangers made it clear that the only part of the festival open to the public was the last day’s competition and the closing concert by Joan and his band. (This restriction was another difference to the Jazzing Festival in Barcelona.) So, we attended part of the competition and the closing concert, and afterwards we met with Joan. To our great joy, band member Èlia Bastida also came along to meet us, and if needed to help with translations. The reunion band’s concert was only 45 minutes, but every minute was a joy! It was one of those occasions when you ask yourself if you have ever heard a Sant Andreu Band constellation sounding better. That may or may not be accurate, but was certainly how I felt. I was overwhelmed, not least by the vocals included in every piece.

Another café interview

After the concert, we went, along with Joan and Èlia, to the same café where I interviewed Joan, Èlia and Carla Motis almost five years ago. That interview resulted in the article The Sant Andreu Jazz Band formula and I wanted to follow up with Joan on parts of that interview, and bits from later articles. Our meeting became partly an interview, partly an enjoyable and interesting conversation.

Joan, Èlia, Bengt-Ove and Margareta

The latest SAJB-related concert that Margareta and I attended, before this Stockholm concert, was the SAJB anniversary concert on December 10, 2021, in the Palau de la Música, Barcelona. That was a very special concert for the audience, not least because Joan Chamorro had managed to gather together almost all young musicians who have been members of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band during its first 15 years – some 70 musicians. Joan confirms that this anniversary concert was also a very special experience for the musicians on stage. It was an unusually big and difficult project to carry out, but it was very successful, and it was great to do this together with all former and current SAJB-musicians.

I ask Joan what the plans are for the reunion band, the Sant Andreu Reunion Jazz Band. “I start new projects every year”, says Joan, “and this band is one of my new projects”. As Joan puts it, he has started to “recycle” musicians. It is not far-fetched to believe that this new idea is the fruit of the ambition to gather musicians from different SAJB generations to celebrate the SAJB’s anniversary in 2021. (As he also did with the Joan Chamorro Presenta’s Big Band.)

Sant Andreu Reunion Jazz Band

All members of this band are soloists and are good at improvising. Joan is also happy that several members also sing very well.

Every piece in the Stockholm performance included vocals with a lead singer and sometimes backup vocals. Joan earlier put together three projects profiling the vocal side of SAJB – La Màgia de la Veu 1, 2 and 3. Although this project has the same profile, Joan did not want to use that label again. The reunion aspect was instead highlighted. These are the members of the reunion band, the first six of which sing lead vocals.

• Èlia Bastida, violin, tenor sax, vocals
• Koldo Munné, alto & baritone sax, vocals
• Joan Martí, soprano & tenor sax, flute, vocals
• Clàudia Rostey, trombone, vocals
• Edu Ferrer, alto & baritone sax, vocals
• Perot Rigau, trombone, vocals
• Lola Peñaranda, tenor sax
• Elsa Armengou, trumpet
• Gerard Peñaranda, trumpet
• Pau Garcia, piano, sax
• Joan Chamorro, double bass, director
• Arnau Juliá, drums

The band has already played several concerts in various places, and I would not be surprised if it continues to play for quite some time – and maybe eventually develops into something else.

Sant Andreu Jazz Band

Our conversation then moved on to the current version of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. Joan is amazed about how well everything works currently and feels that, overall, the performance of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band has improved. Many good musicians, who had reached a high level in the band, have left, but the band’s level is still rising meaning that the benchmark that the seniors set for the beginners to reach is also climbing. In particular, there are several good improvisers and vocalists in the band now.

Furthermore, Joan tells us that there are no problems at all with attitudes these days as has sometimes been the case in the past. All young players are happy and everyone is “on track”. Joan feels that the way the band now works is “like magic”; that the energy of the band is currently the best ever.

Sant Andreu Jazz Band of today

To me, this sounds as if Joan and the band are harvesting the fruits of all the work done over the years. Maybe the culture has even reached a state where it is self-reinforcing? As the band becomes increasingly well-known and acknowledged, this stronger “brand” of the band might strengthen the incentive for everyone to be part of the culture and contribute.

Values, behaviour and culture

So, what are the cultural traits that Joan has developed so well? In my interview five years ago, I asked about the basic concept of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. Joan pointed out four principles, mainly cultural in character.

• Firstly, the young musicians need to hear a lot of jazz. Listening makes you feel the qualities and the soul of the music, and how it differs from other kinds of music. Of course, you have to learn the songs and to play your instrument, but hearing jazz played is more important than the command of transcriptions.
• Secondly, there is the belief that young people, children and teenagers, actually can play jazz. As a leader and teacher of young musicians you have to have that belief. The young musicians then feel your confidence in them, and they also feel their own confidence in themselves.
• Thirdly, there is the sense of presence. When you play you have to be there, not somewhere else. You have to be in the music and together with the others in the group. You must not observe yourself from the outside, from the views of spectators or a camera (whether or not they are present). Such a preoccupation would split your focus.
• Fourthly, there is the positive energy of the group. The younger learn from the older and you are perceived as important regardless of the size of your contribution. And eventually the younger become more experienced and take on the roles of seniors and role models. (Boström, Bengt-Ove: The Sant Andreu Jazz Band formula, 2018.)

I showed these quotes from my old article to Joan, and he felt that the principles remain the same. I also referred to Garry Berman’s interesting article from February 2022, where Joan talks about values and behaviour that are needed to make a group function.

I try to emphasize things like punctuality, effort, commitment, and other values ​​that are important to me, such as gratitude, humility, generosity, sincerity, honesty, etc. Dedicating yourself to music is not just playing your instrument well. We are part of a community and for things to work, we have to be people, as far as possible, serious with our work and respectful in all aspects, with the rest of the musicians and of course, with the public that listen.” (Berman, Garry: Joan Chamorro and the SAJB: Past, Present, and Future, 2022.)

These are important values and behaviour that Joan Chamorro wants to promote when educating the band members, as Joan has put it, “both as musicians and as people”. The values and the behaviour form a positive band culture, but also individual qualities that members can possess through life.

Every band member has, of course, heard Joan talk about the importance of these values and the behaviour emanating from them. But as culture is such an important dimension of the quality of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, I ask what Joan has done to promote and maintain a good culture.

There are two ways, says Joan. Firstly, I must lead by example. For example, as I require the members of a group to be on time, I should always be on time myself. And as I require humility, I must act with humility myself, etc. And secondly, if members do not respect the values of the culture, I must tell them to do so. On some occasions, it can be just by pointing out that a behaviour or an attitude is a deviation from what is expected. If someone shows a more general attitude problem over time, a longer conversation might be needed.

The two ways that Joan mentions are not new, or surprising, tools to educate young people, but of course, they need to be more than theory. They must be put into practice.

As a band leader Joan has a lot to teach other music leaders. When Joan gives lectures to teachers, he does not only speak about ways to teach music, he also talks about the importance of cultural aspects, such as the ones above. The musical and cultural aspects are important in themselves, but he believes that they also reinforce each other.

Comparisons and competition

I would argue that there is another trait of thought that can be seen as part of the culture that Joan wants to promote, and now we return to why Joan does not like music contests. In Garry Berman’s earlier mentioned article, Joan expresses this idea:

I like to think of music as something that isn’t a race to see who gets to the finish line first. It is a race without end, and during that journey, we musicians learn, improve, evolve, change, etc.” (Berman, Garry: Joan Chamorro and the SAJB: Past, Present, and Future, 2022.)

So, when I ask Joan about his views on the Blue House Youth Jazz Festival, he is very happy about the workshops and the concerts, and he expresses how nice it has been to meet all musicians, but then he ends by commenting on the festival contest between bands by stating that “you cannot compete in music”, a statement closely connected to his resistance to seeing music as a race between musicians.

But what about fans’ perspective, I ask Joan. I think it is clear from media posts that some fans have their favourites who receive more attention – typically girls rather than boys.

Fans might have favourites, but those are not my opinions, says Joan. “I never say that someone is my favourite. I treat everyone the same, young and old, boys and girls. Maybe singers have gained more attention from the fans, and more girls than boys used to sing in the band – but the trend now is that also boys come strong as singers.”

At this point Èlia had to leave us for a meeting, but Margareta and I continued our conversation with Joan for quite some time. Joan was very generous with his time this evening, but all good things sooner or later come to an end. We heartly thanked Joan for sharing the time with us at the café, and he left to join the band members.

When you have had a discussion with Joan, you tend to continue to think about the subjects afterwards. This occasion was no exception. Together with Margareta, I continued to reflect on the values and the culture that Joan wants to promote, and which he has so successfully developed in the SAJB.

Reflections

What I was contemplating, and still am, is what these values and this culture mean to us, the fans of Joan Chamorro and the SAJB.

Of course, we can enjoy the result of the values and culture in terms of magnificent music, and we can also enjoy and praise what we apprehend of the culture as such. But what do the values mean to our fan approach to the SAJB? What would happen if we embraced the values to the extent that we used them as guidelines for our own approach and behaviour towards the SAJB and its members? Can we, by adopting these values, even help Joan in developing the SAJB?

Let’s start with Joan’s statements about musical contests. Of course, one can see that different musicians have reached different levels in their development but comparing individual musicians with themselves might be of more interest; to see and appreciate the development of each individual. This is a natural view for a person who in practice educates young people, like Joan does, but it might also be a view of more general relevance for music life.

Adding to this philosophical view on competition there is also the problem of measuring quality. Competition rests on the idea that you can compare performances with some degree of objectivity, but there is always a measure of subjectivity involved in rating individual performances.

The non-competition value is closely related to the value that all SAJB musicians are perceived as important in the band, regardless of the size of their contribution. Together these two values form a culture where mutual appraisal and encouragement are more important than competition as driving forces of development. Of course, you never know what goes on in people’s minds, but I believe that the musicians’ behaviour towards each other on stage supports the case that these positive values are strong within the SAJB.

Equality

The value that each band member is important regardless of contribution has implications for equality. Joan treats everyone equally, but do we as fans always act like that? As I note above, often the girls, who have frequently been the vocalists, have appeared to garner the greater attention from fans in media posts. I think that fans who want to act in harmony with SAJB values, should embrace the same equality ethos as does the band.

This ethos is valid not only on the group level (boys and girls) but also on the individual level, meaning that everyone should get the same level of attention. Of course, I do not believe that this “ideal” is practically possible, and one cannot deny fans to have favourites. But it is one thing for fans to appreciate some individual musicians more than others, and quite another thing to proclaim, or in other ways make it obvious on social media, who their favourites are, I would argue.

Joan points out that the number of boys who are very good vocalists has increased, so, if the level of attention paid is dependent on the strength of vocalists’ performances, the difference in attention paid between the boys and girls will diminish or even disappear. If such disparities in the level of attention persist, the explanation for them lies elsewhere. Maybe we after all do not pay more attention to the voice as an instrument of expression than to other instruments of expression? But if we do, why is it right to do so?

All in all, my belief is that Joan and the SAJB would benefit from a more evenly spread attention from its fans.

Presence

One important principle that Joan has tried to implement in the band (I believe successfully) is the importance of presence, not thinking about yourself from the outside. The young musicians very much behave as serious musicians on stage. They concentrate, sometimes closing their eyes to get deeper into the music, and seldom smile – just like many professionals. I have read a few comments on social media in which fans complain about the serious expression of SAJB musicians, probably expecting these young adults to appear to be having more fun. But why? Joan trains them to be serious about their music, which often leads to intense concentration and a measure of inwardness.

The reason he wants the young musicians to refrain from imagining themselves from the outside (like the object of a camera) is that such a preoccupation would disturb their concentration on being in the music together with their fellow band members. Therefore, we should not demand any other behaviour from the young musicians than that which comes naturally to them when concentrating on the music – like we do with all professional jazz musicians.

As a matter of fact, any comment from fans on looks is irrelevant to the musical professionalism and quality that Joan wants to promote with the students – and such comments can disturb the students’ concentration on being in the music. Therefore, I believe that we, by refraining from comments on looks, help Joan with the SAJB project.

A musical garden

Joan Chamorro’s many different music projects are like parts of a ‘musical garden’ where a lot of different ‘garden arrangements’ are created and nurtured. They continue to develop or give way to new projects – and maybe they return later. The garden develops all the time.

The different projects, in one way or another, all emanate from Joan and his base project, the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. But, although Joan is behind all the projects, he tries to give room for the different wishes and profiles of the musicians involved. And of course, he develops individuals as well as the groups, often by giving them challenging musical tasks and by paying attention to the cultural aspects of the band.

Along the way, the seniors might be involved in co-leading projects, thereby getting ready for the day when they start their own careers outside the SAJB. But ‘outside’ might be a tricky condition to determine. Musical networks are by nature not strictly defined. For instance, in the Meraki project of Èlia Bastida and Carolina Alabau, we find Joan Chamorro himself and some other musicians accompanying Èlia and Carolina in some of the songs.

One of the early SAJB members who is now a member of the Reunion band is Edu Ferrer; he is one of several prominent singers, a talent he showed early on as a young SAJB musician. Edu likes to sing songs from the Sinatra songbook, and he received several opportunities to do so in the Stockholm concert. Edu is also part of the project Joan Chamorro trio & Edu Ferrer tribute to Frank Sinatra.

Joan Chamorro trio & Edu Ferrer tribute to Frank Sinatra

The SAJB alumni Edu Ferrer and the Sinatra project is only one of many project examples. Below, you can find all ongoing projects along with their different members with different musicians frequently appearing in different contexts.

It is natural that members of the SAJB spin-off projects are experienced, but there are exceptions. In the project the Sant Andreu Dixieland Band, Joan Chamorro has assembled the youngest members of the current Sant Andreu Jazz band. The Joan Chamorro ‘garden of music‘ grows, evolves and flourishes! And as many SAJB fans know, even outside Joan’s ‘musical garden’ there are many projects grown from SAJB seeds.

Sant Andreu Dixieland Band

Joan Chamorro’s current projects

The Sant Andreu Jazz Band

• Sander Theuns, alto & soprano sax
• Pere Company, tenor sax, clarinet, and vocals
• Shanti Ming, alto sax
• Koldo Munné, alto & baritone saxes, vocals
• Lola Peñaranda, tenor sax and clarinet
• Andreu Romero, tenor & baritone sax
• Noa Abike Bazuaye, alto sax
• Bernat Benavente, alto sax
• Martí Costalago, trumpet
• Max Munné, trumpet
• Gerard Peñaranda, trumpet
• Elsa Armengou, trumpet
• Martha Vives, trumpet
• Luc Martín, trombone
• Perot Rigau, trombone, vocals
• Claudia Rostey, trombone, vocals
• Hugo Vlach, trombone
• Anna Ndiaye, piano, vocals
• Pau García, piano
• Nils Theuns, drums
• Blai Forns, drums
• Didac Moya, drums
• Jordi Herrera, double bass
• Mateu Teixidó, double bass

Sant Andreu Reunion Band

• Èlia Bastida, violin, tenor sax, vocals
• Koldo Munné, alto & baritone sax, vocals
• Joan Martí, soprano & tenor sax, flute, vocals
• Clàudia Rostey, trombone, vocals
• Edu Ferrer, alto & baritone sax, vocals
• Perot Rigau, trombone, vocals
• Lola Peñaranda, tenor sax
• Elsa Armengou, trumpet
• Gerard Peñaranda, trumpet
• Pau Garcia, piano, sax
• Joan Chamorro, double bass, director
• Arnau Juliá, drums

Sant Andreu Dixieland Band

• Martí Costalago, trumpet
• Sander Theuns, soprano & alto sax
• Pere Company, tenor sax, clarinet, vocals
• Luc Martin, trombone
• Anna Ndyae, Pau Garcia, piano
• Jordi Herrera, double bass
• Nils Theuns, drums

Joan Chamorro trio & Èlia Bastida & Koldo Munné

• Joan Chamorro, double bass
• Josep Traver, guitar
• Arnau Julià, drums
• Èlia Bastida, tenor sax, violin, vocals
• Koldo Munné, alto sax, vocals

Brazilian Quintet

• Joan Chamorro, double bass
• Josep Traver, guitar
• Arnau Julià, drums
• Èlia Bastida, violin, tenor sax, vocals
• Koldo Munné, alto sax, vocals

Joan Chamorro Big Four

• Joan Chamorro, double bass
• Josep Traver, guitar
• Èlia Bastida, violin, tenor sax, vocals
• Koldo Munné, alto sax, vocals

Joan Chamorro trio & Edu Ferrer tribute to Frank Sinatra

• Edu Ferrer, vocals
• Joan Chamorro, double bass
• Marc Martín, piano
• Arnau Julía, drums

To the memory of Bo Sybrandt Hansen

I have come to know some of my friends through music. I am not a musician myself, but I find that different genres and musicians strongly appeal to my emotions. Joan Chamorro and his project the Sant Andreu Jazz Band are among those who do. I found the SAJB on YouTube in 2016, and wrote a short story for my music page, Musik.pm.

In the SAJB project, Joan Chamorro combines a very interesting jazz education project with performances on a high-quality level by the young musicians. The members of the band are of different ages, but they are all young and serious about their music. The band is irresistible.

So, I have continued to write about the project. As Joan Chamorro shares stories written about the SAJB on social media, SAJB fans can easily find them. One of Joan Chamorro’s and the SAJB’s followers was Bo Sybrandt Hansen from Denmark. He found one of my stories, and I believe it was The Sant Andreu Jazz Band formula. That story was based on an interview with Joan Chamorro and the two young musicians Èlia Bastida and Carla Motis. I conducted the interview in conjunction with a SAJB concert in Stockholm in October 2018. Bo commented on the story in a positive way, and of course I was happy about that. We began to communicate.

In the end of the interview, I asked Joan, Èlia and Carla where to see the band next time. They strongly advised me to come to Barcelona to see the band at the Palau de la Música next month. (November 28, 2018). So, I did together with my wife. At the concert (which was wonderful), we met Bo and another SAJB fan, Pertti Haikonen from Finland, for the first time.

On New Year’s Day, 2020, the American writer and SAJB fan Garry Berman published an interesting article on the SAJB. Bo and I found it and gave him well earned credit. Later, Bo and Garry approached me and asked if I wanted to take part in a discussion about how we could spread the word about Joan and the SAJB. We discussed different ways, and in the end decided that a Facebook group probably would be the best. The discussion was interesting, and I came to know Bo and Garry better. We started the Facebook group Friends of Sant Andreu Jazz Band in March 2020.

I was active in the discussion and the start-up of the group, but after a few weeks I had to return to my other commitments. However, we continued to be friends and from time to time we communicated – most often about the SAJB. Bo and Garry developed the group into a highly active forum with more than 8000 members, paying their tribute to Joan, the SAJB and its current and former members. The group is still growing.

In November 2021, Joan Chamorro and three senior members of the SAJB – Alba Armengou, Èlia Bastida and Alba Esteban – came to Sweden for a short tour. Bo came for one of the concerts, and my wife and I were lucky to have Bo as our guest. After the concert we had an interesting late-night discussion about the SAJB, different music experiences and life in general.

Later that year we met Bo again in Palau de la Música, Barcelona. During that year, the SAJB project celebrated its 15 years anniversary. They did so with a number of different concerts. On December 10, Joan had managed to gather almost all young musicians that had been part of the SAJB project for a marvellous concert. The Palau de la Música was full of enthusiastic SAJB fans, and the musicians as well as the audience radiated happiness, warmth, and joy.

In July 2022, my wife and I went to Aarhus for a concert with Diana Krall, and I told Bo about it. He was not interested in the concert, but he wanted to come and show us Aarhus, a city where he had lived several years. We had lunch together, and then he very generously spent the day with us as our guide.

However, we found that communication on Messenger and e-mail was not efficient enough, so we decided to meet and spend one full day on sharing and evaluating different ideas, including what kind of valuable contacts we had. Bo would arrive the day before and leave the day after our discussions. We were of course prepared to face the fact that we might conclude that this was not a realistic idea, but we did not want to leave the idea before we had had a serious discussion about it. And I believe we both wanted to meet again, regardless of why we would meet.

Bo was to come by ferry from Denmark on a Friday evening. That evening I waited for him by the ferry terminal in Gothenburg. There were not many passengers on the ferry that day, so it was easy to see that Bo was not among them. I tried to reach him on all the platforms that we used to communicate on, but there was no answer. So, after half an hour I went home, where my wife waited with the dinner that we had planned to have with Bo. We had our dinner without him, and from time to time I looked for messages from Bo on my mobile phone. There were not any.

The next day I was informed by a member of Bo´s family that Bo unexpectedly had passed away the day before.

–––––––––––––––––––––

Of course, Bo had many friends, and he shared his love of the SAJB with many of them. In fact, Bo’s and Garry’s work to build and develop the Facebook group Friends of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band (FOSAJB) has brought many SAJB friends together on this common communication platform. We all share the same interest and love that Bo had, the interest and the love of the SAJB. With FOSAJB we can enjoy and develop what we love with the SAJB, and we can, old or young, develop friendship relations with other SAJB fans. The communication platform is there, and it is not difficult to find new friends, regardless of the fact that some of us are getting old.

Dear Bo, thank you for your friendship.

–

From the Anniversary concert December 10, 2021

Over the years, Joan and the band have attracted many well-known professional jazz musicians as collaborators. Moreover, Joan Chamorro and the band continuously generate spin-off projects, involving current and former members of SAJB and professional musicians. The band and the spin-off projects have recorded a very large number of albums, and hundreds of recordings of wonderful performances can be found on YouTube.

Many of the fans follow Joan and the SAJB, and the alumni of the band, through membership in the very active Facebook groups Friends of Sant Andreu Jazz Band (in English) or Amis du Sant Andreu Jazz Band (in French).

Like everyone else, Joan and the SAJB were hard hit by the pandemic, but they muddled through, and last year they were able to celebrate their 15-year anniversary, with a fantastic climax in the Palau de la Música on December 10, 2021 – a concert at which almost everyone who had been part of  the band during the 15 years performed.

Today, Joan Chamorro celebrates a personal anniversary – his 60^th birthday. We are many who want to congratulate Joan on his birthday, and to thank him for what he has created for us to enjoy in so many ways. For myself, I do so by sharing three earlier articles in which I have tried to understand and write a portrait of Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Jazz Band project.

Congratulations and thank you, Joan!

Joan Chamorro

Why do we love the Sant Andreu Jazz Band?

Dear Joan

Our Saturday night dinners

We are at home. It is Saturday and dinner is prepared. With food, wine and music. With memories, plans and hopes. With ideas and emotions. My wife and I know that we will have enough to enjoy and discuss for the rest of the evening. We commence the meal by tasting the wine, and then we are on our way.

Like people in general we talk about everyday planning issues, family, friends, society, culture, politics, etc. Our associations of thoughts lead the conversation forward. However, music is an essential part of our dinner, not only to colour the atmosphere. Many songs recall memories of concerts and performances that we have attended. Such as Melody Gardot and Kurt Elling in Molde, Diana Krall and Keren Ann in Paris, Gin Wigmore in Munich, the Sant Andreu Jazz Band in Barcelona, Cécile McLorin Salvant in Oslo, Mariza and Carminho in Gothenburg etc. Many memories stem from experiences in the fado houses of Lisbon with performances by fadistas like Lina, Maria Ana Bobone, Joana Amendoeira, Pedro Moutinho, Rodrigo Costa Félix and many more. Music by those musicians that we have met on a personal basis brings special memories.

Sometimes our conversation leads us to have a look at a musician’s tour schedule. If we find an interesting concert at a time and in a place that is convenient to us, plans are sometimes made, and concert tickets might be bought before the meal is over.

But music also makes us travel in our minds to cultures and countries that we have not visited, and probably never will – Cap Verde, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other countries that are hard to reach from our country in a climate-friendly way.

Some of the music we listen to comes from our CD collection. The rest is easy to access through streaming services. There, we can choose to listen to an album or a playlist with a collection of different musicians.

When we let the streaming service lead our way from a starting point that we have chosen ourselves, such as a playlist with favourite music, the streaming service adds more music for us to listen to – a mix of songs that we already know and songs that we have never heard before. Some of the new ones are fabulous, and we add them to our playlist. If it is a newfound artist, we can investigate that artist further another day. Therefore, a musical dinner can become a night of musical expansion.

Often the music addresses us in a way that calls for a response. Our responses might have the form of a question or a comment. “Who is this now again?” “That harmony was beautiful!” “This sounds like X!” “I must find out who that singer (or instrumentalist) is! “This band has brought us so much joy!” These responses interrupt the current subject of our discussion for a minute or two, and sometimes the interruptions put us on new conversational tracks. It is as if we are three individuals around the table – my wife, myself and the music. Creating atmosphere, yes, but the music is not like wallpaper. It is a living thing, communicating with us.

A fado experience

Now for something completely different. This is an excerpt from my article A fado experience from 2016. My wife and I had come to experience fado in the world capital of fado, Lisbon. But as we started our first visit to Portugal by spending a couple of days in Porto, it so happened that the first fado house we visited was there. This is the story.

It is the 25th of October and we go to Casa da Marinquinhas, a fado house that a Facebook friend who is herself a fadista has recommended.  It is not easy to find the place among the irregular small streets and alleys alongside central Porto. The houses are very old and there are not many people in the sparsely lit streets. If it had not been for the recommendation, we would probably have avoided that part of the city at night-time. But, once there, we are warmly welcomed and invited to our booked table.

After four hours we have had a tasty meal interspersed by at least six performances by different fadistas, male and female, and two guitarristas. The man who seems to run the place is strict in his design of the fado experience. Food is ordered and served in sequences to fit in between the performances. Before every performance the lights in the small restaurant go down, and only a couple of tiny spotlights light up a small spot in the centre of the room. There is no stage. The musicians are on the same level as us. It is totally quiet. No one continues to eat, and we are all focused on what is going to happen.

And then one of the most beautiful combinations of instruments – the Portuguese and the classical guitar – starts to colour the background of the fado song. Soft, but nevertheless energetic. They do so with a delicate fabric of tones in which it is sometimes difficult to distinguish who is contributing which thread. Still, the different sounds of the two guitars are very distinct.

After a short and beautiful guitar introduction, often with a bittersweet colour, the fadista starts to sing. And the song is no less beautiful. The fadista tells the emotional story (most often a sad one) with a strong expression, closed eyes, and he/she does not open them until a storm of applause releases the tension of the fadista and the audience. There is never a second of silence between the song and the applause. It is as if the concentration of the strong emotions that the fadista and the other musicians create is released when the last forceful tones of the guitars and the fadista are hit.

As the experienced visitor of fado houses now realizes, this is not a description of what goes on only in Casa da Marinquinhas, but with variations in every fado house. At its best the fado experience is created in a close relation between fadistas, guitarristas and fado house guests. Fadistas sometimes say that they need the community with the audience to create genuine and honest fado. Guests are sometimes informed that “you and your silence are important parts of the fado experience”.  This message has two parts. It means that the guests of fado houses are co-creators of the fado experience – but also that the guests cannot be co-creators if they disturb the fadistas, themselves or other guests by talking, eating, or just being focused on something else than the performance. Fado is serious business, and if you are not interested in participating on these terms you should probably do something else. It might sound a little bit too strict to some of you, but why not give it a try? You will be rewarded.

The puzzle

If I very much appreciate the strict separation of conversation and eating from the music performances in a fado house, why do I enjoy that my wife and I always listen to music while having our weekend dinners, with a lot of conversation? Could it be a matter of the presence or absence of fado music? No, there are frequent examples of fado music during our dinners, and my preference for separating conversation from music is not limited to fado houses. It is valid for any restaurant with music performance, and of course for performances in concert halls.

However, the conditions of our Saturday dinners point to several other possible explanations. We are only two people, and we both feel that this is a pleasurable way to be together. Being only us in the room, we do not disturb anyone else and no one else disturbs us. The music we listen to is recorded music. If we had invited musicians to perform in our home, we would of course not have disturbed the interaction between the musicians and us by talking or eating.

Our musical taste, and our experiences of music are about the same. We appreciate listening to our old favourites, and we appreciate widening our experiences of music. We know each other so well that the music does not demand a high level of split focus capability for us to be able to enjoy the music while talking. Whenever we feel that the music needs a higher degree of attention, we can within an instant give that level of attention.

I do not claim that the experience of music is the same during our dinners at home as it is at a fado house or in a concert hall. It is something else, but it has qualities that I cannot find in a fado house or at other kinds of live performances. So, I would not like to live without the kind of dinners with music that we have at least once every weekend – and I would not like to live without experiences like those in a fado house or a concert hall.

Musik.pm after hours

If you want to share some of our music experiences, here is a link to one of our play lists on Spotify. Just click the image below and enjoy!

Songs from this list will from time to time show up on the Facebook page and Twitter account of Musik.pm.

Dear Joan,

I am one of many who want to thank you deeply for creating the project of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band and all its related spin-off activities. You have created and developed this project such that it has become an important concern for many music lovers all around the world, including professional musicians. This is my tribute to what you have achieved.

How right you were to combine these two ambitions, to the benefit of both! The combination of developing musical qualities as well as social and human qualities has been very successful, and the combination has made many of us love your project in a way that goes beyond appreciation of the high-quality music itself.

The project of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band seems to me to form a sort of “ideal society” – a community where everyone gets the opportunity to develop with the help of the leader, fellow band members and external professionals.

Yes, quite a few professionals play together with you and the band from time to time. These collaborations show the attractiveness of your project, and they help to develop the band and its members.

I know how hard you and the students work in practising and rehearsing together. The results in terms of wonderful concerts, videos and albums are part of the educational side of the project. They also help to cover the band’s costs, which means that neither the young musicians, nor their parents, have to pay any fees. This of course means that the band has to be attractive enough for people to buy concert tickets and albums. You and the young musicians have been able to create this attractiveness.

This quality of your work really impresses me. Instead of playing safe and continuing with the band that you have once selected and developed, you let the older members get on in life, and you all the time find new young musicians to recruit. In that respect, it is like a school, but your model in many ways differs a lot from institutional schools. The way you mix ages in the band, creating a family-like culture, is a key aspect of the band.    

Leaving the big band of SAJB often does not mean leaving the SAJB environment totally. After leaving, the seniors often continue to collaborate in SAJB’s different spin-off projects. They can do so, and at the same time find new music friends, projects and genres. To be a SAJB alumnus offers many possibilities, not least because you have created many opportunities for the young musicians within SAJB. Many have been able to play more than one instrument within the band, and many have had the opportunity to develop their singing.

Over the years, I have more and more come to realise that you constantly develop your project. There is, of course, a core set of activities, songs, collaborations etc, but there is also always something new. You have a very open mind, a quality that I believe that you have passed on to your young musicians. This is an important legacy.

You have managed to carry on your project in these hard times of the pandemic, ending the anniversary year with a number of activities. You managed to create a new edition of your Jazzing Festival of Sant Andreu, you managed to produce some new “Joan Chamorro presenta” albums with release concerts, and you have been selected as the portrayed artist (Retrat d’Artista) of the Barcelona Jazz Festival 2021. Apart from the well-earned honour, this appointment includes five SAJB-related concerts within the festival.

So, we were there, and what can I say? How can I describe the outstanding mix of music, warmth, happiness and joy that we all experienced in Palau de la Música that night? I have after that concert no words to describe what I feel for you and everyone in the Sant Andreu Jazz Band project. Words fail me. It’s only love.

Best wishes
Bengt-Ove

PS

• I hope we all soon can enjoy this wonderful concert on video!  

• If anyone else reads this letter to Joan, and wants to explore the thoughts expressed above further, they can be found more developed in my articles below, ordered according to date of publication. In the end of each article you will find links to videos with wonderful music by SAJB and related projects.

The Sant Andreu Jazz Band Formula

Added reflections on the Sant Andreu Jazz Band Formula

Joan Chamorro

Why do we love the Sant Andreu Jazz Band?

The Sant Andreu Jazz Band in pandemic times

Photos

The cover image and all photos below are from the anniversary concert December 10, 2021.

All photos above by Lili Bonmati

All photos below by Peter ter Haar and Isabel van der Ven

Photo: Silvia Poch

A new musical space

Sometimes I discover music that I find very attractive but different to what I usually listen to. The music opens up a new musical space to me, a space where I have not been before. This happened when I recently experienced the music of Carolina Alabau and Èlia Bastida from Barcelona.

I became curious when I first saw a few videos on YouTube, shared on Èlia’s Facebook page. Later, in September, my wife and I were enchanted when we experienced Carolina and Èlia’s concert (online) at the Jazzing Festival in Barcelona. It was a beautiful concert, and I became inspired to write about their project. We contacted them through Èlia and asked if we could conduct an interview online. They were very generous, and the interview was held a few days later.

To prepare ourselves, we bought their recently released, first (joint) album, which we had time to listen to briefly before the interview. Directly after the interview, we listened to the full album twice, with growing enthusiasm. We had fully entered the musical space created by Carolina and Èlia. Writing this, I continue to play the album and indulge its powerful expression and colourful details.

Their music is not new in a strange way that is difficult to enjoy. It is different and of high class, but easy to listen to – beautiful, inventive and fun. Actually, we detect elements from many directions that are familiar to us – folk music from different countries, jazz, and even classical music. (I even detect colours related to the Portuguese fado, a favourite genre of mine.) However, it is not right to say that their music is a plain mixture of such influences. Carolina and Èlia´s music is very much their own. A space of their own.

Meraki

However, their music should in the first place be experienced, not analysed. It opens up emotions of happiness and surprise to the listener. The title of the album, Meraki, is the Greek word for passion. To Carolina and Èlia, it signifies the creativity, love and soulful honesty in their creation of music.

The album consists of four original songs, written by Carolina and Èlia, and their interpretations of nine other songs – “traditional songs, Mediterranean music and Brazilian music, bossa nova and jazz, among others”, as is said on the album cover. But I cannot say that their own songs form a category of their own, separate from the others. It was clear to us that one of the songs (“The Sound of Silence”) was not their own original song, but for the rest we had to ask. Their own songs – “Something New”, “Conversation in Ramos” (Conversa em Ramos), “That Melody” (Aquela Melodia), and “Thousands of Lights” (Miles de Luces) – are of equally high quality and interest as the others. The tracks on the album differ in character, but they all have Carolina and Èlia’s beautiful expression in common.

Cover Design: Hugo Cornelles
Photo: Silvia Poch

More from the cover:

Alabau and Bastida combine voices, violin, piano and percussion, and for the recording, they are joined by the Spanish guitar of Marc Lopez; the vibraphone of Brandon Atwell; the double bass of Joan Chamorro and the tambourine of Sergio Krakowski. The album was recorded live in order to best reflect the connection and dialogue between the musicians and convey the unique energy of this genre. The recording took place in the studio of David Casamitjana (Espai Sonor Montoliu, in La Segarra) during the summer of 2021.

So, the recording is quite recent. Carolina’s voice and Èlia’s violin lie at the centre of all the songs. They form a musical dialogue and sometimes quickly leap between the tones in dynamic unison. Carolina is the lead singer and on occasion Èlia joins in with her voice in harmony. Èlia’s violin serves as a solo instrument, but also, like Carolina’s piano, as an instrument of accompaniment. The two young musicians are a perfect match. When we ask how it is to work together, they both say that they mutually help each other to connect better to music. They are very good friends, they can be creative and improvise together, and it is easy for them to find a way forward in their creative work.

As is said on the cover, Carolina and Èlia receive help to create a more full musical body and varied flavours in some of the songs of the album. The additional instruments and musicians are carefully chosen to deliver those flavours, and the result is beautiful. To the listener those musicians could very well be apprehended as group members. The characterisation “perfect match” can be used again.

Photo: Helena Palau

Backgrounds

We know Èlia from her work within Joan Chamorro’s creation the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, and in 2019 I wrote an article on her when she was about to leave the big band as a regular member. However, she had by that time already collaborated with Joan in other projects within his big network of musicians – and she has continued to do so. Apart from her main instrument the violin, she sings and plays the tenor saxophone. Èlia´s musicianship has so far been portrayed on two albums (Joan Chamorro presenta Èlia Bastida and The Magic Sound of the Violin) and a third is close to completion (Èlia Bastida meets Scott Hamilton). More about Èlia´s background here: https://musik.pm/elia-bastida/ 

As Carolina is new to us, we asked her to fill us in about her background. We learned that Carolina has a similar background to Èlia in terms of music. She was born to a musical family; her father and brother are cellists and her mother plays the viola. Like Èlia, she went to a music school, where music is integrated in the curriculum alongside other subjects. The musical focus was on classical music. She studied the first year of the jazz voice degree at the “Guildhall School of Music” in London, and then finished the degree at the “Conservatori del Liceu” of Barcelona. Singing has been there all the time. Her classical training has been a great help in teaching her how to breathe, but for the rest, the technique is very different in the kind of music she now sings. In the beginning, she also played both violin and piano, but she now concentrates on the piano. In 2020 Carolina recorded her first album, Primera mirada, and like Èlia, she is involved in several additional music projects.

One interview after another…

Carolina and Èlia are two very busy young musicians, and we are thankful to them for giving us the time for an interview. The setting of the interview was very special. It was conducted by a Messenger video call, right after a live radio interview. They tried to find as peaceful a place as possible, but central Barcelona is not very peaceful anywhere. So, we were experiencing the urban life of Barcelona as a background to our conversation! But aside from a few difficulties in hearing, it was actually a wonderful experience to be transferred to central Barcelona while talking to Carolina and Èlia. When the streets after a while became too noisy, they brought us into a café to finish the interview.

The radio interview was one of many positive reactions that Carolina and Èlia have received after the Jazzing Festival concert. As our interview is one of those reactions, I can very well understand that they have faced that kind of interested and positive reception after the concert and the album release.

A duo in collaboration

Carolina and Èlia found each other in a music project in 2019, and realised that it would be a good idea to play together. Carolina loves the idea of singing with a violin. They met several times, exchanged songs, and found that they liked to create music in collaboration and to melt the violin and the voice together.

They see themselves as a duo, using violin and voice as the base, but they also love to collaborate with other musicians. So they bring in other instruments that they find attractive in creating the different expressions of the songs. Early on, they felt that there sometimes should be percussion in their music, and when they composed one of the songs, they “heard” the sound of a vibraphone. So, why not try to bring those instruments in? Likewise with the double bass and the classical guitar, and I will not be surprised if they were to bring in other instruments in the future.

Photo: Helena Palau

The future

Well, what about the future? At the moment Carolina and Èlia have no other answer to that question except that they want to continue to collaborate. They are now intensely involved in the Meraki project; in living and delivering the songs of the album, which means that right now there is no time nor emotional space to be involved in planning for further albums. As stated above, they are also both involved in several other musical projects. However, I am sure that eventually there will be another album by Carolina and Èlia. Their shared creativity seems to be irresistible.

Enjoy!

Making music together – each from their home

.

We enjoy travelling and we enjoy music. For almost two decades, my wife and I have combined these interests by travelling to different concerts in Europe. Once we are in the city of the concert, we add other experiences. We might visit a few tourist attractions, and we enjoy the daily life of the city.

Sometimes we attend more than one concert in a city, for instance when we visit a jazz festival. And when we go to Lisbon to enjoy fado, we go to different fado houses every night. There are many!

Some years ago, we decided not to travel by air any longer. This means that we now travel by train. We enjoy it very much, and we have the time as we are retired so the fact that travelling from Sweden to our destination might take two or three days is not a problem. However, once having reached the south of Europe, it is practical to combine a couple of concert destinations. This demands some planning, which we also like. The planning and the actual travelling give us the possibility to enjoy the journey twice.

We discovered Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Jazz Band in 2016, and we have enjoyed the band’s music a lot since then. The project is about music education for children and teenagers, where the actual performing is an important part. There are many albums, YouTube videos and live concerts. We have been able to enjoy the big band and smaller constellations of SAJB members and associates live, several times in Scandinavia and in the band’s home base, Barcelona. We have also been able to combine SAJB jazz in Barcelona with fado experiences in Lisbon, another music love of ours, a couple of times. The music flourishes in the two cities, and we have enjoyed both kinds of experiences very much. In 2020, we had planned two journeys to Barcelona and one to Lisbon.

–––––––––––––––––––––

When the pandemic hit the world in the beginning of 2020, everything changed. The most serious consequences of Covid-19 naturally concern public health, but there have also been serious consequences for economies, social life and culture. To stop the spread of the virus, the authorities have imposed restrictions on attending school, working at our normal work places, socialising, shopping, travelling, attending sport and cultural events etc.

The consequences for cultural life have been hard on consumers of culture, but harder still on those who produce culture and earn their living from it. Consumers of music can still enjoy audio and video recordings, which up to a point can compensate for the loss of live concerts, but most musicians nowadays earn their living mainly from performances. Selling albums cannot compensate for this. The loss of performances is also a matter of lost opportunities to communicate with audiences, and thereby sustain and develop cultural skills and expressions.

This article is about the consequences of the pandemic for one specific cultural entity – the Sant Andreu Jazz Band project.

–––––––––––––––––––––

I am not the only one outside Barcelona who has discovered the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. The music is of an amazingly high quality, even if one disregards the musicians’ ages, and the project has some very attractive features in terms of how Joan Chamorro achieves these qualities with the band. Joan aims to educate the young members both as musicians and as people, and the two ambitions turn out to be mutually supportive. Therefore, there are many fans of the SAJB, mainly jazz lovers, all around the world. Before the pandemic, some of them occasionally travelled to live concerts in Barcelona.

The Sant Andreu Jazz Band is a big band playing music from a classical jazz repertoire with lots of swing – sometimes in collaboration with professional musicians. From time to time different SAJB members, former SAJB members and professional musicians collaborate in smaller constellations. These constellations have added some beautiful bossa nova to the SAJB repertoire. (In the photo above you can see a constellation focusing on vocals, La Màgia de la Veu.)

The educative ambition of SAJB and the extensive number of constellations – with Joan Chamorro in the centre of it all – means that we actually should talk about this phenomenon in terms of an extensive and developing project rather than in terms of just a band. I have interviewed Joan Chamorro a couple of times and published a few articles on his work with the SAJB project. (Links below to those articles.)

Joan Chamorro initiated his project, the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, in 2006. This means that the band has been around for fifteen years, and Joan had big plans for the anniversary year, starting already in the end of 2020. What has happened to the Sant Andreu Jazz Band project during the pandemic? Recently I was in contact with Joan by e-mail to hear about the consequences. These were my questions and Joan’s answers.

When did you realize that Covid was going to stop or delay much of what you had planned? 

As soon as there was talk about restrictions. Two students came from Italy a few days before the general alarm, and what they told us put us on the alert. Shortly after, the restrictions were announced to last for two weeks, then for another two weeks, and then up to three months. The rest is already known.

Concerts began to be cancelled. We couldn’t rehearse (and we still can’t rehearse the whole orchestra in the jazz house, all together – we do it in sections).

I’m still happy that we were able to do the Jazzing Festival in September and were able to record the concert. I’m also happy because we were able to do a couple of recording sessions to finish some of the albums that we were halfway through. Finally, we were also able to do the concert at the Barcelona Jazz Festival, which I also recorded and which will be released in the coming months.

That alone, for me, was already a miracle, as things were. 

Cover of Jazzing 11 vol. 4. Photo and design by Lili Bonmati. Image from Barcelona Jazz Festival 2020 at Palau de la Música Catalana.

Can you briefly tell me how Covid affected your SAJB activities during 2020 – and your plans for 2021 so far?

There were numerous consequences. As I mentioned, for several months there was no type of rehearsal and some of the classes, especially with the little ones, we carried out through the internet.

Since all this began, band rehearsals are limited to rehearsals section by section.

To prepare for a concert, we have done the general rehearsals in a larger room, kindly provided by the concert hall, one or two days before the concert and also by the Nau Bostik. (Near the Jazz House.)

We had planned to record with Scott Hamilton and I rescheduled the date twice – but in the end it could not be arranged.

Two musicians were due to come from New York, but they couldn’t make it.

The entire Jazzing Festival was left with very few people attending, because obviously, no one came from outside Barcelona. A big band from Mexico was planned to come, but obviously couldn’t. A lot of visitors from outside Spain could not come, etc. etc.

But, well, as I have already mentioned, I am happy to have carried it out. We are already preparing the next.

Rehearsing with the new section of trumpets

Rehearsing at the Nau Bostik

What have the human consequences been for you as leader of the SAJB, and for members of the SAJB? How have you and the young musicians felt about the situation?

Humanly, it is a very sad situation because you have to stop doing what you are dedicated to – in my case, all that is my life.

But once reality is accepted, we have been able to do important things.

When you work with people that young, close follow-up is important. Rehearsals and concerts generate positive energy and enthusiasm for studying at home and wanting to move forward. 

I, for my part, have taken the opportunity to think and organize myself, to clarify my ideas of what I want for my future and, little by little, to make decisions for the future of my project.

On an economic level, for the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, it has been a disaster and, although for the moment we can move on, the situation, if it lasts much longer, will be untenable.

Luckily, concerts are beginning to appear. Concerts are our way of making our dreams come true, and we need them for economic reasons.

After rehearsal with the little ones at the Jazz House

How do you see the future of SAJB now – in 2021 – and later?

I am very excited about this new rejuvenated orchestra. Several older musicians left this year (although they continue to collaborate with us), and we have a very good feeling about it all.

The average age of the orchestra has dropped a lot, and that, in part, is good, because it is the present and it is the future.

There are very good students, with great enthusiasm, and that makes me also feel that desire to continue with the work of these past 15 years.

We have several projects for 2021: 

Soon the Joan Chamorro presentations of Joan Martí and Marçal Perramon will see the light.

Also the four volumes of Jazzing 11. Only vol 1 will be made a physical album. The other three will be released only on internet portals such as Spotify and Itunes.

This year we will also record the Jazzing 12, Joan Chamorro presents Alba Esteban, Alba Armengou sings Brazil etc, etc. 

And since this is the anniversary year 2021, there will be several important concerts – from our part in the Jazzing Festival in September and onwards.

We will do a concert where I will try to bring together the more than 60 musicians who have passed through the Sant Andreu Jazz Band these 15 years.

I am also going to gather in a concert all those who have their presentation CD and I am gooing to make a big band with them, with new songs. (This will be only for a concert, which I want to record and edit on a new CD).

etc etc

As you know, I am writing a book on the SAJB project. I have decided to publish the book in 2022, in order to give me time to include my reflections from 2021, when really important things will happen. I want to include my reflections on those things in the book.

and take a photo with all the musicians, include it in the book, etc etc etc

As you can see, I am with the same enthusiasm as always and the same desire to continue with the project. Let’s hope things improve and the winds continue to blow in the right direction.

Preparing Joan Chamorro presenta Joan Martí

Recording for Joan Chamorro presenta Marçal Perramon

Recording session for Jazzing 11 vol. 3

Preparing for Joan Chamorro presenta Alba Esteban

SAJB at the Barcelona Jazz Festival. (December 18, 2020)
Photo: Lorenzo Duaso

Joan mixing with Josep Roig, Temps Records

Those were Joan’s answers to my questions. Apart from the economic threat, which is serious, Joan gives us some very positive signals concerning the future of the SAJB project. After more than one year of the pandemic, and all the restrictions related to it, we all need those kinds of positive signals. Joan Chamorro and his SAJB project continue to educate young boys and girls as both musicians and people and, when the vaccination programme hopefully has had its effects, it will again be possible to travel to Barcelona and enjoy live performances by the Sant Andreu Jazz Band and related constellations of musicians. Maybe we will meet there?

Videos from YouTube and Facebook

A recording in confinement, each from their home

.

Rehearsals

• Rehearsal at Nau Bostik (Facebook)

• Rehearsal at the Jazz House (Facebook)

.

Recordings in the Jazz House, in the middle of the pandemic

.

The Jazzing Festival, September 2020

––––––––

Related posts

Why do we love the Sant Andreu Jazz Band? (June 26, 2020)
To be sincere (May 30, 2020)
Joan Chamorro New Quartet (February 3, 2020)
Joan Chamorro (August 9, 2019)
Èlia Bastida    (May 24, 2019)
Added reflections on The Sant Andreu Jazz Band formula    (January 3, 2019)
The Sant Andreu Jazz Band formula    (October 26, 2018)
La Màgia de la Veu & Jazz Ensemble    (July 8, 2017)
Sant Andreu Jazz Band live    (April 30, 2017)
Sant Andreu Jazz Band    (September 22, 2016)

We first encountered The Vocal Ensemble Amanda (Sångensemblen Amanda) in the 1990s at the jazz club Nefertiti in Gothenburg. The performance was completely different to anything that my wife and I had experienced before.

The song that sticks most in my mind is Lennon and McCartney’s “Come Together”, interpreted in a spectacular way. The dynamic arrangement and harmonies of some twenty singers were breathtaking, but that was not all. The singers combined their singing with a very expressive choreography. Together they created the illusion of a living and moving organism, from which individuals from time to time stuck out as parts of the organism, reaching towards us. The group created this illusion without the disguise of any shared covering – it was just their bodies moving together.

The show was the start of our relation to Amanda. The group is still very much active and we recently had the opportunity to interview three of its current members – Johan Hogenäs, Sanna Källman and Karin Marmander.

Much more than just a choir

Choir music has a long and strong tradition in Sweden, involving both professionals and a great many amateurs. It is a very large cultural and social movement. Although the musical genres differ between choirs, they all have one thing in common – they sing. However, Amanda does something more.

The Vocal Ensemble Amanda was formed in 1981. Some members of the Chalmers University Choir had longed for Latin American rhythms and other kinds of fun and engaging music. They also wanted to find a new type of expression. So, led by the music student Bengt Ollén, they formed Amanda. After three years, Lasse Smedlund became the new leader and he remained a leading figure in the group for many years. However, he was not a traditional leader; responsibilities were shared and group members encouraged in their individual creativity.

Several of the singers who joined Amanda had a theatrical background. Therefore, it was natural to develop the choir’s activities towards dramatic expressions. Choreography was also involved from early on. Moreover, many members of the group are skilled instrumentalists and so the members provide their own accompaniment. The voices are always in the forefront but, when needed, Amanda has a rich instrumental palette to choose from – brass, woodwind, guitar, harmonica, violin, cello, percussion etc.

Collage productions

Although combining music with choreography and a dramatic expression, Amanda has not gone down the path of creating cohesive theatrical plays with music – such as operatic pieces or musicals. Their main artistic form of expression is instead a sort of ‘collage’ production, where the group performs a combination of songs and thought-provoking monologues/dialogues. The different pieces of the collage are connected to an overarching theme – reflective, philosophical and humanistic in character.

Through these performances, Amanda communicates with the audience on many levels. Like in many other forms of art, emotions, intellect, intuition and aesthetics interact. Although serious life questions are often implied, a stroke of self-reflective humour is also always involved, giving yet another dimension to the theme. These collage productions run for a month or more at suitable venues. Later, songs from these productions are included on studio recorded albums.

An expression of its own

Amanda wants to build an expression of its own. Amanda members write some of their songs, but the group also carefully choses songs by other artists. Amanda makes these songs its own by a variety of means – the song’s function in the performed collage, sometimes with new lyrics in Swedish, musical arrangement, dramatic expression and choreography – in short, the group’s interpretation. Moreover, all spoken parts are written by Amanda members.

The international context is important to Amanda. Its repertoire includes folk music from around the world, rock and pop songs, samba, chanson, classical art music and other genres. Among folk music, Haitian music, introduced to the group by Sten Källman, is particularly important. Haitian songs and modes of expression are often present in the Amanda productions. (The production “Hunger” included only Haitian music.) In quite another area of the folk song part of Amanda’s repertoire, Nordic folk music plays an important role. The Amanda repertoire is wide and different members have brought influences from different parts of the world to the group.

Although differing so much in character, most of the songs and spoken parts in a production follow one another in an almost seamless way. This gives few opportunities for applause such that the created atmosphere becomes increasingly intense. However, in a few instances, and at the end, Amanda leaves room for applause. It is like opening up the flood gates, releasing the audience’s ‘dammed’ emotions.

Amanda uses single songs from these collage productions in commissioned performances. Sometimes you will also find new songs in these performances, which might foreshadow a forthcoming collage production. In the process of creating new productions, Amanda often invites audiences to ‘test performances’ of new material. Therefore, following Amanda is following a continuum of development.

When Amanda introduced its concept, it was a revolution to the Swedish choir community. Forty years later, it remains revolutionary. Although much appreciated, only a few groups have followed Amanda’s trail.

What has kept Amanda together?

What has kept Amanda together and active for forty years? Of course, the members have changed. As Johan, Sanna and Karin point out, Amanda regenerates gradually all the time.

Regeneration is important for keeping a movement alive, but regeneration can also be problematic in terms of continuity. So, the question remains – what has kept the group together?

They all agree that the main explanation is cultural in character. It is a special way of making music together, says Johan. There is not a strong leadership in the group. Instead, ideas and visions emerge between members, where, from time to time, some members might be more active than others.

Building the next collage production, the discussions take on an increasingly clear direction over time. Eventually, decisions concerning theme, songs, responsibilities etc. are made. However, it can be hard to identify the specific points of decisions. As Karin puts it: “There are no decisions, only deliberation and actions.” You intuitively know when you have reached a point from where you move forward. This, I believe, indicates a culture of friendship and trust within Amanda.

The process from the initial idea to first performance can be quite long. Sanna points out that the processes in Amanda give an opportunity to reflect on and deal with different issues of life. When I ask if this means that being part of Amanda provides a sort of therapy, they agree.

The involvement of many can be a big advantage in keeping the group together, but it can also be a source of frustration. Even if not everyone is equally involved in discussions and decisions, many are – and that can slow down processes. However, if you can build a community that both accepts this democratic culture and can find ways to improve efficiency within that culture, you build a solid base for the survival of the group.

Those who are there

Improving efficiency within the Amanda culture is in fact what has happened, they say. Nowadays, they delegate more than they used to, and they accept that the more active members can influence more than the less active. You have to be there to influence. Still, as Johan points out, the involvement of many in the process feeds into the engagement in reached decisions. That is the big advantage of Amanda’s modus operandi.

Actually, Sanna, Johan and Karin question the concept of membership concerning Amanda. Amanda is “those who are there”. This does not mean that there is not a cohesive group of people forming Amanda. The group is quite stable over time, but of course, everyone can miss a meeting or a rehearsal or two, and sometimes people take a ‘sabbatical’ from Amanda due to other life commitments. While a sabbatical could be the first step toward leaving Amanda, many return afterwards.

One can understand that this conceptualisation of Amanda – those who are there – corresponds to a practical need in terms of being able to move forward as a group. Early on in the interview, they question the membership concept in a more spiritual way – as if Amanda were an organism with a personality of its own. In Sanna’s words: “You are not a member of Amanda – you have a relation to Amanda.”

Moreover, there is an artistic council within Amanda. This group of members does much of the planning, including of human resources. It tracks recruitment needs and is where members turn to when they plan to change their involvement in Amanda. However, when the artistic council meets, everyone is welcome to attend. Forming this council is a way to allocate responsibility, not to exclude.

Success and self-confidence

Amanda’s very first collage production “Leakage” (Läckage) was a big success. It premiered at a small theatre in Gothenburg in May 1988.  It was highly innovative and the reviews were very appreciative. This created the image of a high-quality group – with critics, audiences and within Amanda. This first success set the level they have always tried to match since then, an ambition that adds to the attraction of being part of Amanda.

Success could encourage the belief that your next production needs to copy the main features of the first one to be successful again, such that you become stuck in a pattern (and also risk boring your audience). However, Amanda identified this problem early on and, instead of looking back, the Amanda community believed in their ability to develop new successful production concepts and trusts that they will turn out well.

The title of Amanda’s latest production (2016) was “Help” (Hjälp). Usually an Amanda production comprises music by many different songwriters. This was not the case with “Help”. All songs were original Beatles songs, “Help” of course being one of them. It goes without saying that Amanda did not want to make this production a string of Beatles covers. Each song had a meaning in the theme of the production and, as usual, Amanda’s interpretations were very special and engaging – often with new Swedish lyrics, relating to both contemporary and eternal conditions of life.

Amanda performed “Help” at a small venue with the audience sitting in the formation of a horseshoe reaching out from a stage. Many songs were performed from the open space in the horseshoe, like in a circus, with the audience very close to the performers. Some of the songs were performed from the stage, or in a combination of the two. It was a very dynamic and beautiful production.

Photo: Johan Wingborg

Professionals or not?

Over the years, Amanda has created seventeen original productions performed at small and large concert halls, theatres and churches. Amanda has also performed many one-off events.

Everyone in the group has a musical background of some sort. There are quite a few trained musicians and actors in Amanda, and they work professionally as such outside the group. They bring their professional experiences to Amanda. You can also find people from many professions in the group, including medical doctors, teachers, systems analysts and an artist. As all of the revenue from performances goes to the costs of the group, everyone earns their living outside Amanda. Although Amanda’s performances are very professional in terms of artistic quality, no one is in the economic sense a professional within Amanda.

Many are also involved in sub-groups within Amanda and music constellations outside the group. Amanda is an important junction in a large musical network in Gothenburg.

Again, one might wonder if the features of Amanda have been a disadvantage or an advantage to its development. More money could of course have helped on some occasions, but being a more commercially oriented act might have meant that Amanda was not the group it is today – it might not even exist. Movements of ideas and people can sometimes be more sustainable than companies are. As Sanna puts it – passion, not money, keeps Amanda going. Moreover, Sanna, Karin and Johan point to the friendship and affection that keeps Amanda together. People in Amanda genuinely like each other as persons and friends.

Recruitment and regeneration

Amanda comprises men and women of very different ages, including those who have participated for a very long time and those who are young and new to the group. New members are recruited when people leave or when changes to the repertoire demand a new specific set of voice types.

Over the years, the recruitment method has changed from informal, based on knowledge about the music network around Amanda, to become more formal, using auditions. To be accepted as a member you have to be an excellent singer and the ability to play one or several instruments is a great advantage. You do not have to be a trained actor or dancer, but since dramatic expression and moving your body in accordance with a choreography is important, you need some sort of base from which to develop those qualities within Amanda. The group is like a university of its own, where you learn all the time from each other and from common experiences.

Last, you need to be comfortable with the culture of Amanda, and so interviews are part of the process. However, not all stay as they find that they do not feel at home in ‘the organism’ Amanda. To be part of Amanda requires a lot of patience, tolerance, respect, creativity and openness to new ideas – but also the ability to accept realities.

An impossible equation

Sanna says that combining the different features and ambitions of Amanda should be an impossible equation. However, the group has repeatedly solved the equation for forty years! This does not mean that there have not been crises. The three laughingly claim that Amanda is a constant crisis, but group members can evidently cope with the difficult features of Amanda. They can even laugh at the problems and appreciate that these challenges also offer enjoyment and possibilities. As Karin says, in crises Amanda shows unbelievable strength and human warmth.

Amanda reaching out

Most of the Amanda performances take place in its hometown, Gothenburg, but it also performs in other Swedish cities on occasion, and has performed in Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Senegal, Brazil and Cuba, at festivals, touring and one-off events. The group has not yet been to Haiti, but has collaborated with Haitian performers in creating performances with a Haitian theme in Sweden. International collaborations mean a lot to Amanda, and touring welds the group together.

A special moment of collaboration and inspiration occurred when the Spanish musician David Costa saw Amanda perform in 1999 and was inspired to start a group combining different forms of expression, as Amanda does. He formed the group Cor de Teatre, which resides not far from Barcelona. Later Costa created a younger group on the same line – Cor de Teatre Joves. This initiative in turn inspired Amanda to start the group Young Amanda (Unga Amanda) to pass on the legacy of Amanda to a younger generation.

Young Amanda (Unga Amanda)

With the leadership and guidance of Amanda seniors, Young Amanda has created one production (“Passage”) to date. In September 2019, Cor de Teatre Joves and Young Amanda met in Gothenburg, performing one production each. Then the pandemic arrived, hindering further projects and collaboration.

Young Amanda is part of a broader approach to outreach, named Amanda Academy (Amanda Akademi) with activities targeting different age groups: children aged 6-9 (Small A / Lilla A) and children aged 10-12 (Middle A / Mellan A).

Within the Academy, Amanda also offers courses and workshops to adults led by Amanda members or sub-groups, dependent on their specific competence, interest and availability.  You can say that Amanda is the communication platform for a wide variety of outreach activities, all in one way or another inspired by the Amanda approach to performing. The purpose of all activities within the Amanda Academy is to spread and pass on the Amanda legacy.  

A developing legacy

However, the legacy itself is still developing in terms of new songs, arrangements, productions and collaborations. Amanda does not want to repeat itself, and one can be sure that a new and different production will soon be part of the Amanda legacy. The Vocal Ensemble Amanda will be around for many more years!

(Photos from Amanda’s website.)

________________

Trailers from the production ‘Larm’

Short version

Long version

A selection of albums and songs

Eight years ago today, I launched my music site Musik.pm. Four years later, I highlighted the four years anniversary by publishing the article What is world music – not? Following some critical notes on the concept ‘world music’, I ended the article like this:

World music or not – here is some of the music that Musik.pm has covered the first four years. Enjoy!

If you want to read that article, and find out what kind of music I shared, follow this link: What is world music – not?

During the four years that have followed, I have published two kind of articles. Portraits of musicians, bands, genres etc. form the first category. In the second category, there are different kind of reflections on music and our experiences of music. In both categories, I illustrate the themes of the articles by music videos.

In the end of the first four years, I found Joan Chamorro and his wonderful project the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, and I introduced the band on Musik.pm with a short article. (Sant Andreu Jazz Band) I have followed this project closely during the last four years, so among the portraits from this period, there are actually eight new articles on themes in one way or another related to the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. In addition, I illustrate one article in the reflections category by music videos with members of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. (To be sincere)

As you understand, this project has played a major role in my enjoyment of music the last four years. The project has also given me important insights concerning the social and human factors involved in the SAJB project. I have reflected on these factors in the SAJB articles, so in a way these articles belong to the reflections category too.

Click the links below, and you will find the different articles. Enjoy your reading and/or the music!

Bengt-Ove Boström

Portraits

Joan Chamorro / Sant Andreu Jazz Band

Reflections on music and experiences of music