their European introductions.” Indeed, van Riel’s longstanding membership of EJN is so engrained in his daily practice that it is no longer easy to make a distinction about the origins of his programming contacts and their relationship to EJN: “Many things happen in my programme that definitely have to do with getting to know people through EJN originally and finding a way of working. Many things that I do on a daily basis to an extent that I can’t exactly define - but a considerable extent - would not have been possible without EJN. I have a number of people, many of whom I know from EJN, with whom I have a way of working that’s entirely natural and such a daily, obvious thing that you don’t realise. It’s a considerable influence on my way of working.”
at European festivals and showcases. This gave him exposure to European artists in real situations, and supported the festival’s programming distinctiveness: “A festival should be an opportunity to do things that don’t otherwise happen. It’s no good just presenting, like so many festivals do, your touring band ‘rent a festival - we’ve seen them, they’re on tour so they’re in the festival’. So the idea was to present what doesn’t happen. And what certainly didn’t happen at that time, and still doesn’t to the extent it should do, is the discovery of things that you never knew about. So it was about doing something different. I really think that a festival is no good if it’s just a bunch of gigs that you could have heard anywhere.”
we were having at EJN were increasingly about how you created collaboration, how you co-commissioned, how you nurtured the scene in Europe, and that might be about interesting American or Australian or Japanese musicians, or whoever it might be. As an early EJN project, Europe Jazz Odyssey really transformed what EJN was about and, as well as generating a lot of cross border activity, it also enabled us to find out about each other. The meetings of the EJO team were hugely valuable and led on to us developing a manifesto for jazz in Europe.”
The network’s broad-based approach to jazz mirrors its membership, as van Riel suggests: “The Bimhuis presents all sorts of music called jazz and we have such a range of music that, at the far ends, one has nothing to do with the other. As a product of its period, Bimhuis is one of the organisations who can still combine these things and try to select on content rather than description stylistically. People always ask me whether we should mark the type of music in our publicity but I say no, it makes perfect sense as it is, and we can do that in the text. I don’t want to increase barriers, I want to tear them down.”
As Bianchi acknowledges, the strength of EJN has been demonstrated by its staying power: “Most people in the jazz world Jan Ole Otnaes, Managing Director of Molde thought EJN wouldn’t have lasted more than a few months, but after a quarter of International Jazz Festival, also believes in a century, we’re still here and one of the the power of unique festival experiences largest and tightest cultural associations to attract audiences: “Molde is a tiny town worldwide, which implies that was a very with 25,000 inhabitants, and altogether, we good group of friends and a bunch of sell around 30,000 tickets and altogether strong ideas. Sharing and co-operation we have about 70,000 visitors to the city. are sometimes seen by people as just extra So if you come to Molde you will know that work - often unpaid - and not worth the there’s a jazz festival on, as we have taken trouble. What they don’t take into account over the whole city. We do a concert on is the constant process of learning it implies, the last day of the festival at 7am in the especially when you’re sharing with the morning - ‘Break of Day in Molde’ - which best.” is a free concert. And we’re not flirting with the audience - we are giving them hard core stuff, but in a beautiful venue in the woods, where you can see those 222 mountaintops and hear the birds singing.”
Former EJN President Nod Knowles explains that he had a strong European dimension to his programming at Bath Festival from the start, enabled by his networking through EJN and attendance
Serious’ John Cumming is also a longstanding EJN member, and has used his EJN membership to drive several European projects and collaborations. “The discussions and conversations that
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