THURSDAY 7 & 12 | Have sax, will travel. Will play jazz and conduct saxophone clinics and workshops across France, Italy, Portugal, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia… Vietnam and Cambodia. And that’s just this year. Danish-born, Paris-based saxophonist Martin Jacobsen collects passport stamps and luggage stickers in the way the rest of us collect coffee shop loyalty card points. To Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City and Danang this November he brings with him two Parisians of Vietnamese heritage, Duylinh Nguyen on bass and Vinh Lê on piano. “Mongolia has been independent for only 20 years and jazz is still very new,” he says of his travels. “I’ve in fact been the first ever jazz educator to come to Mongolia on a regular basis for now a year. Ulaanbaatar’s first jazz club opened a few months ago, the small yearly jazz festival is getter bigger and the Minister of Culture, a woman, loves jazz and helps the scene. Mongolians are an incredibly musical people and their own traditional music scene is very strong. They respond very well to jazz – rhythm, melodies, harmonies – and it’s really exciting to see how the scene is unfolding there. Because of big social differences in Mongolia, the jazz audience is often made up of either more well-off Mongolians or foreigners living there, but with the new jazz club (run by Mongolia’s only jazz pianist) it’s now possible for everyone to come and listen to jazz.”
WHO: Martin Jacobsen Trio
WHAT: Jazz, man
WHERE: Doors, Street 84 & 47 (Nov 7) and Sofitel, Sothearos Blvd (Nov 12)
WHEN: 8:45pm November 7 (Doors) & 12 (Sofitel)
WHY: There ain’t nothin’ like a Dane