Ruth Goller’s SKYLLA, Velvet Revolution and more shine in the mountains at Südtirol Jazzfestival Alto Adige

Tim Dickeson
Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Südtirol Jazzfestival Alto Adige has always been a festival of discovery – for the most part the organisers choose artists and bands who are relatively unknown to the wider jazz community. The concerts are a mixture of free and ticketed shows that are staged in Bolzano and across the Südtirol region.

Ruth Goller’s SKYLLA at Südtirol - All photos by Tim Dickeson

Showing off the region is a big part of the festival - mountain tops, a WW2 bunker, a distillery, a mining museum, an exhibition hall, hotels and a three day jazz hike all featured in this year’s festival. The festival has two regular venues each evening; Cappuccini Park and the Batzen Sudwerk a cool late-night club in the basement of the Batzen brewery (both in the centre of town).

The Südtirol festival put on 52 shows in 10 days - here are some of my personal favourites from my time at the festival.

If you are a fan of the Parabola at the Cheltenham Jazz festival then the Batzen Sudwerk is the place for you. Not for the faint hearted, the shows presented here are avant- garde/experimental music on steroids.

Beatdenkers Polyplay featuring Olga Reznichenko (keyboards, keytar, electronics), Philip Dornbusch (drums, electronics), and Jo Wespel (Guitar, Synth, effects) the eponymous Beatdenker. The band launched into their set with a barrage of atonal sound with their pieces never in danger of forming structure. They disassembled into yet more jagged parts leaving the listener with a musical jigsaw of sounds and effects - I found myself smiling whilst trying to tap my foot which proved almost impossible.

Reznichenko appeared the following night in her band Crutches (above) featuring Jan Frisch (switching between bass and lead guitar), Valentin Schuster (drums), and Laure Boer (electronics). ‘Elevator music for Claustrophobics’ is how they describe it. This band has definite structure and melody with Frisch, Shuster and Reznichenko playing in a relatively conventional mode while Boer - who played a bowed theremin style device along with a circa 1970’s BT telephone. Boer fed her instruments and voice through a bank of electronics which added a wash of edgy electronic counterpoint to it. After several tunes they even played a quite moving ballad. This show was compelling both musically and visually and their time seemed to pass far too quickly - we left wanting to hear more from this band.

On the Cappuccini Park stage Bonbon Flamme - Valentin Ceccaldi (cello), Étienne Ziemniak (drums, vocals), Fulco Ottervanger (keyboards, vocals) and Luis Lopes (Guitar) offered a more straight-ahead approach with structured tunes and great grooves - Lopes was excellent on lead guitar as was Ceccaldi on cello who supplied both lead and bass parts to the ensemble.

Another band that impressed at the Cappuccini Park were Velvet Revolution (above) - Daniel Erdmann (sax), Theo Ceccaldi (violin) and Jim Hart (vibes) excellent compositions and playing - notably from Hart who was the glue that kept the band together.

The young French band Jet Whistle led by flautist Fanny Martin and trombonist Jules Regard were excellent value. I have rarely (if ever) seen a Flute/Trombone front line before but this Lyon based band were super with strong tunes and great playing. Fanny Martin is an exuberant leader and flute player showing great promise, ‘Small Star That Sleeps in the Universe’ a great vehicle for her flute and voice.

The trips to the mountains at this festival are always a treat - however always at the mercy of the weather. The gig of Haezz (pictured below) who are Stepan Flager (sax), Martin Eberle (trumpet) and Tobias Vedovelli (bass) was due to take place on the Rittner Horn - a beautiful mountain top location from where on a good day you can see the Alps one way and the Dolomites the other. Sadly, on the day of the gig there was low cloud so visibility was limited to just a few dozen meters.

Not to be defeated the festival managed to hastily convert a barn - normally full of farming equipment and a snow plough into a small and very intimate venue for the gig on the mountain top. So, after a coach, cable car and thirty minute walk - out of the mist a Sud Tyrol Jazz Festival banner announced we had reached the venue.

It was a really special moment as the music fitted the location and the setting perfectly. The music is mixture of folk influenced jazz with cinematic elements. Eberle’s trumpet had a beautiful reverb which in the heavy air outside the barn sounded even more ethereal giving the music even greater presence and feeling. The cows with their bells who were behind the barn creating a gentle percussive accompaniment - a magical moment.

Bassist/singer Ruth Goller (who is no stranger at this festival - pictured above and top of page with SKYLLA) played on three gigs. The first was at Stanglerhof - an agritourismo high in the Dolomites under the famous Rose Garden range of peaks. This was the culmination of three days of collaboration with Mirko Pedrotti (Vibes, percussion) and Daniel Klein (drums, electronics) which they called ‘Contemporary Assonance’. Each brought music and basic ideas and the concert was based on their time spent creating together. Goller’s bass playing was heavier and more rock influenced than usual - a real driving force and along with Klien’s drumming they formed a solid groove from which Pedrotti showed what an excellent vibes player he is. There was variety in the music and a great communal energy which was the standout memory from this concert.

Goller returned to the stage late the following night at in the cavernous Messe Bozen exhibition hall with her band Skylla - featuring Lauren Kinsella and Alice Grant (vocals) and Max Andrzejewski (drums).

This is a massive hall - usually used for commercial exhibitions - and the band played in the round. To help the sound a false ceiling had been lowered over the stage area and the hall had been lit with small spotlights and light sticks creating an almost ‘Halloween’ atmosphere.

Skylla is all about voice, harmony and space. Alice Grant told me after the show that they had elongated their phrases slightly to allow for the size of the space and it worked brilliantly. I had not heard Skylla with a drummer before and it was immediately obvious that this is a great addition to their sound. The masks are gone and probably rightly so as Goller has grown in confidence in what she is doing with this band. Her music is hard to categorise yet it strikes a chord on so many levels - classical, contemporary and avant-garde and is compelling to listen to and totally enthralling - certainly one of the highlights of the festival.

Another highlight was in the mountains in the garden of the Parkhotel Holzner in Renon reached via cable car from Bolzano.

The gig featured the Olga Reznichenko Trio (above) with Lorenz Heigenhuber (bass) and Max Stadtfeld (drums). This was the third gig Reznichenko had been involved in and the second one as leader.

With fresh memory of the first two gigs (both loud, experimental style music) it was really exciting to find her not only a very accomplished composer and arranger but a really gifted player too. Her trio music is subtly different from the standard piano trio as she composes using quite unusual time signatures which can also change through her pieces. There is plenty of room for individual expression - none better than on her composition, ‘A Ballad For A Cowboy Who Is Yet To Find Out About Fear’ a cinematic piece that shifts through many elements before gently resolving at the end. This was a high-class concert full of beautiful moments and showcased what a talented musician Reznichenko is.

Back at Cappuccini Park (also known as ‘base camp’ in line with the mountain theme of the festival) Lukas Kranzelbinder treated us to a ‘greatest hits’ show from his band Shake Stew (pictured below) - the band had its first gig at this festival 7 years ago and Kranzelbinder has been a regular visitor in other bands since.

The band is Kranzelbinder (bass, guembri) Oliver Potratz (bass and lead guitar), Yvonne Moriel (alto sax), Martin Eberle (trumpet), Johannes Schleiermacher (tenor sax, flute), Nikolaus Dolp and Christian Eberle (Drums).

With two basses and two drummers it is no surprise that rhythm and groove is a major element of this band. They started with a song from the first of their 6 albums ‘The Golden Fang’ - a foot stomper called ‘Shake the Dust’ - a real party anthem. They followed up with ‘Detroit’ and ‘Heat’ more complex tunes featuring cool trumpet from Martin Eberle and slick guitar from Potratz. Switching to guembri Kranzelbinder introduced a song written whilst in South Africa, ‘Grilling Crickets in a Straw Hut’ a great tune with a real township feel to it.

Shake Stew are a brilliant band and leader Kranzelbinder is a top draw composer and player - their music is well worth seeking out.

Südtirol is a great place to discover new music and to see musicians not just in their own bands, but in collaboration with others who they may have just met and never played with before. It is one of the most relaxed festivals you can be at with a beautiful city to explore and awe-inspiring mountains on the doorstep to explore. A lot of the shows are free and the ticketed ones are inexpensive.

It is a real credit to the organisers Max Von Pretz, Stefan Festini Cucco and Roberto Tubaro that they continue to seek out new and exciting musicians each year for their festival - fortunately profit is not a driving force so they can be bold in their choices and can encourage new collaborations that few other festivals can finance. Roll on 2025 for some more Tyrolean sonic adventures!

Listening list:

Olga Reznichenko Trio- “Rhythm Dissection” - (Streaming)

https://youtu.be/lG-Q8WmzCV0n -‘Slipping Pace Returning Time’

https://youtu.be/D2YotY5cJH8 ‘One hit Backlash’

https://youtu.be/8XlS5bsYv4o - ‘Live at Jazzahead!’

Olga Reznichenko - Crutches Band

https://youtu.be/WhcdqvJQ9Wg - ‘Frog’

https://youtu.be/TPulpmsL3zM - ‘Code’

Skylla - “Skyllumina” (Streaming)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL1_aL5z9fA ‘What’s really important she wanted to

know Pt 1’

Shake Stew - “Lila” (Streaming)