Shabaka Hutchings and Mette Rasmussen help Vilnius Jazz Festival push into the future

Vilnius is a city that wears its scars on its sleeve. Thirty three years since Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union, its capital city is well into the process of establishing its identity outside of occupation. Nowhere is this expansive capacity for reinvention more apparent than at the 36th edition of the Vilnius Jazz Festival. 

Taking place largely at the century-old Vilnius Old Theatre – recently renamed from the Russian Drama Theatre – over five days the venue played host to the avant garde of European and US jazz. 

Just as the grandiose Vilnius Old Theatre blends traditional velvet seating and wooden staircases with contemporary art hangings and lighting features, so the talent on display artfully mixed the old with the dazzlingly new. A homegrown highlight came from drummer and composer Marijus Aleksa, who debuted at the festival in 1999 as a 13-year-old. Over the course of his hour-long solo performance, Aleksa displayed the rhythmic mastery he has developed in the last 24 years. Combining Latin jazz with west African polyrhythms, kalimba melodies and even a foray into Jon Hassell-inspired electronica, Aleksa’s set was mesmeric and constantly-shifting without ever settling into a snare-based groove. A radically confident performance. 

Marijus Aleksa - Photo by Greta Skaraitiene

Experimental rhythms were the key to many of the festival’s highlights. Local avant-garde quartet Sneeze Etiquette combined turntables, effects and two drummers to produce a fascinating array of duelling beats during their late-night show. Equal parts raw and refined, the group slid from the IDM territory of an Aphex Twin live set to the warped horror of folk melodies being scratched and blended into an assault of sonic textures. From the US, meanwhile, Art Ensemble of Chicago member Famoudou Don Moye presented his Odyssey & Legacy Quintet, with each instrumentalist doubling on African percussion to produce a riot of overlapping grooves. It was in the softer moments of Moye and his virtuoso group harmonising vocals over a simple conga backing that they reached a beautiful transcendence. 

Mette Rasmussen - Photo by Vygintas Skaraitis

From Norway, saxophonist Mette Rasmussen’s Trio North plumbed the searing depths of free improvisation, blasting percussive phrases over drummer Olaf Moses Olsen’s washes of cymbals and thundering kicks. Yet it was the combination of gnawa master Majid Bekkas, free jazz drummer Hamid Drake and British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings who produced the most thrilling set of the festival. Anchoring in Drake’s fluid drumming, which reduced groove to the simple affair of hi-hats and a rimshot, and the earthy foundation of Bekkas’ gimbri playing, Hutchings soared on flutes and sax, spiralling out to end in a euphoria of speed.

Rough-edged yet eminently skillful, it was the perfect representation of Vilnius Jazz Festival – a showcase unafraid to keep pushing into the future.