The 50th Jazz Festival in Rome: ‘Re-reading Miles, rethinking jazz’

Rome is hosting the 50th Rome Jazz Festival, which celebrates the centenary of Miles Davis’s birth and is entitled ‘Re-reading Miles, rethinking jazz’. The festival opens on the 1st with Paolo Fresu’s trumpet in “Kind of Lives”, a concert version of the stage show “Kind of Miles”, written and performed by Fresu himself, which ran for over 50 performances. In Genoa, a special evening featuring Baricco and musicians talking about music, “Notte Eretica”. In Turin, the only Italian date for one of Europe’s leading orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, conducted by Daniele Gatti.

From 1 to 24 November, the 50th Rome Jazz Festival will take place at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, the Casa del Jazz and the Alcazar. This year marks the centenary of Miles Davis’s birth, to whom this edition is dedicated, as reflected in its title: ‘Re-reading Miles, rethinking jazz’. This reinterpretation is entrusted to those who shared Davis’s vision: Jason Miles, producer and arranger of *Tutu* and the albums that marked the electric revolution of the 1980s; Paolo Fresu, Gregory Hutchinson, Jeremy Pelt and Erik Truffaz — musicians from different generations, united by a non-reverential approach to that music, capable of reinterpreting it without nostalgia. Joining this core group are artists such as Kurt Elling, Steve Coleman, Hamilton de Holanda with Gonzalo Rubalcaba; representatives of the new scene such as the Polish quintet Omasta; the Italians Rosa Brunello, Enzo Favata, Chiara Civello and the Eden Inverted Collective; right through to the young Neapolitan Nexus Quartet.

On 29 October, the Lingotto Concert Season gets underway at the Lingotto Auditorium with the Staatskapelle Dresden and its conductor Daniele Gatti. The programme features music from Wagner’s *Parsifal* and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Another date on the European tour is 28 October at the LAC in Lugano.