Festival going back to pure jazz

The annual Malta Rock and Jazz Festival is losing the "rock" once again - in the hope of winning back jazz aficionados and returning to its roots.

The three-year contract with NnG Promotions, which turned the festival into a more rock-oriented event, has ended and is not being renewed, said the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts.

As the original organiser, it is stepping back into its previous role and taking the jazz feast under its wing, hoping to recuperate what it has "lost" over the last three summers.

The first elements that are destined to change are the name and the venue - the Malta International Jazz Festival and the Ta' Liesse location are making a comeback, MCCA executive director Davinia Galea told The Times.

The name change is due to the focus on jazz once again, while the return to the original venue, a stone's throw from the Valletta Waterfront, where it was held over the past three years, should rekindle a sense of "nostalgia" for the first 15 editions.

Another move would be to bring over top names in the jazz world, and up-and-coming musicians, which was what the original festival, recognised on an international level, was renowned for, Ms Galea said. Grammy-winning jazz vocalist Diana Krall, for example, came to Malta to perform at the event before she made it big, she pointed out.

The festival was farmed out three years ago in keeping with the council's plan to "cautiously" shed events - organising them is not its remit, Ms Galea said. NnG Promotions, renowned for having put up some of the island's top mega concerts, took over its "leftover baggage".

However, three years down the line, it was an "experience that did not work out" and the council does not plan to farm out the festival next summer.

But asked if he would have been willing to continue organising it after the contract expired, NnG's Nigel Camilleri said: "Not unless the conditions we were working under would have changed!"

Over the last three years, the festival had been a financial loss and, although he had no regrets, NnG had got nothing out of it from the commercial point of view; they had only benefitted from the PR aspect, he said, pointing out that the government had not funded anything.

Having said that, prior to the farming out of the festival, it had been a loss-making venture too, and the government was planning to put a stop to it, Dr Camilleri said. Among the problems NnG had encountered was the fact that the date was fixed, and also that the MCCA never included it in its Summer Arts Festival progamme and promoted it. "As it was, it was never going to work and it will never make a profit," he said.

NnG aimed to resuscitate the festival by broadening its musical horizons with an injection of mainstream sounds, showcasing the likes of Zucchero, The Blues Brothers and The Alan Parsons Project. But jazz purists could not stomach it and the public's reactions to the changes were not positive.

The council is, therefore, planning to pour the jazz back into the mix - a frequent complaint when the formula had changed - and attract the jazz audience that had snubbed the event.

"We need to build up the trust between the organiser and the audience, which has been lost; the recognition of what the festival stands for, to have a repeat audience that will continue to grow," Ms Galea said.

The original all-jazz festival had its shortcomings too, and Ms Galea said its organisation and logistics needed to be looked into. As part of the audience at the time, she did not approve of the many hot dog stands and the stench of food, for example, saying "it was not about that".

Working for a profit, as NnG did, is not easy in the arts, Ms Galea maintained. "If you can guarantee massive audiences, then it works, but if you cannot, you have to look for money from government subsidies and private sponsorships. You have to know the product and research it; you have to know how vast the audience can be. The festival could be a profit-making field of art, but it has to be developed and nurtured.

The entrepreneurial aspect is important, but you have to know what you are working with," Ms Galea maintained.

Immediate profit was hard to come by in an event of the sort, but the council was a non-profit-making organisation and would be looking long term, she said.

The 19th edition of the Malta International Jazz Festival is scheduled for the third weekend of July - a fixed date on the country's cultural calendar - during the Malta Arts Festival, but the council has not yet started working on the ingredients.