20.30: Chief Adjuah (formerly Christian Scott)
22.00: Terence Blanchard feat. The E-Collective with Atom String Quartet

The 65th Ljubljana Jazz Festival starts at Križanke with a visit from New Orleans, the cradle of jazz and the hometown of the jazz greats Terence Blanchard and Chief Adjuah, formerly Christian Scott. Protagonists of different generations and trumpeters deeply rooted in tradition, whose paths intertwined at some point  , but have otherwise pursued different creative careers. Blanchard has scored the music for majority of Spike Lee’s films and is the first African-American composer whose opera has been staged at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. 

After having expanded his understanding of jazz into so called stretch music form and innovating his own musical instruments, Chief Adjuah’s latest release is a throwback to the origins: the music of his ancestors. Two powerful creative forces conveying the African-American experience – both past and present.
 

The Alfa Mist concert takes place before Benjamin Clementine's. 

Benjamin Clementine 
Benjamin Clementine, piano, voice

A highly compelling songwriter with three amazing albums to his name, an accomplished pianist, an instantly recognizable baritone and winner of the Mercury Prize, unexpectedly awarded to his 2015 debut album, At Least For Now. And, recently, also an up-and-coming film actor. Benjamin Clementine’s exploratory, idiosyncratic conceptual and occasionally avant-garde approach to chamber pop has markedly influenced our expectations regarding the meaning and, above all, the sound of pop in our current times. Clementine threw virtually all the rules out the window: always exercising complete creative freedom, composing incisive though occasionally highly metaphorical lyrics. He boldly blends genres, combining early and contemporary classical music, cabaret, rock, musicals... Simply put, the music he creates should be discovered one note at a time. In keeping with his firm nonconformist stance against the music industry, Clementine took complete control over the making of his third release, last year’s And I Have Been; not only did he write and record the tracks himself, but also self-produced and released the album under his own record label. Which is all the more impressive given that this is orchestral art pop featuring choral backing vocals. Part II is due for release this year, after which Clementine hints at taking a break from his musical ventures. Theatrical, intimate, political!
 

Alfa Mist 
Alfa Sekitoleko - Alfa Mist, keyboards, bandleader; Kaya Thomas-Dyke, bass, voice; Jamie Leeming, guitar; Johnny Woodham, trumpet; Jas Kayser, drums

Alfa Mist’s initiation was not uncommon: he discovered the language of jazz through hip-hop. His creative beginnings date back to secondary school, when he came across records by the likes of Madlib and J Dilla in search of samples for his hip-hop beat-making. Their music provided a gateway to jazz. It was while scrutinizing the harmonic structures of their iconic productions, that Mist taught himself to play piano by ear. Only a few years later, he released his first records (2015’s EP Nocturne, 2017’s attention-grabbing debut album Antiphon…) and his collaborations to date include musicians such as Yussef Dayes, Tom Misch, Jordan Rakei and Loyle Carner. With music spanning from hip-hop beat-making to producing for various rappers, composing neo-classical works for the London Contemporary Orchestra and remixing tracks from the eminent jazz label Blue Note – Alfa Mist is one of the most versatile and inquisitive artists to have emerged from London’s widely celebrated jazz reformation. Variables, his latest album and second release for the iconic record label ANTI, fully