The upcoming Timisoara Jazz festival, which will take place this week-end in the Western Romanian city made me remember that, even if I am not a real connoisseur of jazz, in my teenager years I fell in love with Louis Armstrong’s and Duke Ellington’s music.

The African roots of this music style were probably the source for my falling in love with their music. Quite strangely, the love for jazz did not come via a love for music, but rather for literature. At 14 I read a book which touched me: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 'Uncle Tom's cabin'.

In my imagination, the main character, Uncle Tom, personified the essence of gentleness. I dreamed up uncle Tom singing a sad African song with his guttural voice and, to me, he even sounded like Louis Armstrong singing “When the Saints Go Marching In” or “What a Wonderful World”. Beyond all these memories, jazz is for me a strange mix of cultures, histories, tales and above all, feelings. It's an expression of…interculturality! I think that people who feel this music have a specific way of understanding life, love and the fundamentals of the human being.

That being said, let's dive into jazz for a week-end in Timisoara. I learned about the festival from the website Stiridinvest.ro. The event will take place between November 30 and December 1 at the Ion Vidu National College.

Several local and international performers will go on stage: Tingvall Trio (in picture), a group from Hamburg (Germany) which mixes Swedish, Cuban and German rhythms, Jazapella vocal sextet from Bucharest, Anja Lechner (violoncello, Germany) and Francois Couturier (piano, France).

More about the festival on its Facebook page.

By Mariana Ganea, Guest Writer