The Gent Jazz festival kicked off on Thursday afternoon at the Bijloke site in Ghent.
“The first concert has started well, and we are ready to make 2022 a top edition,” organiser Bertrand Flamang, told Belga News Agency.
According to Flamang, the atmosphere was already good. “It’s back to the old days. Visitors meet friends and colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere and enjoy the music. It seems that most of them had missed it,” he noted.
Last month, the Flemish government decided that Gent Jazz and Jazz Middelheim would no longer receive an annual subsidy of 300,000 euros. “But that only applies to 2023,” Flamang pointed out. “We would like to convince the public that we do deserve support.”
Agnes Obel, Sting and Van Morrison are among the artistes featuring at the festival, which continues until 16 July.
In Flamang’s view, the term jazz is broad. “The public wants good music. People like Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck are unfortunately dead, we can no longer programme them,” he notes. “We bring cool, creative musicians with jazz as the common thread.”
“People are not concerned about whether something is jazz or not,” he argued, adding: “Tomorrow’s headliners appear first with us. We were the first to present Melody Gardot and Agnes Obel on a Belgian stage.”
Tickets are still available online for a number of Gent Jazz concerts.
