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The only performance of the most influential Bossa Nova and Jazz singer in Sweden will be in September

Leyenda: Miriam Aïda sings in Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Swedish (her native language).

Miriam Aïda is one of Sweden’s most popular Jazz singers. She has an indisputable talent, a seductive and harmonic voice, and her outstanding appearances on stage always surprise the audience thanks to her impeccable fusion of Jazz and Latin rhythms.

On Thursday, September 29^th, it will be the only concert that the Swedish singer will give at the imposing club Fasching https://www.fasching.se/miriam-aida/#2022-09-29T20-00 from 8 PM, and tickets are available from 120 SEK (persons standing) to 200 SEK.

She will create this intimate and exceptional show with the feature of five prominent musicians from the Scandinavian Jazz music scene: Mats Andersson (Guitars), Johan Olsson (Accordion and Keyboards), Simon Peterson (Bass), Finn Björnulfson (Percussion), and Ola Bothzén on Drums.

Miriam will navigate the music of the American coast, stroll along the Caribbean Sea, and descend to the magnificent beaches of Brazil to present the rhythms that took root in the New World: Bolero, Cuban Rumba, Samba-Soul, and Jazz, among other genres that together to the colorful voice of Aïda, they will perform the songs from their most recent production Loving the Alien released in 2018, in addition to their greatest hits compiled on eight albums.

This singer, leader of Bossa Nova and Latin Jazz in Sweden, has taken her show to the main cities of Japan, the United Kingdom, Brazil, France, Spain, USA, Turkey, Russia, Italy, and Germany as a soloist as with the band A Bossa Elétrica, and has had the good fortune to have shared the stage with great Brazilian personalities such as Hermeto Pascoal, Badi Assad, and guitar master Marco Pereira.

She is the Director of the record label Connective Records and radio programs.

The extensive career of Miriam Aïda www.miriamaida.com goes from her first album Jan Lundgren Trio Presents Miriam Aida & Fredrik Kronkvist released in 2002. This record production together with her husband Fredrik Kronkvist, the pianist Jan Lundgren, and two very talented young soloists performed for the first time the Funky-Soul-Jazz rhythm and standards with an American and Swedish touch.

Who is Fredrik Kronkvist? https://fredrikkronkvist.wordpress.com/bio He is a master of the Alto Saxophone and one of the established stars of Swedish Jazz. He has nearly 9 million views on digital platforms for his ballad hits Theme for Ernie. This saxophonist with extensive knowledge of the instrument and Jazz is currently releasing a new album in early 2022 with ten original ballads and directs his band made up of four musicians from the vanguard of current Jazz.

Miriam after a year of this successful album releases her debut solo album My Kind of World (2003) with classics like “Big City” and passionate Bossa Nova ballads. She continues with A Bossa Elétrica – Eletrificacao (2004), and Miriam Aïda & Fredrik Kronkvist with Monday Night Big Band – Live at the Palladium (2005) recorded live. This CD features moving, direct Jazz and Bossa nova. With this powerful Big Band, they covered great songs like Horace Silver’s Senor Blues, Nat Adderley’s Fun, Right Here, and Right Now, to name a few.

She also participated in the album Joe Spinaci and the Brookolino Orchestra-Too Darn Hot (2005) and continued with her solo album Meu Brasil (2007). The material is mainly in Portuguese and compiles great composers from different eras such as Baden Powel, Nelson Cavaquinho, and Jorge Ben. It contains a new Bossa Nova written by Miriam with Swedish lyrics and incorporated Swedish poet Nils Ferlin’s interpretation of the poem in Portuguese.

It is followed by Come on Home (2008), Letras ao Brasil (2009), Visans Väsen (2011), É De Lei! (2014) recorded in Sweden and Rio de Janeiro in collaboration with the Brazilian arranger Jayme Vignoli and the voice of one of the best singers from Rio, Marcos Sacramento, and Quatro Janelas (2015).

Two years after the creation of the Latin Jazz album XYZ with Son Bent Braam

Michiel Braam presented XYZ at the Music Meeting Festival. “The festival takes place in Nijmegen, where I was born (1964), grew up, and still live”. Foto: Marjan Smeijsters

Virtuous pianist, masterful producer, and surprising composer. Winner of the Podium award (1998) and Boy Edgar (1996/1997). Musician trained by conviction and at the ArtEZ Music Academy in Arnhem. His lifestyle is synchrony between freedom, creativity, teaching, and love. It is how he presents us his life and his works in Nijmegen, Michiel Braam.

This friendly artist with a protective childhood where love prevailed always had the support and freedom to develop and create everything he considered necessary to him. Michiel is the only one in his family who turned to music professionally, but the rhythm of melodies runs through his veins. His parents played the piano self-taught. His mother wrote notes while his father just improvised.

During high school, he participated in a band for which he wrote and arranged all the music. He studied at the conservatory and founded his more minor quartet Bentje Braam (“Little Band Braam”) in 1985. In the same year, he traveled with his band to Sweden to be the first Dutch group to open the EBU Jazz Festival and wrote his first composition for the Dutch radio “Cows and Beasts”. A year later, he created the band Bik Bent Braam.

“Music is, as long as I know, everything to me. I feel better with music. I dance when I’m happy, and music comforts me when I’m not doing so well… It seemed like a logical step to pursue what I enjoyed most.” Michiel Braam https://www.michielbraam.com/

By 1988 Braam had had no contact with Latin music until percussionist André Groen asked him to be the pianist for his Orquesta Europea de Danzón. In this regard, this wonderful pianist told us: “He wanted a pianist who had a wild free Jazz attitude and who didn’t only play the well-known Latin patterns because he thought that fitted better with the authentic Cuban music. That music immediately appealed to me, especially because of its rhythmic impact, but also because as a pianist, you have a lot of freedom to go in all directions during improvisations. I have touched on those Latin patterns to some extent and in the course of the 10 years that I played in that orchestra I managed to master them better, but it was mainly the combination of freedom and rhythm. That orchestra lasted ten years and we celebrated the thirtieth anniversary in 2018 with a couple of concerts. Great to do that again and I felt again exactly why I found it so appealing back then”.

In 1988 Michiel won the Podium Prize, an encouragement prize for Dutch Jazz music and in 1996/1997 he won the Boy Edgar, the highest prize for Dutch Jazz.

This pianist, the architect of great projects, built a party based on the Latin alphabet of Western culture on the album XYZ released in 2020, creating a danceable mix that includes Mambo, Rumba, Son, Danzón, Boogaloo, Calypso, Rumba, Bembé, Mozambique, Samba, Afro, Bolero, Cha-cha, Merengue, Bembé, and Samba. Michiel is also the Director of the Jazz and Pop department of the ArtEZ conservatory and founded a Danzón orchestra. Now, I leave you with the rest of this wonderful interview that I had the opportunity to do with the great Maestro Michiel Braam. Enjoy!

They have played on the ZomerJazzFiets tour, North Sea Jazz, and Bimhuis. Likewise, some of the members of the orchestra are fluent in Spanish.

– How did the idea of the Latin jazz album XYZ come about?

In 1995 I wrote “The XYZ of Bik Bent Braam” for my big orchestra at the time, Bik Bent Braam (phonetic Dutch for “Big Band Braam”). I thought it would be fun to make a festive version of it to celebrate the 25th anniversary. The XYZ was (and is) a 26-part suite, with a piece for each letter of the alphabet, starting with Aardedonker (English title Atramentous, Spanish Apagado, both not exact translations…) and ending with Zwoerdspek (Zaftig, Zafio). I revisited all the pieces in 2020 and paired various styles with the original material. In the 1995 original, they were mostly jazz-like styles (bebop, free improv, swing, jazz ballad, etc), but Chachachtig was a rumba even then. It is the only piece that has not changed its mood substantially.

– What happened to the previous members and how did the new members take hold?

The original orchestra Bik Bent Braam was composed of top musicians from the Dutch improvised music scene. The orchestra existed from 1986 to 2013 and had a number of lineup changes. In the final version of Bik Bent Braam there were only a few members left from the very beginning. That the musicians of Bik Bent Braam could read well was not really a requirement, the core was affinity with swing and great improvisational skills. For this new version, it was important not only that the musicians were excellent improvisers, but also that they had to have a feel for Latin music and also that they were outstanding readers, because I did not foresee that there would be very much rehearsal time and the notes are quite challenging. Bik Bent Braam was subsidized with government funding and I could then easily occupy a longer period with many rehearsals. Son Bent Braam, the current line-up, does not have its own subsidy, so we have to look at each concert and hope that everyone can make it. There have been quite a few subs, and they too have to be able to improvise and read well.

– Tell us about your Danzón orchestra.

André (André Groen – Percussionist) wanted to immerse himself in traditional Cuban music. There is so much richness in the danzón with its fixed forms that pass by in each piece with the most beautiful melodies and the wildest spaces for improvising on highly danceable rhythms. We found the instrumentation with violins, cello, flute, percussion, double bass, and piano attractive. After ten years I got too busy with my jazz ensembles, by then I was touring all over the world with Bik Bent Braam and other groups and especially with my Trio BraamDeJoodeVatcher. I could hardly combine it anymore with the Danzón Orchestra and the great pianist Peter van Marle took my place, which made me feel very humble. The European Danzón Orchestra then existed for another year or so. I honestly don’t know why it stopped then. In 2018 we did a couple of reunion concerts, great fun to do.

– How many years have you been in charge of the Jazz and Pop department of the ArtEZ conservatory and what do you teach the new generations based on your experience?

I have been head of the program since 1992. It is part of a broad arts university and is located in a building that also houses dance, theater, fine art, applied art, fashion, and creative writing. As a head, I don’t teach very much… only when students very specifically ask for it a few hours of individual lessons per year and a few group lessons, and I also regularly give master students some lessons. My message is usually quite short and clear: there are millions of people who play an instrument excellently, and you can probably teach an orangutan to play Keith Jarrett better than Keith does himself, but – apart from the fact that that would be a fun YouTube hit – there is no point; in our music, it is almost all about an authentic voice, including all the shortcomings that are in everyone, which also make you a unique musician. Obviously, you must have many skills as a musician, but my life motto is that one’s deficiencies are far more important for one’s personality than one’s skills, and that attitude underlies my whole vision of art education.

“With Nos Otrobanda have started to concentrate on the music of Noro Morales and have his composition Maria Cervantes (single) firmly in our program. His music will probably be the subject of our new album”. Foto: Marjan Smeijsters

– What are your next projects?

Everything is starting up again post-covid. I want to record a solo album on my grand piano, a so-called “Alurip”. That’s an aluminum grand piano made in the fifties with a specific sound. And the album of our trio Nos Otrobanda, which specializes in Antillean music, is almost sold out. That doesn’t matter obviously, if there are no more physical copies then you can always hear the music through iTunes, Spotify, etc, but it’s a great opportunity to make new recordings again and the intention is to go to Curacao and record music in the Fortkerk in Willemstad, the place where we did a couple of concerts in 2018. That was a great experience, what a nice place and sweet audience!

– How was the process to make a living from music?

I stuck pretty firmly to the rule that you have to do what you like and not let yourself be distracted too much from that. And I look for what it takes to make it happen. From 1996 to 2012 I received an annual government subsidy to realize my projects. I am also a real musician in the sense that I have a mixed professional practice (playing, writing, teaching, producing, almost every musician has roughly that mix) which means that it is always possible to make a living out of it and we never had to worry about bread and a place to live.

Michiel Braam & Son Bent Braam Orchestra.  Foto: Marjan Smeijsters

I make music mainly because I can’t do otherwise. Music is a way to communicate; it makes you a little better… Leitmotiv in everything is that in music, I am free to do anything I want. For example, I did play Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the exquisite reed quintet Calefax, also improvising on the various songs from that opera.” Michiel Braam

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Nijmegen is the city that will host this musical meeting with “Cuba Al Revés” as the main theme

Music Meeting Festival was organized in Concertgebouw de Vereeniging and Stadsschouwburg Nijmegen until 2003

This year Latin America will invade the 37^th edition of the Music Meeting Festival with Cuban music from Saturday, June 4^th to Monday, June 6^th at the Park Brakkenstein facilities. This park can accommodate 12,500 visitors and is in the Nijmegen city in the province of Gelderland. Nijmegen has more than 170,000 inhabitants (2015 data provided by the UN) and is very close to the border with Germany.

This festival in the Netherlands will have as its main theme this time Cuba Upside Down. In this event, around 30 concerts will be presented with the participation of established artists and new promises from the Cuban music scene, Spanish, and Brazilian.

Regarding the main theme of this edition, the Dutch trumpeter and Artistic Director of the Music Meeting Festival, Maite Hontelé, pointed out: “I would like to have been born in Havana, to have grown up with Son, Mambo, and even the beginning of Cuban Salsa modern, Timba. But I grew up in Haaften…although almost every day, I listened to Cuban music on cassettes and played it on my trumpet.”

The artists from the Afro-Caribbean Island that will converge at the Music Meeting Festival 2022 are:

Alain Pérez with the Orchestra demonstrates the origin and future of Cuban music

The musical genius in the Salsera scene, Latin-Jazz and Flamenco, Alain Pérez will take the stage on Sunday, June 5th at 11PM for an improvisation party at the Jam. This show will last 50 minutes. Alain with the rhythm section of his orchestra will establish the basic rhythm to which countless musicians will join and improvise, bringing special guests for that day. Who are they? They are still a surprise.

After 24 hours, Alain Pérez returns to the stage, but this time with his young Orchestra for the closing day. They will perform for the first time on Monday, June 6^th from 8:40PM to 10:50PM. Alain with this band of young Cuban artists brings a sound in which traditional Cuban music is intertwined with modern Jazz and Funk.

The same way will also join this celebration of Afro-Caribbean music Osain Del Monte with a group of young percussionists, singers, and dancers. They will recreate during their musical act a traditional cult with initiation rituals to be members of a secret brotherhood. This one-hour act will take place on the first day of the festival, on Saturday, June 4th, starting at 5:30 PM.

Likewise, Music Meeting Festival will feature the percussionist and singer Brenda Navarrete as a special guest in several musical presentations. Brenda has trained in Batá drums and has belonged to Latin Jazz bands such as Joaquín Betancourt and Alain Pérez, as well as in the Interactivo group, where Funk and Ska melodies are mixed with Afro-Cuban rhythms.

Cellist Ana Carla will also be brought to this stage of the festival. She will be on Sunday, June 5^th from 8PM to 8:40PM. Her third studio album is Bahía and has influences from Cuban Son, Tango, Samba, Bossa Nova, Jazz, and even the classic French Chanson. She currently is touring for South America.

Ramón Valle, Marialy Pacheco, Rolando Luna, and Ivan “Melón” Lewis

Joining this constellation of established and emerging Cuban artists on Sunday, June 5^th, starting at 2PM, is the Ping Pong Piano project. This 50-minute musical project brings together the following virtuous of this instrument: Rolando Luna, Marialy Pacheco, Ramón Valle, and Ivan “Melón” Lewis, the latter winner of the Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album for his album Voyager in 2021.

The starting point of this “four-sided” meeting is spontaneous. It consists of placing two grand pianos on stage and letting four stellar pianists converse musically. There will be friendship, rivalry, confrontation, and harmony putting aside their impressive resumes.

“Marialy Pacheco is a concert pianist known for her duets with Omar Sosa and her contagious rhythmic interpretation. Grammy winner Ivan ‘Melón’ Lewis counters this with almost mathematical precision as the founder of modern Cuban Salsa, Timba. Ramón Valle swings across styles and feels best when given the freedom to let his Cuban heritage hang over the music. The quartet of star pianists is completed by the whirlwind Rolando Luna, one of the most important Cuban pianists of the last ten years, who became world-famous for his work with Omara Portuondo”. Fragment extracted from the Music meeting Festival 2022 website. www.musicmeeting.nl

Likewise, the band El Comité will be present (Saturday, June 4th, 10:30 PM – 11:30 PM), the Son Bent Braam orchestra (Saturday, June 4th, 4PM – 5PM), African electronics, percussion from Brazil with the duo made up of Oleg Fateev & Simone Sou, and the New York afrobeat represented by the musical group from Brooklyn, Antibalas.

This interesting congregation of artists will be completed by the Spanish trombonist Rita Payés, one of the emerging artists of the new era of the Catalan scene.

Tickets for the three days of the Music Meeting Festival in Nijmegen are €80 at the box office. It costs €34 daily, and for those under 16 who want to attend, the admission is free.