Grammy sensation! The Swiss Jazzaar Festival Big Band nominated

Festival director Fritz Renold is delighted. “We made it. We’re nominated.” Album productions from the festival in Aarau have repeatedly made the Grammy’s “Entry List” (long list) in recent years, but never made the final round of the top five. General: Non-US productions have a particularly difficult time establishing themselves in jazz’s country of origin. The current nomination is all the more important. The presence of the now 85-year-old jazz legend Ron Carter, one of the most important jazz bass players, certainly helped. The American Grammy Award is the world’s most important accolade in the music industry and the counterpart of the Oscars in film.

“Remembering Bob Freedman”, as the album is called, is dedicated to the American musician and jazz professor Bob Freedman, who passed away in 2018 and wrote many arrangements for the Jazzaar Festival from 2001 to 2018. He was a close friend of Ron Carter and had tried several times to get the bassist to join Aarau. But the in-demand master bass player was never able to set the deadline. When it finally seemed to work, Freedman died unexpectedly on December 22, 2018. For Ron Carter, Freedman was jazz’s best arranger.

On April 12, 2019, there was a big tribute to Freedman in the Aeschbachhalle Aarau. As always, the 17-piece Festival Big Band has been put together especially for the festival. On the one hand with internationally renowned instrumentalists such as trumpeter Ryan Quigley, saxophonists Antonio Hart and Jason Jackson, pianist Donald Vega and drummer Carl Allen, on the other hand with twelve selected students from the Swiss jazz schools in Lucerne, Basel and Zurich.

The program was rehearsed the week before under the direction of Christian Jacob and performed during the festival weekend. From the treasure trove of Freedman arrangements, Carter personally selected the pieces to be performed and recorded by the Jazzaar Big Band in Aarau. Especially standards like “Straight No Chaser”, “Stompin At The Savoy”, “Loverman” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”. In addition, as highlights and premieres, the piece “More Than Four”, an arrangement of Mozart’s String Quartet No. 13 in D minor for big band, as well as the composition “Opus 5”, which Ron Carter wrote especially for the occasion and for his late friend .

The Grammys are chosen in a multi-stage selection process. More than 30,000 productions are listened to annually by an “Academy” of renowned musicians, producers and recording managers. What are the odds of winning? “Difficult, but not hopeless,” says Renold. He considers the production of the WDR Big Band with guest soloists Eddie Gomez, Ronnie Cuber and Steve Gadd as his biggest competitor. “We need 1,000 votes from the Academy and we are doing everything we can to get that,” says Renold.

Spicy detail: drummer Steve Gadd was scheduled for the Jazzaar production this year, but was unable to do so due to health reasons. Now it is scheduled for the 2023 edition, Renold reveals.

There was a euphoric mood in the home of the Renold family in Schönenwerd last night. Because in addition to the Jazzaar Festival Big Band, the Berklee Indian Ensemble was also nominated in the category of best worldwide music album with the album “Shuruaat”, in which the two Renold daughters are involved. Lydia Renold (30) as singer and producer and Sharon Renold (26) as singer, bass player and composer of the piece “Aakash”.

The ensemble was founded ten years ago at Berklee College of Music to combine Indian music with influences from jazz and progressive rock. The album features 98 musicians from 39 countries, including top Indian musicians such as tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and renowned singers Shankar Mahadevan and Vijay Prakash, as well as Bollywood superstar Shreya Ghoshal. With Angélique Kidjo, Ibrahim Maalouf, Burna Boy and Anoushka Shankar, the competition in this category is even bigger and better known than with jazz orchestras. “But we’ll definitely keep our fingers crossed for the Grammys in Los Angeles on February 5,” says Sharon Renold.

Last but not least, the Swiss drummer and sound engineer Reto Peter also managed to get a nomination in the category best children’s album. Born in Erlinsbach and now living in California, he was the engineer on the Alphabet Rockers’ album “The Movement”.

Swiss Grammy awards, whether winners or nominations, are extremely rare. Zurich harpist Andreas Vollenweider (1987) became the first Swiss to win a Grammy, followed by producer and music ethnologist Marcel Cellier (1990), harmonica player Grégoire Maret from Geneva as a band member of Herbie Hancock (2006), producer Al Walser (2016) and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja (2018). Nominations are also scarce. In 2017 it was the Basel Baroque Orchestra La Cetra with singer Magdalena Kozena and Swiss sound engineers Ben Mühlethaler and Jamie Lewis for their work with Prince. And most recently, two years ago, Grégoire Maret again. But there have never been so many nominations as this year.