Image of Erik Truffaz and Antonio Lizana sourced from;
https://www.facebook.com/JazzaJuan/photos

65th Jazz À Juan
Pinède Gould, Juan-Les-Pins, France
9th to 19th July 2026

PROLOGUE

Ahead of this year’s festival the general director for 26 years and director general of the tourist and convention bureau for Antibes Jean-les-Pins, Philippe Baute gave a frank interview to the local paper Nice Matin. He revealed the overall budget is 2.5 million euros. Juan is reliant in part on ticket sales concerts in its historic 3000 seat arena to meet its budget and is a multi genre event with international stars. Among this year’s headliners were Seal and Sir Tom Jones. But Philippe Baute said because of the finances certain artists are not approached, “We know our limits….they won’t even sit down at the negotiating table for less than a million. For us we stop talking at 300,000 euros.”

However Jazz à Juan ‘s history can work in the festival’s favour, “When Stevie Wonder’s management was hesitant, we sent them the list of whom had performed on this stage they said yes immediately.”

Philippe Baute also talked about challenges faced by the festival. The pandemic “dealt a crushing blow”, but the on-going challenge is temperature.” When our teams set up the stage at 4 p.m. in extreme heat, it is incredibly gruelling. We need to give serious thought to concert scheduling. If this continues, we have to wonder about the long-term viability of the current model.”

This year, including the performances by emerging bands on the smaller Petite Pinède stage, there were 36 concerts over eleven days. I focused on concerts which promised significant jazz content,

DHAFER YOUSSEF (11th July)

Dhafer Youssef has a justified reputation for combining his mastery of the oud and his soaring vocals rooted in the Sufi and Arabic traditions with an openness towards jazz and other genres.

There are only two other oud players I know off who engage with jazz, ECM recording artist Anouar Brahem who is coming to the London Jazz Festival this year and the less well known Akram Ben Romdhane who is one of the Brussels based Aleph Quintet, but there may be more.

But seeing Dhafer Youssef was a rare opportunity to hear a dialogue between the oud and jazz. The band of young musicians he brought with him was the same as the core group with which he recorded his latest album ‘Shiraz’, his tenth but his first on the ACT label. Prior collaborator French Vietnamese guitarist Nguyên Lê was billed as a guest but did not appear which was a disappointment.

Among the band though was Spanish pianist and fellow ACT artist Daniel Garcia, and he was another reason for wanting to see this concert for he had impressed greatly when I’d seen him in 2022 at the annual Jammin’ Juan jazz market place.

Not all the numbers were announced but as far as I could tell everything was from ‘Shiraz’. The title is a dedication to Youssef’s wife, film maker Shiraz Fradi, who survived cancer during the pandemic, and the album is largely about their close relationship and about his lifelong interest in Sufism.

Youssef’s oud and Garcia’s piano dovetailed beautifully for the intimate beginning of ‘Rose Fragrance’, the opening number of ‘Shiraz’, and the first of several instances of them creating an intimate sound world. The duets between Youssef’s oud and other instruments, not only the piano but also the drums and trumpet and flugelhorn, were one of the features of the hour long set.

The emotional highpoint was the elegiac ‘Zakir Bhai Eternal Longing (Pt2) ’ with Mario Rom’s trumpet slowly unfolding the tune and Youssef’s voice soaring in lamentation. On the night it was dedicated to another of Youssef’s collaborators, the renowned tabla player the late Zakir Hussain.

Youssef and the band exaggerated the crazy time signatures that make ‘Eye Blink and Eternity (pt2)’ the fun track of the album making the number edgier and even crazier. Another number opened with Youssef playing a blues on his oud.

Youssef was prepared at times to step back from the spotlight and for his oud to be just an instrument in the ensemble. A couple of times he even walked off the stage and left his talented group of musicians to get on with it.

It must have been a challenge to play such intimate chamber jazz live in a 3000 seat arena but Youssef and his band largely pulled it off with Garcia and Mario Rom on trumpet and flugelhorn both to the fore.

If one was being very critical perhaps there were one or two too many soaring Youssef vocals, as a friend put it, “too much voice”. But it was a fascinating and engrossing performance the deservedly went down well with the audience.

SAMARA JOY (17th July)

The one previous time I’d seen Samara Joy was at the Nice Jazz Festival 2022 when it seemed likely she was a potential star . Then at just twenty one she sang accompanied only by a guitarist. Her voice was exposed and the performance almost entirely dependent on it, and she had the confidence and the talent to bring it off.

Now four years later she’s won six Grammys, the latest for best jazz vocal album 2026, and came with an ensemble of seven who also are the band on her latest album ‘Portrait’.

She’s has a growing reputation as torch bearer for songs from The Great American Songbook and instrumental jazz standards for which she writes her own lyrics. Her set consisted of a mix of these but she doesn’t stand still as she’d made several changes to her set list compared to the most recent one logged on the setlist.fm website in May.

Blessed with a warm rich voice with a wide register, fine phrasing and the skills to bend and stretch notes Samara Joy made even the familiar such as ‘Three Little Words’ sound fresh, and her very expressive singing of ‘Lush Life’ was gripping. The words she added to pianist Bud Powell’s ’ I’ll Keep Loving You’ suggested she’s a very promising lyricist as well.

She deserves to be applauded too for giving the septet who played with her plenty of space to express themselves. It would be misleading to call them her backing band. Not only were they superb both as an ensemble and as individual soloists, they all featured, most notably alto saxophonist/flautist David Mason and double bassist Felix Mosholm with a strikingly pensive arco solo, but also the band members did all the arrangements.

Not being a big fan of vocal jazz, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the performance. The combination of Samara Joy’s undoubted talents with this septet is a winner.

MARCUS MILLER
‘We Want Miles!’ Reunion Tour (17th July)

Marcus Miller’s fourteenth appearance at Jazz à Juan was a tribute to Miles Davis whose 100th anniversary it is this year. Miller’s focus, perhaps inevitably, was largely on the final period of Miles’ career from the double live album ‘We Want Miles’ recorded in 1981 to Amandia in 1989, a period when a young Miller was a member of Miles’s band and collaborated closely with him.

He’d organised a re-union with Mike Stern electric guitar, Bill Evans tenor and soprano sax, and Mino Cinelu, percussion who all like Miller played with Miles at the come-back gigs which led to the live album, and on the studio album ‘The Man with the Golden Horn’ also recorded in 1981. Tonight’s line -up was completed by Russell Gunn, Miller’s regular trumpeter, and by Brett Williams on keys and Anwar Marshall on drums.

They started with medley of three tunes including Gershwin’s tune ‘My Man’s Gone Now’ that was re-imagined on the live album. It was a sweeping and intense half hour of rock, funk and jazz fusion. All three numbers featured powerful soloing: two heavily rock influenced contributions from guitarist Stern, two from Evans first on tenor and then on soprano sax, a solo featuring slap bass from Miller, while Russell Gunn sounded very like Miles.

The medley was followed by tunes from ‘Amandia’. Miller and Stern enjoyed some playful bass and guitar call and response in the African flavoured ‘Catémbe’, and Gunn’s muted trumpet was more Miles than Miles over the hypnotic underlying pulse of ‘Hannibal’.

The band then broke with the nineteen eighties for two iconic numbers. First, an appropriately etherial ‘In a Silent Way’, 1969, with Gunn’s muted trumpet highly impressive and during which Miller added an extra dimension by switching from bass guitar to bass clarinet. He then used this to lead the transition into ‘Bitches Brew’ 1970. which was finished by Gunn’s trumpet and Evans tenor sax, together in harmony.

The set was completed by ‘Jean Pierre’, the simple melody of which is probably guaranteed to put a smile on anybody’s face, and which Miller got the audience to sing while he played funky staccato bass guitar. This number also gave keyboardist Brett Williams his moment in the spotlight.

Overall it was a high energy recapitulation of a particular period in Miles career. Williams and drummer Anwar Marshall did a very good job in the background of laying the foundations while the reunion quartet of Stern, Evans, Cinelu and Miller were all at the top of their game with their soloing.

But it was Russell Gunn who stole the show. He wasn’t Russell Gunn playing the role of Miles, he WAS Miles.

Set list. Medley: Aida, Fat Time & My Man’s Gone Now, Catémbe, Hannibal, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jean Pierre. Encore: Tutu

ERIK TRUFFAZ / ANTONIO LIZANA
‘New Sketches of Spain’ (18th July)

The combination of Swiss electro-trumpeter Truffaz and saxophonist, flautist and flamenco singer Lizana seemed chalk and cheese but it worked, and how!

They opened with the familiar centre piece of the Miles Davis/Gill Evans album, the adagio from Rodrigo’s ’ Concierto de Aranjuez’. The beautiful melody is surely one that is indestructible but the harmonies from the front line of Truffaz, Lizana and bass clarinettist Renaud Gabriel Pion nonetheless were stunning.

‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ was the only number recognisable from the Miles Davis and Gil Evans recording. As the set unfolded it became clear the idea was not to reproduce the album but to bring to the surface the spirit of flamenco underlying the original.

Both the clacking of flamenco dancer Ana Perez’s heels striking the stage and her palmas (flamenco clapping) were part of the instrumental sound, as too was the passionate sound of Lizana flamenco vocals. A good flamenco performer has ‘duende’, the nearest translation of which is passion and inspiration, and Lizana has plenty of ‘duende’.

The set was enriched by several duo and trio cameos: the group’s flamenco guitarist gelling excellently with the kit drummer and the percussionist, the trumpet in a duo with Lizana first on flute and a bit later in a duo with his voice, Lizana’s sax with the five string bass guitar, and most fiery of all the sax and the flamenco dancer. At one point the rhythm was handed round from unaccompanied palmas clapping to the flamenco dancer’s heals and onto the percussionist, very unusual and very dramatic.

Some critics said the original recording had very little jazz but that could not be said of this concert. Truffaz wearing his trademark battered trilby, played acoustically throughout forgoing the use of FX effects which are characteristic of his playing. He did not try to be Miles Davis. His tone was rougher at the edges and this added rather than detracted to the enjoyment. Lizana for his part produced sax solos which were edgy and incandescent.

Some of the most powerful moments were the more introspective numbers, a languid ballad with an element of mystery that would have made excellent theme music for a 1950’s American film noir, a number with a drone that seemed to be channelling a funeral procession over which Lizana sang a mournful vocal.

This line-up has not recorded this music. Hopefully they will but it will be a challenge to capture the vibrancy and spontaneous spark of the live performance. They weren’t the night’s headliners and probably most present had not come for ‘New Sketches of Spain’, but many were on their feet cheering at the end.

If you get the chance to see the Truffaz-Lizana’s project or Antonio Lizana’s own quartet do not hesitate.

THOMAS DUTRONIC
‘Jazz and Friends’ (18th July)

This was a very French occasion. Singer and guitarist Thomas Dutronic the son of Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronic was born into French musical royalty and has become become French musical royalty himself. He has built his following singing French chanson and latterly by playing gypsy jazz in the tradition of Django Reinhardt. Tonight was billed as him exploring jazz standards and he surrounded himself with a quartet of some of the biggest names active in French jazz.

Dutronic’s opener was a song associated with Chet Baker ‘Let’s Get Lost’. He sang in a dry sightly husky tone within a fairly limited register and with conversational phrasing that came across as warm and I was reliably informed, was rather sexy.

The set did feature mainstream jazz arrangements of jazz standards but also there were several classic French popular songs associated with Serge Gainsbourg or with Dutronic’s father such as ‘Bridges of Paris’.

When he focused on his acoustic guitar Dutronic proved to be a lively jazz guitarist basing his soloing on the syncopated rhythms of gypsy jazz with which he is very at home. His colleagues, while giving the impression they were playing well within themselves, played their part. Their ensemble playing swung and fellow acoustic guitarist guitarist Rocky Gresset contributed several bright solos as did trumpeter Stéphane Belmondo.

When Belmondo. switched to flugelhorn, his tone and way of drawing out the notes ever so slightly fitted perfectly with Dutronic’s singing style. Dutronic’s vocals were not full -on jazz , it is likely the songs would have sounded quite different if say Kurt Elling had been delivering them.

It was a celebration of French popular culture performed by an icon of that culture, and the audience adored it.

JAAMMIN’ SUMMER SESSIONS
Petite Pinède,  9th July- 20th July

One thing you can always rely on at Jazz à Juan is that the free sessions each evening at the Petite Pinède ahead of the main concert will be worth hearing. A different emerging band plays each session and most have had to jump through two hoops successfully to be selected.

This year there was a new additional venue on a plateau above the coast. It was an uphill slog to get there on foot, but the stunning views down to the sea and the music just about made the climb worthwhile. I can only give a snapshot of this year’s Summer Sessions though as circumstances meant of the fourteen acts I saw only six, those playing on the 11th, 12th, 15th ,17th ,18th July ( two acts on the12th).

Sounds of Shebeen are a band with an agenda . Their drummer David Geogelet told me that South African jazz is unknown in France and this is something they are aiming to change, .

Their set consisted of versions of compositions by two South African greats, Hugh Masekela and Abdullah Ibrahim. With their third number the group hit a groove which they sustained to the end. I was surprised with how well an edgy number with unusual time signatures went down with the audience.

Throughout Benoit Lavollée’s marimba interlocked tightly with Geogelet’s drums (both also are in Anbessa, a group dedicated to playing lesser known compositions by the late Manu Dibango). In Thierry Jammes on trumpet and flugelhorn they have a front man up to the task. The audience responded very positively which bodes well for their mission.

The group I heard up on the plateau was Travel Collective. I did not hear all of their set set but heard enough to know that they too have an impressive trumpet and flugelhorn player in Marco Vezzoso.

By chance all the other Summer Sessions I saw were piano trios.

Baptiste Bailly drew on numerous influences. Over the course his trio’s sixty minutes there were echoes of Debussy, and of Celtic, African and Middle Eastern rhythms. Some of the music was very danceable, some more abstract with Baptiste Bailly and his colleagues equally at home with both.

As well as piano Jean Saint-Loubert played synth and also is the only jazz pianist I have seen who plays flugelhorn in public. This wasn’t a gimmick. He played the flugelhorn quite often and quite well over his fellow trio members’ drums and the electric bass. Edgy contemporary jazz, lyrical chamber jazz, electronica , and Spanish influences all surfaced during their set, and this trio left an impression that they were experimenting with combining different sound worlds

Verb began unusually with an arco double bass solo which was then pushed aside by a crashing chord in an opening number which ended with a flourish. They interleaved the introspective and the high energy often starting numbers with the former and then building to the later, and they were adept at building quite complex numbers from simple beginnings. Keith Jarrett was an influence and they featured some incredibly fast African influenced polyrhythmic drumming. At times dramatic, they were capable of producing a big sound for a trio.

Luxenbourg based Dock in Absolute’s pianist Jean-Philippe Koch drew on hypnotic Steve Reich style ostinatos and Rachmaninov bell like riffs which he mixed with percussive contemporary jazz and a more lyrical side with the latter emerging most strongly in a short unaccompanied piece. The interrelationship between Koch and current drummer Victor Kraus was the fulcrum of several numbers with unobtrusive bass guitarist Arne Wiegand providing a solid foundation for their interaction. Rock was an influence but not overwhelmingly so. Everything was nicely in balance. The drummer and bassist that Koch is playing with currently are different from those on his first album and since then his trio have moved up one or two levels.

OVERVIEW

Miles Davis would have been delighted with the Marcus Miller led re-union celebration. But as good as that was my top pick from what I saw and heard was the even more thrilling and creative Truffaz/Lizana ‘New Sketches of Spain’.

It was very pleasing too see artists including Lizana and Daniel Garcia, Dhafer Youssef’s pianist, now performing on Jazz à Juan’s famous pine grove main stage having first noticed them playing showcases at the annual autumn Jammin’ Juan jazz market for emerging bands.

As to the future, Philippe Baute came across as a safe pair of hands as regards managing the festival’s finances. As a jazz fan I hope that he and the festival’s triumvirate of artistic directors do not swing the pendulum between jazz artists and international artists from other genres any further in the direction of the latter.

Finally, no one who went to the free stage performances starting at 7.15 when the heat and humidity remained nearly unbearable and the risk of ultra violet skin damage was still high, can be in any doubt that climatic conditions are the major challenge now and for the future.

For the full programme for the 65th Jazz à Juan please visit https://jazzajuan.com/en/programme

COLIN MAY

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