The last week has been crazy busy, but just as fun. The Molde International Jazz Festival has once again been completed, actually for the 55th time. This is the one week that Molde is completely packed with music lovers and dedicated people to arrange concerts and parties for a whole week. The last few years I have been a member of Jazzlogen, a street parade band playing music that comes from, or is inspired from, New Orleans, and the band performs a street parade everyday during the jazz festival, in addition to having concerts and workshops. Unfortunately, I could not join Jazzlogen this year, so instead I worked as a volunteer for the festival.
My expectations were huge for this year's festival. Now that all my friends and I are no longer living in Molde, this is the one week of the year that we are all gathered again, so as you can imagine, it is all a huge deal for us when the festival is right around the corner. Also, the festival had a great line-up. Norwegian as well as international jazz-artists were set up to play on the 8 different concert halls or stages the city had prepared. With a line-up containing artists from Veronica Maggio (SE), Trondheim Jazzorkester (NO), Silje Nergaard (NO), Emilie Nicolas (NO), Marius Neset (NO) to Dee dee Bridgewater, Gregory Porter, Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), The Soul Rebels, Kurt Elling, Jack DeJohnette and Joshua Redman, you can see the festival has a variety of artists. As you may understand you are in no way capable of making it through every concert during the week, so you have to be selective, and sometimes you even have to sneak out of a concert to make sure you make it to the next one.
I made it to 16 concerts over the 6 days, and I can admit both my head and my feet are tired and ready for a years rest before Moldejazz kicks off again. Anyway, I would like to thank the festival and everyone I have spent time with this week for a great time. And at last I would like to recommend some artists that I loved listening to, some for the first time, this week.
Gregory Porter - my favourite of the week. Such a great performer, and his band is amazing. Marius Neset - the third or fourth time I saw him. He was still great. The Soul Rebels Brass Band - they brought New Orleans to Molde, made me think back to my trip there. The Soul Rebels are always a success. Emilie Nicolas - Norwegian singer and songwriter. Amazing voice. Robert Plant - Previous vocalist of Led Zeppelin. I think the city and citizens of Molde share the honor of having a great star like him visiting us. Veronica Maggio - Swedish pop singer. One of my all-time favorites. I was so excited to see she was one of this year's headliners. Daniel Herskedal - tuba player with great music and the way he experiments with his instrument is extraordinary. I am waiting in excitement for more music from him.
CONCERT MOOD
Jazzlogen has a parade through the city every day at 11.30. A nice tradition that attracts a lot of people
Trondheim Jazzorkester & Espen Reinertsen
The Soul Rebels Brass Band had a workshop with Jazzlogen where they taught their song "Turn it up" to the norwegian youth
Marius Neset
The Soul Rebels and Jazzlogen
I love this picture of my sister (and me in the background) and Paul Robertson from the Soul Rebels!
Robert Plant and his band
Veronica Maggio
I got to join the parade with Jazzlogen on the last day of the festival!
Dr. Key and his interstellar tone scientists. If you ever get a chance to see this band - do it! You will get a good laugh and your feet won´t stop moving.
SOCIAL MOOD
Enjoying the sun (yes, the sun did show up sometimes too!) at the Hjertøya island.
After years of blogging on different blogs, I have once again started a new blog. This one is based on my hashtag on Instagram, #myjetsetlife , that I started using in March 2015. The reason why I started to use this hashtag was simply my ability to never sit or stand stil, and to never stay in the same place for more than a week. The last months before the summer holiday this semester, I spent more time in airplanes than in my own bed (or at least it felt like it). I have a passion for traveling, no matter if it is just a short trip or hours and days away. New experiences and adventures are always useful, and the most important thing with every trip that goes by, is to look around you, observe, learn. I will be writing this blog in English, because I would like my loved ones with other languages than Norwegian to be able to read it as well. I apologize in advance for grammatically incorrect sentences. (But as they occur, and hopefully get edited by you lovely readers, I will only get better!)
This summer I am working on a ship, Hurtigruten, that goes up and down the Norwegian coast, from Bergen in the south, to Kirkenes in North-East. As this also has to do with traveling, I will of course share my pictures and experiences from the Norwegian coast on the blog.
I will not only write about traveling, but also other important and less important things in my life. As a music enthousiast, and potential future music student in Copenhagen, I will of course share my deepest interest with those who are cute enough to step by. I hope you enjoy your stay here at My jetset life, and feel free to leave a comment with your own blog, if you happen to have one, I would love to read it!
Always looking for new adventures. Telemark, September 2014.
