Camila Nebbia Large Ensemble // Amir ElSaffar New Quartet // Immanuel Wilkins Quartet

18:30

Camila Nebbia Large Ensemble: the darkness, overwhelming and imposing, compelled me to light my own fires 

(AR, DE, FI, GB, HR, PL, US)

World premiere

It’s becoming harder to keep up with saxophonist and composer Camila Nebbia, a feverishly intense improviser from Buenos Aires to whom Berlin should be grateful, since she set up operations here in recent years. She reflects a certain punk spirit in her DIY brio, a spirit that extends to her openness in collaborators and a total commitment to giving everything she can muster to every performance. Nebbia is also a community-builder, an integral facet of this new project that celebrates its world premiere at Jazzfest Berlin. She leads an exciting international 10-piece band – in addition to a dedicated video artist, Andro Manzoni – mostly rooted in Berlin’s febrile improvised music scene.

Inspired by an unpublished memoir by her great-grandfather Abraham Breide recounting his experiences emigrating from his native Lebanon to Argentina, Nebbia explored his story through her own journey to Europe. Manzoni will work with 8 mm and 16 mm footage shot by Nebbia and archival film made by her ancestors. She’s treated the prints with paint and acid, rendering the material more abstract, allowing audiences to imprint their own meaning onto the images. Nebbia says: “In both music and film I’m working with destruction as a tool for creation, as if we were always trying to resist forgetting, something that is ultimately impossible.” The stellar cast includes Weston Olencki (trombone), Julia Biłat (cello), Nick Dunston (double bass), Maria Reich (violin), Joanna Mattrey (viola), Arne Braun (guitar), Kit Downes (keyboards), Lesley Mok (drums) and Ludwig Wandinger (electronics). 

Line-up

Camila Nebbia – tenor saxophone, composition, visuals
Weston Olencki – trombone
Maria Reich – violin
Joanna Mattrey – viola
Julia Biłat – cello
Nick Dunston – double bass
Arne Braun – guitar
Kit Downes – piano, organ
Ludwig Wandinger – electronics
Lesley Mok – drums
Andro Manzoni – interactive visuals

With the kind support of the Musikfonds e. V.

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20:00

Amir ElSaffar New Quartet

(GR, IQ, NO, US)

Amid a surge of jazz that explores microtonality and unusual tuning systems it’s important to remember that American trumpeter Amir ElSaffar has been pursuing such an approach for more than two decades. After devoting himself to jazz and classical music growing up in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, he belatedly began to dig into his Iraqi heritage, eventually traveling to Baghdad just prior to the U.S.-led war to immerse himself in Iraqi maqam studies, with a focus on santur and voice. Upon his return he began formulating a stunningly original hybrid, blending post-bop and Iraqi maqam with astonishing rigor. ElSaffar subsequently expanded his practice to include writing for contemporary music ensembles and delving into electronics. Yet, he didn’t reject his past, whether that meant working with pianist Cecil Taylor or touring with his maqam mentor Hamid Al-Saadi.

His current working band got its start thanks to a commission from Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, the venue where the group’s powerful 2025 debut album was recorded. The lean quartet offers the most compact, concentrated iteration of ElSaffar’s vision, seamlessly applying the modes and tuning of Iraqi maqam with post-bop of extraordinary sophistication. He’s joined on the frontline by saxophonist Ole Mathisen, a collaborator from the very beginning. Together they’ve forged an almost telepathic bond. The music is propelled by Tomas Fujiwara, a drummer who balances drive and sonic detail, while the harmonies are refracted through the prism of Greek pianist Tania Giannouli, who uses a retuned instrument to accommodate the leader’s vision.

Line-up

Amir ElSaffar – trumpet, voice
Tomas Fujiwara – drums
Tania Giannouli – microtonal piano
Ole Mathisen – tenor saxophone

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21:30

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet

(US)

In 2024, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins tried something new with his album Blues Blood. Inspired by his childhood in Philadelphia and engaging with the discrimination and violence faced by Black people in the United States, the project enlisted a number of dynamic singers in an exploration of the generations that preceded him through the lens of memory. It’s an impressive studio production from a musician who thrives on spontaneity, so it shouldn’t be surprising that for his follow-up he released his first live recording, a three-volume set with his working band at New York’s Village Vanguard. It’s no secret that the Philadelphia native is one of the most exciting, thoughtful figures in jazz, an old soul with a deep appreciation for the music that came before him, but an artist who uses the past to look to the future. Joined by a spectacular, keyed-in band with pianist Micah Thomas, bassist Ryoma Takenaga, and drummer Kweku Sumbry, the saxophonist wanted listeners to share the sensation of the quartet working through the material at one of the music’s most hallowed venues, the club where saxophonists like Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Dexter Gordon, to name just three, played some of their most influential gigs.

The album reprises a couple of tunes from his debut album Omega, but most of them, some of which stretch back nearly a decade, haven’t been recorded. Eternal is a song of praise that cycles through hypnotic repetition of the delicate theme until the listener is entranced, while the soul jazz undercurrents of DOLLA$ reflects the band’s simultaneous embrace of old-school values without a hint of nostalgia. The album also includes a searing, soulful rendition of Alice Coltrane’s Charanam, a piece from her late classic Turiya Sings. But more than any particular composition, the recording reinforces what a volatile entity the quartet is on stage. 

Line-up

Immanuel Wilkins – alto saxophone
Micah Thomas – piano
Ryoma Takenaga – double bass
Kweku Sumbry – drums