Europe's Jazz Festivals: The Best Of Summer

That has become a familiar problem. Iñaki Añua, director of the Vitoria Jazz Festival in Spain's Basque Country (July 15-18), lost his sponsorship with Heineken after five years, and says he has to scramble to see what he can arrange for next. "I've heard the same thing from other festivals," he says. "We get a million people coming here for jazz, but the sponsors seem to be moving more and more to sports events."

Whatever the logic of the sponsors, jazz remains a tiny but relatively healthy segment of a music industry in general turmoil. Wulf Mueller, vice president for international marketing at Universal Music International, which owns the prestigious Verve label, says his group's jazz sales rose 29% over the past two years, while Universal's overall record sales dropped off 20%. "Jazz doesn't get pirated much, its audience is a little older and a little wealthier, and they like to own things," he says. "The demand for quality music is strong."

In search of more than a niche market, some organizers have broadened out their offerings. "Jazz festivals these days aren't as much about jazz as they are about quality music," says Fritz Thom, whose Vienna Jazz Festival (June 23-July 13) first took root when pianist Keith Jarrett played the Staatsoper in 1991. "We're an urban festival, and we need a broad spectrum, from mainstream to avant garde," says Thom, whose offerings this year include pianist Chick Corea and New Orleans legend Dr. John.
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Purists have long since written off the most famous of European festivals, the Montreux Jazz Festival (July 4-19), but the crowds who flock there don't care. As founder Claude Nobs cheerfully acknowledges, "I'm the traitor who crossed the line first." It was in Montreux 32 years ago that the Casino burned down during a Frank Zappa concert, inspiring Deep Purple's rock classic Smoke on the Water. "I feel a little bad to be called a jazz festival, but it's our tattoo, we can't change it," says Nobs, who was immortalized in the Purple anthem. ("Funky Claude was running in and out/ Pulling kids out of the ground.") Artists like Jacky Terrasson, Cassandra Wilson and Charles Lloyd will play the Casino, but the big acts in Montreux's main auditorium include Van Morrison, Radiohead and Craig David. It doesn't bother Nobs, who points out that an evening of light jazz from Natalie Cole and George Benson sold out as quickly as Radiohead did.

For a concentrated dose of music, nothing quite matches the North Sea Jazz Festival (July 11-13), which packs around 250 acts into one weekend in The Hague. "You make your own festival," says director Theo van den Hoek. Visitors can go pure with Chicago's spectacular pianist-singer Patricia Barber and trumpeter Dave Douglas, or leaven tradition with deep house, like Norwegian Bugge Wesseltoft, or with klezmer, like John Zorn's Electric Masada. If that's all too demanding, no problem: a full weekend's schedule can be crafted with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Steve Winwood and Solomon Burke. No one's keeping score; the idea is to keep the beat.