Back from Bosnia - Part 4

Put the Sarajevo Jazz Fest on your bucket list. Their slogan is “The best music is where you least expect it” and it proved truthful in every way.

I have been to Sarajevo five times now, the first four for work (see previous Back from Bosnia posts). I feel that with this fifth time I’ve finally put it to rest. The city is depressed and I would never want to live there (as Lina said at one point, this is the first time she’s not heard me say “Ooo I want to live there!” as I point to an apartment building in whatever city we’re visiting), but it is dear to my heart nonetheless. My love for this city goes far beyond strolling the streets and enjoying the sights. It’s tied up in the history of the place and the people I’ve met who call it home.

The point of this trip was to attend the Jazz Fest (which has been happening every November for 18 years). My friend Eldar is the stage manager (that feels awesome to say!) and he arranged for my friend Lina and I to stay at a friend’s mother’s friends’ empty apartment. We even got picked up from the airport in the VIP car that is used to shuttle the festival’s artists around. Incidentally, we arrived on the same flight as Håkon Kornstad, one of the artists we heard (we didn’t know this until we saw him on stage and realized we’d seen him in the passport line). I wonder what car he was picked up in….

Anyways, we’d bought tickets for three nights and each concert was better than the last. I can’t really transmit through words the tremendous music experience that it was. Suffice to say, if you love music it is well worth the trip at some point in your life. Friday night was Dianne Reeves. The woman has an incomprehensible range and vocal elasticity. There is nothing she can’t do. The concert was brilliant. You can get a taste of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6G7K1nIPxE

Saturday night was Håkon Kornstad, a Norwegian saxophone player turned opera tenor (no joke!) who also plays the flute with a clarinet mouthpiece (who knew?). With his trusty old loop machine, he became a one man band. Lina and I even got serenaded in Swedish when he sang a beautiful old folk tune Ack Värmland du sköna. And he was just the opener! The main attraction was Avishai Cohen Trio, three guys from Israel who play jazz like nobody’s business. The pianist was insane, the drummer (who shouldn’t even be called a drummer because it sounds so unsophisticated compared to what this guy did) was brilliant, and Avishai, the contrabassist, was genius. With all of the amazing stuff they did together, the highlight for me was when he sang an old Argentine ballad in Spanish and an old Hebrew song written by a young poet from Odessa in the late 1940s. His voice and expression were so sublimely melancholy. It profoundly touched me.

Sunday’s concert was Ibrahim Maalouf, a trumpet player from Lebanon/France. I’d never heard of the guy, but apparently he is pretty popular in Bosnia because the crowd cheered at the mention of certain songs. This guy is the whole package: a versatile and humorous musician, a charismatic showman, a strong band leader, and a seemingly unpretentious guy. Even though the music itself wasn't my favorite kind (although the bagpiper rocking out to a Led Zepplin tribute was pretty awesome), the full experience was one I am so glad to have witnessed. It was more than music. He comes from a war-torn Beirut and he played in a war-torn Sarajevo. The full significance of the feelings transmitted through his playing is something I may never be able to fully grasp, but the audience around me did. It sounds so cliché, but music like that transcends time, history, conflict and pain. It’s all there in the notes, notes that don’t need words to be understood. In fact, words would just ruin it.

Ibrahim Maalouf

The drummer was an ongoing party

Of course we did more than just attend concerts. We slept till noon, ate our breakfasts on a “park” bench, strolled through the city, befriended a Bosnian tea shopkeeper named Hussein who spoke no English but did speak perfect Italian. He was a colorful character with his wavy long white-gray hair and ankle length black tunic. We ate some good food, saw a gallery exhibition with photographs from the genocide in Srebrenica and most importantly, spent some quality time at my favorite café of all time, The Goldfish.

The Goldfish café keeps bringing me back to Sarajevo. 

Reunited with my friend Eldar and made a new friend in Alfred (far left).

This may very well have been my last trip to Sarajevo. Or it may not have been. I don’t know. But I am certain that I’ve taken the very best of it with me.