The jazz festival that takes place in a very Lynchian sawmill
During 450 years , with more or less technical progress, the Grabmaier sawmill was dedicated in alpine valley of Gastein what all sawmills do, work wood. History changed when the family business, with almost five centuries of tradition, came into the hands of Joseph Grabmaier . the good of Sepp turned the sawmill into a jazz club.
It is true that Sägewerk had ceased to be the flourishing company that made the valley's golden age of mining profitable, but also that Sepp preferred to restore it and transform it into an atelier for his sculptures and wrought iron in the 90s . During one of his reforms, he asked his friends from Bad Hofgastein . In return, he called the Salzburg band Querschläger and threw a party. The party got out of hand and ended up in a festival.
The Lynchian Sawmill
For the inauguration of Snow Jazz Gastein a couple of decades ago he set out to captivate the Swedish genius Esbjorn Svensson . He looked up his contact in the CD booklet and tried to convince him to bring his trio to the beautiful alpine valley of Gastein as a way to rest in the middle of his tour of Germany and Austria. “They were playing in Munich and the next show a couple of days later they had in Vienna,” says Sepp. We all know that Gastein is halfway there, right? ”. And he got it. Svensson, who died in 2008 in a sad accident while diving in Ingarö, near Stockholm, I agree.
SPLENDOR IN THE ALPS
So what Bad Hofgastein lacks the glamor of neighboring Bad Gastein , 7 kilometers away, the villa where he spent the summer and had experimental sex with the little sister of his wife, the doctor Sigmund Freud ; where he went skiing incognito Pope Juan Pablo II ; the spa town of Empress Sissi , the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer , the composer Franz Schubert , and today the fetish city of the total artist Friedrich Liechtenstein , the East German lookalike of Jep Gambardella from the great beauty , who shot his video clip 'Das Badeschloss' here (check it out on YouTube, it portrays the essence of Bad Gastein in just over 3 minutes).
Jazz Gastein, the snow jazz festival
Bad Hofgastein does not have the palaces of the Belle Époque , neither the most avant-garde constructions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, nor the decadence (in the literal sense) that devastated Bad Gastein since the end of the 20th century, but to its traditional placid life in an alpine refuge with thermal waters, the jazz festival was added as a last name. What a background Sepp Grabmaier.
The artists who head the bill this year between March 12 and 15 are the Brazilian Emiliano Sampaio and his big band Mega Mereneu Project, the Sicilian Rosario Bonaccorso with his jazz quartet and the Municipale Balcanica formation. All of them will perform on the main stage, at Sägewerk. The sawmill is located in Lynchian territory on the outskirts of Bad Hofgastein, a foggy area with little traffic at night that could serve as a location for the sawmill of Twin Peaks.
“We are in the suburbs. It has its charm" says Sepp Grabmaier, a veteran of it all. What David Lynch , he has been a plastic artist, as well as an insurance broker, inventor, dilettante, saxophonist without hearing and founder of jazz festivals. During the concerts, in one of the perfectly aligned seats in front of red curtains, among an audience of mountain sweaters in a warm gloom, one would not be surprised to meet Lady Leno . And at the same time, everything looks familiar . They all know each other. Many renew their annual pass as if it were the subscription of the Vienna opera . The rest of the year Sägewerk is a club that programs cabaret, more jazz and blues concerts, informal evenings of jazz improvisations –“more improvised than a jam session, that's the norm, the only norm”, says Sepp– and the occasional temporal exposition.
Bad Hofgastein, in the Salzburg region, is four hours by train from Vienna and two and a half hours from Munich. The capital of the Bundesland, Salzburg, Mozart's city , it's less than an hour. The festival dares to invade Bad Gastein. The closing morning concert, which includes lunch (brunch) for attendees , hosts the Hotel Miramonte . This year the violinist Igmar Jenner and the accordionist Borut Mori , award-winning Austrian duo Austrian World Music Award.
SOME LIKE IT HOT
There are also concerts at Gastein ski lodges, which are free. The Max Boogaloo's play on March 12 at the Weitmoser Schlossalm Y stringset perform on March 13 at the mountain restaurant kleine scharte and the 15 in Stubnerkogel , the restaurant of the ski station at 2230 meters of altitude.
The closing matinee concert is held here
The motto that Sepp has chosen for this edition is 'some like it hot' . Sepp became fond of jazz when he first heard illumination! , the album that Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones released in 1964 with McCoy Tyner on piano. He eventually managed to lure up the Gastein mountains to Charles Davis , the baritone sax on the recording. “Isn't it very difficult for you to convince so many musicians every year to get out of the official circuit and come to Bad Hofgastein?” I asked him before New Jersey pianist David Kikoski's performance at the 2019 edition. “Not at all He replied with a mocking smile. The complicated thing is to bring brilliant musicians”.
"To be honest with you," he told me, lying to me, most of the musicians come because we have good rum ”. He then grabbed a bottle from the bar, a couple of glasses, and poured rum.
More information and tickets at jazz-im-saegewerk.org