Jazz & Friends X brought almost 100 musicians to the Vietnam National Academy of Music in Hanoi on November 6, Tuổi Trẻ reports. The concert closed the Jazz Department’s Jazz & Friends – Hội tụ và lan tỏa series marking the academy’s 70th anniversary. Quyền Văn Minh joined students, alumni and colleagues for a programme lasting more than two hours.
Teachers, graduates and visiting performers
Quyền Văn Minh played saxophone on In the Mood alongside musicians and students from the department. Returning alumni included Hữu Vượng, Lương Việt Tú and Nguyễn Đức Hải Phong, bringing their experience in performance, arranging and composition back to the academy’s stage.
Tuổi Trẻ also recorded participants from the United States, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom. A Norwegian group performed a roughly 15-minute set involving live electronics and sampling. Blues I oktaver brought together Nguyễn Tiến Mạnh, Lars Anderssons, Quyền Thiện Đắc, Danny Healy and Hoàng Hải Bằng.
Vietnamese works alongside jazz standards
Guest singer Đinh Mạnh Ninh performed Xích lô and Buổi sáng ở Ciao cafe in arrangements by Hữu Vượng. In the Mood, Sing, Sing, Sing and Fever appeared among a wider repertoire that also included music associated with Brazil, France and Britain.
Later in the programme, Nguyễn Đức Hải Phong’s Cội and Sông biển nước Nam combined jazz with traditional instruments and strings. Tuổi Trẻ described this as the first Jazz & Friends programme to bring jazz together with a symphonic and chamber ensemble. The works connected a gathering of the department’s generations with music composed by one of its graduates.