Georgia’s Tbilisi Jazz Festivals have their own characteristics․ What we saw, what we heard in 3 days։ Video, Photos

Georgia’s Tbilisi Jazz Festivals have their own characteristics, which was the same this year – 09.05 – 11.05. in 2023. Before the big concerts of the main, popular celebrities, concerts are held in the small concert hall of the Sheraton Metekhi hotel, an exhibition is opened in the hall, and a movie is shown in the other hall.

First, this year the Tbilisi Jazz Festival was held without Georgian legendary jazzman, double bass player Tatuza (Tamaz) Kurashvili, whose memory was honored with a minute of silence.

Now everything in turn.

This year’s exhibition on the theme of jazz was wonderful, many of the spectators were positive, some had a desire to see at least one of its in their home. Here are some photos, judge for yourself.

And the film was about Georgian jazz, the history of the festival, only in Georgian language, which was incomprehensible to me, I only caught the English words of famous jazzmen when they presented how they discovered the wonderful city of Tbilisi and the Tbilisi Jazz Festival in general, which is unique.

Already in the small concert hall there were one concert every three days. On the first day, it was decorated by Luka Topuria & Band, who played a real Georgian passionate and aggressive jazz fusion with bop features. Perhaps I should emphasize that, unlike the Czech and Italian modern and not so famous groups in the old days, Luka Topuria was several times better.

Martin Kratochvil & Jazz Q band from the Czech Republic performing before the big concert on the second day. It was an interesting band, especially the electro guitarist․

Already on the third day, the Italian group Motel Kaiju performed on the small stage before the big tastes.

Thank you to the organizers of the Tbilisi Jazz Festival 2023 for the wonderful concerts and excellent guests. I will remind you once that there were performances at this wonderful festival this year JAZZ/TAKES SUPERGROUP – Bill Evans, Niels Lan Doky, Felix Pastorius & Harvey Mason, ANTONIO FARAO’ TRIO, STANLEY CLARKE N’4Ever, reviews of which you can read in our Festivals page.

By Simon Sargsyan