Antibe’s venerable Jazz à Juan festival will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. For the occasion, the local authorities have increased the budget and brought in Jean-René Palacio of SAMES (Monte Carlo) to give the festival a boost. He intends to increase the number of locations, and promises a greater cross between genres (with notably the arrival of electronic music). The line-up will only be announced in February, so we’ll have to wait and see what this means in practice. There are numerous acts across Europe notably that combine electronic sounds into jazz, in particular in the Nordic countries.
Jazz à Juan is still known as the place where Miles Davis and the masters of the sixties played, and recorded a number of live albums. It will be interesting to see the grand dame lift her skirts a little for the new generation!