2023-06-29 05:33:16
Forty-two years ago, in 1981, Jazz à Vienne was born. A first concert the previous year, organized in extremis under a marquee and bringing together BB King, Muddy Waters and Fats Domino, which had been a huge success despite torrential rain, had been the trigger and gave the idea of the Festival.
It was a very timid first edition which had seen the light of day in 198, compared to the big, well-oiled machine of today: only five evenings. Then success followed with the appearance on stage of Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, and then in 1984, for the first time, of Miles Davis. The Festival was definitely launched…
For Thierry Kovacs, president of EPIC Jazz in Vienne and mayor of Vienne, “this Festival is a source of real pride for our territory, but we live in a world where we too often forget where things come from that are there, which exist; while some tend to rewrite history! »
Hence the desire to recall the memory of the five creators of Jazz à Vienne celebrated on Wednesday June 28, as a prelude to the opening concert of the 2023 edition of the Festival. “Without them, this Festival wouldn’t exist,” recalls Thierry Kovacs.
It is of course Jean-Paul Boutellier who, creator of a Jazz club in Lyon, decentralized it to Vienna and used his networks to bring in the biggest stars.
For this he had relied on Jean Gueffier, now deceased, “passionate regarding popular culture” and assistant to the Culture of the mayor at the time, Louis Mermaz, and who was represented yesterday by his wife and son; but also of Pierre Domeyne, also a member of the municipal team at the time and who was president of Vienne Action Culturelle.
Two other figures of the Festival constitute this “Club of five”: Jean-Pierre Vignola who, as a programmer, has accompanied Jean-Paul Boutellier and the Festival since its inception; as well as a man in the shadows, Marc Guyamier who, as director of the Vienne theater at the time, “was the one who knew how to bring us all together and get us moving”, reminded Jean-Paul Boutellier.
On each of the squares of the Jardins du Jazz, the reception area now located around the headquarters of Jazz à Vienne on the Pipet hill, each of its initiators of the Festival therefore now has its plaque designed by another veteran of the Festival, the designer François Robin which, every year, also immortalizes the great pages of the Viennese Festival, at the foot of the stage.
The present can only grow and prosper if it extends its roots into the past. It’s done now: Jazz à Vienne can continue to look at its future with serenity….
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