La Vella Dixieland: 45 years of "well-made music and spirit"

BarcelonaSecrets, just the right amount. "Well-made music, in tune, and that's it," says trumpeter Pep Gol (Barcelona, ​​1959), one of the founders of La Vella Dixieland. "And that it reaches the people," he adds to complete the motto of a group born in 1980 out of a love of classic jazz in a broad sense, first instrumental and then also vocal. Just as they understand it in New Orleans, where what counts is playing and not "this mania for intellectualizing the discourse we have in Europe." To celebrate the 45th anniversary of La Vella Dixieland, the Barcelona Jazz Festival dedicates an artist portrait to him that will unfold in four different concerts: three at the Jamboree on October 11 and 24 and November 7, and one at La Paloma on December 4. This is the first time the festival has portrait a collective, not a solo artist.

Curiously, the portrait wasn't the Jazz Festival's idea, but it nonetheless welcomed the proposal with open arms. "I was talking to Joan Mas [the owner of the Jamboree] about the possibility of doing something to celebrate the 45th anniversary. And he was the one who told me to talk to The Project [the Jazz Festival's promoter]," recalls Pep Gol. To honor history, part of the celebration was to satisfy "the yearning for a club." "La Vella started playing at La Boîte [the club that used to operate next to El Corte Inglés in Plaza Francesc Macià], and then we spent 25 years at Luz de Gas. And if you played there, you couldn't play at the Jamboree," he explains. The other part of the celebration was supposed to be a party with friends, and will be held at La Paloma, which "is very crowded," Gol celebrates.

The portrait of La Vella Dixieland begins on October 10th sharing the Jamboree stage with Ricard Gili, the legendary trumpeter of La Locomotora Negra, another essential group in the history of Catalan jazz and, above all, in the popularization of jazz in our country. "When we started in 1980, Ricard was already there. There weren't many things going on in Barcelona. There was Francesc Burrull, Tete Montoliu, the Terrassa band, and Locomotora Negra. We've always had a relationship with him," says Gol. "When I met Pau Casares [another founder of Vella Dixieland], I looked for Oriol Bordas," a historic figure in the country's jazz scene, who died in 2024. From those early years, Gol remembers moments like a swing battle with Locomotora Negra. The guest at the October 24 concert is trumpeter Joan Marc Sauqué, 29, from the generation of Pau Casares' children, also musicians. Lluc and Joan Casares"We'll do a lot of gigs with them," says Gol. He speaks highly of Sauqué: "He's a super-prepared and very talented young man. Any guest is a boost for us."

Access to first-class musical training is one of the big differences between the present and the youth of La Vella Dixieland, when pioneers like Major Manel Camp They were trying to establish a teaching method in the Modern Music and Jazz Classroom of Barcelona and when they were barely Lluís Cabrera launched the Taller de Músics"Just think, when we started, there was one guy who had a vinyl record that he would pass around to learn how to play the songs. We'd meet up one day to do track 2 on side A, for example, and each of us would learn our own part," Gol recalls. From that time, La Vella Dixieland's sense of "tribe" and commitment to live performances were born: "We immediately became very clear about the ritual of the gig, which is like a ceremony in which you share the stage with the aim of leaving the crowd happy. Young musicians find this in us; otherwise, they wouldn't come and play with us." Although they "made a splash," it wasn't all flowers and violas. "In 1989, we made an album with Manel Joseph [the singer of the Orquesta Platería], which had songs in Catalan, but they didn't play it on the radio because it was in Catalan and they said it sounded old-fashioned. In the middle of Pujolism! That's tough, right? On the other hand, they did play the instrumental tracks," he explains.

The collaboration for the November 7 concert is with singer-songwriter Namina, with whom Pep Gol has been teaming up for some time. "We've worked with many singers from here and in the United States, and you more or less see who they're inspired by. That's not the case with Namina, because she's her own person. "Let's see, do you mean she does jazz?" they say at first. Listen to her. She tells stories, sings in Catalan, and artistically and in attitude she fits in very well with us." A repertoire that will combine pieces from La Vella Dixieland and Namina. It's a concert that explains the freedom with which the Barcelona group has worked, and which already in the eighties made them sound "fresh and lively" when they performed classic jazz.

Finally, on December 4th, La Paloma will host "the final party", as Gol tells him. It will be a concert with guests such as Ricard Gili, Joan Marc Sauqué, Namina, saxophonist Irene Reig, trombonist Pablo Martín and guitarist Josep Traver. Musicians from different generations will share the stage with the current line-up of La Vieja Dixieland: Pep Gol (trumpet), Pau Casa ' (alto sax), Xavier Manau (trombone), Gerard Nieto (piano), Josemi Moraleda (double bass) and Pinyu Martí (drums) The artist portrait of the Jazz Festival coincides with the publication of 45, an album that brings together previously unreleased live and studio recordings made between 2000 and 2020. A living and vibrant history.