Woody Allen and his clarinet will return to Barcelona next September to offer a performance at the Tívoli theater. He will do so within the framework of the Barcelona Jazz Festival, an event in which the filmmaker had never participated, and together with the New Orleans Jazz Band, his reference group for more than 30 years with Conal Fowkes, a regular at the jazz evenings at the Casa Fuster hotel, at the piano. Fowkes has also taken over musical direction since the passing of Eddy Davis in 2020. He is joined by Brian Nalepka on double bass, Kevin Dorn behind drums, Simon Wettenhall on trumpet, Jerry Zigmont on trombone and Josh Dunn on banjo. La Vanguardia subscribers have a 15% discount if they purchase their tickets through the Vanguardia Tickets portal. Tickets will go on sale this Wednesday at 11 am, with prices ranging from 45 to 135 euros.
September’s will also be Allen’s first musical evening in the city since the pandemic. He had previously performed on several occasions, always playing the clarinet, an instrument that he continues to play as an amateur at 88, performing in public songs by his favorite New Orleans jazz artists such as Sidney Bechet, George Lewis, Louis Armstrong. It is the way that the director of ‘Chords and disagreements’ has found to spread his favorite music and enjoy it at the same time. A scholar of the genre, Allen declares himself in love with the big band music that he listened to on the radio as a child, signed by artists such as Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw or Glenn Miller.
Born in Brooklyn as Allan Stewar Koigsberg, Allen adopted his film name in homage to clarinetist, saxophonist and bandleader Woody Hermann, proof of an attraction to the genre that has on occasion led him to state that his love for jazz is more powerful than the one who feels for the cinema. Not in vain, he has been playing since the 70s, and for years he could be seen playing every Monday at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan some of the pieces from the extensive repertoire that his band manages. An opportunity that will be repeated in Barcelona next Tuesday, September 19 at 8:30 p.m.
