God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, the fire next time!

With this biblical allusion, the great African American writer and essayist James Baldwin, whose centenary of birth was celebrated last year, concludes his essay The Fire Next Time. It is a personal, passionate, and eloquent reflection on the consequences of both hidden and overt racism, on the socially conditioned individual identity, and on the collective responsibility for adopting religious or ideological dogmas. Baldwin’s voice articulated and galvanized ideas during the boiling point of the 1960s civil rights movements.

It seems the world found itself at a boiling point once again, and Baldwin’s bitterly honest confession, testament, sermon, and warning all at once – addresses us with timeless urgency.

With this same urgency, Meshell Ndegeocello summons passages from Baldwin’s relentless social critique through a thundering bass attack and a contemporary gospel-infused organ backdrop. It is an urgency found in the lucid expression of Cécile McLorin Salvant, who bears the beauty and the burden of the past with unbearable lightness. It is the urgency of (re)action, with which Tarbaby address the challenges of contemporary American society, accentuated by the deeply haunting testimony of doyen David Murray, who has been there and done that. That is the necessity for rhetorical figures and bravuras of aja monet, flowing like rapids into a waterfall of words, shrouded in romantic haze. It is Brandee Younger’s uncompromising and untamed traversal between genres. It is uNomkhubulwane – the Zulu goddess from the spiritual mantras of Nduduzo Makhathini, invoked in a plea for the manifestation of a future in spiritual and societal balance. It is the urgency for a new social order, constituted by the collectives of Asher Gamedze. And it lies in the rich multicultural textures and meanings explored by the rising stars of British jazz, Flock and Yazz Ahmed.

This same urgency pulses through the creativity of this year’s artist-in-residence, Boštjan Simon, who enacts his musical ideas through collective exploration, and it resonates as well in Fresh Dust’s aspiration to cultivate meaningful international collaborations. With the uninhibited force of necessity that drives the younger generation of jazz artists, the circle is complete.

This year’s festival line-up thus calls for an urgent reflection on collective action, heightened awareness, and a shared sense of responsibility for an attuned future.

— Tina Lešničar, Borja Močnik