La Marina Band drops anchor in Formentera ready to participate in “Jazz at the Square”

Next Saturday 24 August the “Jazz at the Square” live music series, held every Saturday at the plaza in front of the Sant Francesc church, will receive a special visit from the Eivissan group La Marina Band, in what is sure to be one of the series' emblematic performances of the summer.

This is the third year that La Marina Band participates in the Formentera jam sessions, which, more than twenty years running, are one of the longest-standing musical initiatives on the island. The weekly concerts are led by a group of amateur musicians based in Formentera who invite other musicians of prestige from France, Germany and mainland Spain, as well as other guest artists vacationing on Formentera or who periodically collaborate with the music series.

The core members of the band Jazz Connotation are Tony Gartell (bugle and violin), Enrique González (guitar), Vicente Roselló (bass), Bruce Gartell (drums) and José Guzmán (trombone). Added to the line-up will be the members of the visiting Eivissan group, Quimi Luzón (drums), Pere Navarro (trumpet), Enrique Canet (electric bass), Llorenç Prats (piano) and Franco Botto (alto saxophone). This summer, the Eivissan group – its members all between 19 and 23 years old – turned out its first CD, Adalt. Recorded this May in the professional Nòmada 57 recording studio of Barcelona, the disc provided the band material for a hometown performance at the Festival de Jazz d'Eivissa, and the group's participation is also scheduled for the 45th Festival Internacional de Jazz de Barcelona this coming October.

From 10 pm to 1 am, spectators at the concert series will be treated to an evening of jazz set against the backdrop of the old Sant Francesc church, an idyllic feature of Formentera's summer panorama.

The series, organised by the Jazz&CO association, was created as a way to conserve and foment music in all its incarnations, promoting an array of musical activities in order to provide an outlet for performance-based creativity.