Concert Review: Dubai International Jazz Festival, Night 1
USD Radio
March 1, 2011
In this article, USD Radio surmises a handful of performances featured in the first night of the International Jazz Festival. The author displays some mixed feeling about the performances, and offers some critic especially about Mica Paris, the first performer of the night. The evening didn't seem to pick up until Jools Holland took the stage and the audience began to participate as well. Genres ranging from ska to boogie woogie are explored and the audience's enthusiasm is captured, as well as a last minute quip from the author to Paris.
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I think the International Jazz Festival is incredible in what it's trying to accomplish. So many foreign and local musicians gathered into one place to play music for a week. I think that since Dubai is one of the worlds fastest developing cities in the world, this is a prominent example of globalization meeting folk culture. Hot dogs are sold alongside falafel here, just as western pop is played immediately before a traditional ballad, and the crowd loves them both. This concert shows how cultures are changing and adapting, becoming more homogenous. An American could stand alongside a German and a local and they could all have relatively the same experiences. I think this is interesting and pretty great.
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Music has long been a very important part of Arabic history and culture. But as that culture evolves, especially in Dubai, music is beginning to take on a very different quality. Along with the shopping malls, resorts, and airports now replacing the old city of Dubai, new forms of music are also taking form. Just half a century after jazz entered Dubai, the city is now a resident expert on music, offering a very extravagant concert each year - one of the biggest in the world. This concert is now a very large aspect of current culture in the United Arab Emirates, and a testament to globalization as a whole.
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