World Service Project are to be part of the line-up of a dozen of Europe’s new cutting edge jazz and improvising bands and artists to gather at the 12 Points! festival next month. Innovation is the watchword for the festival, the brainchild of the forward thinking Improvised Music Company, headed up by musician and broadcaster Gerry Godley. 12 Points! moves around Europe choosing new, often little known, bands who have sparked initial word of mouth interest to represent their countries informally at the annual fest. Previous 12 Points gatherings have been held in the Irish capital Dublin and the Norwegian city of Stavanger, but this year switches to the Casa da Música in the Portuguese city of Porto spread over three days from 16-19 February.


The festival specifically appeals to the audience’s more adventurous instincts by saying “you’ve never heard of these bands – yet.” Bands taking part in addition to World Service Project, who were in action touring at the weekend in the UK with ReDiviDeR, are Bosnian sevda band Divanhana, Polish saxophonist Maciej Obara who appeared at the Jazz and Experimental Music from Poland Festival in London last year; Berlin band Schneeweiss und Rosenrot are Germany’s representatives, while Copenhagen's Afrobeat and Ethio-jazz influenced Girls in Airports, the Norwegian outfit Machine Birds, Parisian quintet Actuum, Finns Big Blue, Irish band Thought-Fox, Portuguese bass virtuoso Hugo Carvalhais, Belgian avant garde piano trio De Beren Gieren – in action at last September’s inaugural Belgian Jazz Meeting in Bruges – and the Italian Livio Minafra, complete the line-up.

– Stephen Graham

 World Service Project (top) and Girls In Airports

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