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It is nineteen years now since Vázquez invited me to participate as a judge in a contest that he had devised and was organizing at the La Zorra y el Cuervo club. The event would be called Jo-jazz and would involve young instrumentalists interested in cultivating the first great sound language of the past XX century.
Ever since, time has passed and in 2017 the twentieth edition of a festival, which has marked to a great extent the course of jazz practice among us, is celebrated and accounts for the fact that one of the musical manifestations among either Cuban residents in the Island or those belonging to the Diaspora that enjoys a better health today is just the genre par excellence for improvisation.
One of the vivifying consequences derived from JoJazz editions is what was produced by Producciones Colibrí record company, when they released the collection called «El joven espíritu del jazz cubano» (The young spirit of Cuban jazz,) an ambitious phonogram release plan with the winners of the aforementioned contest and that has already put into circulation several CDs featuring novice figures of the highest quality.
The amazing thing in the emergence of formidable jazz players that Cuba has produced is the fact that there are no academies in this country where this genre is taught. You have to think about the few opportunities of presentation that these interpreters have, especially outside of Havana, thus lacking the training that propitiates being able to play jazz the whole year.
After nineteen years and twenty editions, JoJazz represents a great launching platform for many young Cuban jazz musicians to be discovered. Those days of November undoubtedly become the jazz fest for the new talents of the genre. It is to be hoped that the event devised by Alexis Vázquez in 1998 will continue to grow and thrive.