Polish journalist Marek Dusza reviews the first night of 12 Points for Polish Daily national newspaper 'Rzeczpospolita'

A good way to brighten up a grey Monday in Dublin, is to look forward to a jazz-filled Friday night in Porto! 

You've got to Dig it to Dig it, you Dig?

With just one week to go, things are getting hectic here in Dublin as the 12 Points crew prepare to head out to Porto, to join with the Casa Da Musica team in hosting 12 Points 2012.

We've a helluva line-up over 4 nights next week. Let's have a quick look firstly at the musical meanderings in store for next Thursday.

Festival Director Gerry Godley announces the chosen few, as nomadic jazz festival 12 Points presents the cream of young European Jazz, when its 7th edition erupts in the magnificent modern venue of Casa Da Musica, Porto from February 16th to 19th

Being Dublin based - far westerly on the EU map - it seemed fitting that we begin our 12 Points Plus journey at one of the most easterly European locations.
The Skopje Jazz Festival in Macedonia, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, chose Mari Kvien Brunvoll, Kaja Draksler's Acropolis Quintet and French trio MeTaL-O-pHoNe for the inaugural 12 Points Plus stage, sharing the bill with jazz giants such as Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter and The Exx....

Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva impressed at 12Points 2011 in Dublin earlier this year with her colourful contemporary compositions.

She talks to us about her home town of Porto - the beautiful location for the upcoming 12Points festival 16-19th February 2012.

With this blog entry, I hereby name this vessel 12 Points. God bless this website and all who sail in her! The candle has been burned at both ends to bring you this new site for our festival of young European jazz artists, and it now contains everything you need to know about our Dublin based pan European venture. I really hope you’ll have a good poke around, there is lots of music to discover here...

I first encountered that term, Radio Free Europe, on REM’s debut album Murmer. In reality, RFE was a US, likely CIA funded, radio station that broadcast propaganda into the Warsaw Pact countries from 1949 onwards in a bid to destabilise communism. If only they had had Twitter. We’re not looking to start a palace revolt, we would just like to get you listening to some of the great music that comes our way in the process of putting 12 Points together every year. Like other music from the road less travelled, jazz is slowly disappearing from view on the daytime schedule of public radio, and your chances of hearing improvised music on commercial radio are zero on a good day. But why waste your energy on the debate about terrestrial radio when the web is offering us opportunities to broadcast in new ways, listening wherever and whenever we feel like it? So, along with our new website we are dipping our toe into the world of web broadcast with Radio 12 Points, a journey in jazz from across Europe every fortnight, brought to you in tasty 30 minute portions. I’ve been presenting a weekly world music show on Irish national radio for the last ten years, and all the faders on a radio desk are the same, whatever the genre. As a taster of what to expect with Radio 12 Points over the coming months, lets start with some highlights of the artists who’ve lit up 12 Points over the last five years...