Snap II/ The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (Netherlands/UK/France — first Polish concert after reactivation)

The Jazz Jantar Festival has been the only jazz festival in Poland for years that presents music from the dark jazz trend. More moody and gloomy than virtuosic. Jason Köhnen, the creator of the term “darkjazz” presented the band The Things With Five Eyes, and also chose the Żak Club for the first concert in the history of The Lovecraft Sextet project. It is therefore not surprising that the cult, precursor, the first in the trend The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, reactivated at the end of the summer of 2025, chose Jazz Jantar to return to Poland after many years. It will not only be a unique experience for the ears, but also an unforgettable visual experience.

Snap II (UK/Argentina/Sweden/Latvia/Poland/Norway — premiere)

Kit Downes performs regularly in the Żak Club — he has already been with the Enemy trio, in a duet with Lucy Railton, with Lucia Cadotsch's band, and last year with the Exhaust trio. However, he is one of those artists of the younger generation who never stops in search and always presents different music. Similarly, it will be in the fall of 2026, when he will premiere at Jazz Jantar his biggest band — the Snap II septet.

He has chosen characters well known on the European improvised scene — saxophonist Camila Nebbia, saxophonist Otis Sandsjö, flutist Ketija Ringa Karahona, pianist Marta Warelis, double bassist Ole Morten Vågan and drummer Andrew Lisle. The performance in Gdańsk will be not only the first project in Poland, but also one of the first.

Attention! Change in the Snap II line-up For reasons beyond our control, the sold-out Snap II concert by Kit Downes will not feature saxophone players Camila Nebbia and Otis Sandsjo. Instead, Jeremy Viner — one-third of the Sifters trio (formed with Kate Gentile and Marc Ducret), longtime collaborator of Bing & Ruth, as well as from Battle Trance, Anna Webber, Steve Lehman, Tyshawn Sorey, Weasel Walter and Rafiq Bhatii, guitarist Son Lux, among others, will be heard. Tom Challenger - the leader of the street music-inspired Brass Mask, collaborator Evan Parker (with whom he released the excellent album “May Spring Last A Lifetime” this year), Tom Yorke of Radiohead (played on the soundtrack of the film “Confidenza”), and for many years a member of various projects of Kit Downes.