After a successful turnout during its first annual jazz festival launched in New York City in November 2009, Nublu is taking its show on the road. From March 2 through 11, Istanbul will host the festival which in the past included performances by trumpeter Eddie Henderson and drummer Al Foster. Nublu does double duty as a nondescript, hole-in-the-wall nightclub in the Lower East Side that's nurtured an underground music scene defiant of labels; it's also an independent music imprint that backs a wide variety of unconventional, cutting edge music. Nublu Records promotes an amalgamation of music including hip-hop, trip-hop, Brazilian funk, forro and new school samba, avant-garde electronica and jazz. Founded by swedish-born saxophonist and composer Ilhan Ersahin, who fronts his own band, Love Trio, Nublu helped launch the career of the Brazilian Girls and is credited with importing a slice of São Paolo's hip, underground music scene into the U.S. Even Norah Jones has a little Nublu in her. Before exploding onto the pop-jazz scene with 2002's 'Come Away With Me,' she was the lead vocalist for Wax Poetic, one of the label's signature projects.
Following the festival in Itanbul, Nublu will head to Paris for the Banlieues Bleues Festival on March 12 and 13, featuring the Nublu Orchestra conducted by Butch Morris and Ersahin's Istanbul Sessions with contemporary jazz trumpeter Erik Truffaz and French cellist and electric bass player Vincent Segal.
