The Portuguese island of Madeira with its warm Mediterranean type climate, mountains, 
levadas, flowers, wine and festivals lies 230 miles from the coast of Africa and has been a popular tourist destination for some years. There was a time when tourists could only get there by sea-plane, but now the small airport welcomes regular international flights throughout the year.
In recent years, it has not been easy to find live jazz there despite the island having staged a Jazz Festival for the past thirteen years with some top names playing.
However, there appears to be a growing interest in the music with some good jazz being played around the capital, Funchal.
We have listed some information here, but please contact us if you can add any more.
In the summer of 2012, SCAT, the Funchal Jazz Club opened to the west of the capital and has gone on to bring regular jazz and other music to the island. Now called The Funchal 
Music Club it still offers a substantial jazz programme but other music is included too. Check their website for the programme for the week ahead (click here).
The excellent house band comprises Rafael Andrade (trumpet), Georgy Titoy (guitars), Ricardo Dias (double bass) and Caio Oliveira (drums). The club currently features jazz Wednesdays to Saturdays.
Wednesday nights the house band plays, Thursday is a jam session, Fridays and Saturdays have guest musicians and guest bands in performance from Madeira, the Portugal mainland and elsewhere. The band kicks off around 11.00 p.m. when musicians arrive after their gigs elsewhere on the island, although you may well find the piano in action before then. The tables at the club can fill up around eleven, so it is a good idea to get there before then. Food is available, and if you are going to eat, it is probably a good idea to be there by 10.15 p.m.
From our experience, the quality of jazz at SCAT is excellent. The audience is of mixed ages but the club is supported by a lot of young people drinking anything from tea and coffee to wine and cocktails. The audience is appreciative of the music; does not applaud
every solo (as has become the habit in the UK), but will respond to a particularly notable piece of playing.
Entrance is free except when a visting band (perhaps from mainland Portugal) is playing on a Friday or Saturday. On these occasions, the club has a novel idea of charging 10 Euros for an entry ticket that you can then exchange for a minimum of ten Euros worth of food or drink inside the club (they have a comprehensive menu).
SCAT is located on the Funchal Lido at Morada, Promenade do Lido, 9000-758 Funchal, Madeira (on the sea promenade below the Melia Madeira Mare hotel). Tel: +351 291 775 927
For information about the club and its programme visit their website: www.scatfunchalmusicclub.com or contact the club’s manager (Johnny) or publicity manager (Marta), on info@scatfunchalmusicclub.com.
Gary Corbett on the Flikr website gives three other pictures of Funchal Music Club (click here).
Funchal (Porto Bay Hotels and Resorts)
www.portobay.com (Tel: +351 291 708 750)
The Cliff Bay Hotel has a 'Super Jazz' evening with different bands playing every Sunday from 8.30 p.m. to 11.30 p.m.
The hotel is located at Rua do Gorgulho 2, 9004-537, Funchal (going out of Funchal centre on the way to the Lido, on the left a few hundred yards past Reid's Hotel).
During the day, somewhere along the main Avenida Arriaga in Funchal you might also come across a group of buskers, either three guitarists and / or two guitar players and 
someone drumming the box he sits on. The leader of the group is Juan Caldarado (click here for his MySpace site).
The initial impression might be that they are just a group of Latin guitarists, and the CDs they sell to tourists are pleasant easy listening albums, but it is well worth finding a seat at a nearby café, buying a coffee and waiting until Juan begins to improvise. Someone should get him into a recording studio with a jazz combo.
There are a number of videos of him playing on YouTube – click here to try this one of him playing Misty.
Madeira's 14th Jazz Festival in 2013 is booked for July 4th, 5th and 6th with Chick Corea, Jacinta and Miles Smiles on the programme. Jam sessions will also take place during the Festival at The Vine Hotel, Rua dos Aranhas, Funchal (further up the street from The Jazz House cafe). Click here for details.
Click here for a video of Kenny Garrett playing at the Festival in 2012.
The Conservatorio de Música da Madeira (Conservatoire of Music) in Funchal now runs a jazz course with around forty students. Tradionally a classical music conservatoire, the four-year jazz course has become established in recent years under the Director of Music,
Professor Jorge A.C. Borges. Their website (click here) says: ‘There is also a Jazz Course at this school, given at night after work hours, in partnership with Hot Clube de Portugal, whose monitors come regularly to Madeira.’
The course takes students from Madeira and around 10% to 20% go on to study on the mainland at E.S.M.A.E. (The School of Music and Performing Arts) in Porto (click here for details),or E.S.M.L. (Lisbon College of Music) in Lisbon (click here for details). Some students have gone on to study in London.
Bass player, Professor Ricardo Dias from the Conservatorio leads the house band at SCAT, the Funchal Jazz Club.
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2013 - 2015
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Jazz in Finland :
Jazz in Ireland :
Jazz in Prague (Please contact us if you can update any of these pages)