A WEEK JUST LIKE IN NEW ORLEANS

Dixie, jazz and joie de vivre! Let me tell you what's going on during the Dixieland week with the New Orleans Dixieland Band in Zauchensee / SalzburgerLand. It is an incredible event at an altitude of 1,350 metres, taking place both indoors and outdoors against the backdrop of the snow-covered Zauchensee mountains in SalzburgerLand and delighting the audience with its music. Jazz fans and friends! It doesn't get any better than this, ... so ingenious ..., unforgettable and impressive.

Did you know that jazz has its origins in the blues music of the North American southern states, and that Creole, African, French and Spanish cultures contributed to the birth of jazz? If you stroll along the lively Frenchman Street in New Orleans today, you can still hear the finest jazz rhythms coming from the bars. So, the history of jazz, as far as can be traced, begins on a river, namely the Mississippi, regardless of whether you see the beginning of this style in the ragtime of St. Louis or in the everyday music of New Orleans. Jazz is as colourful as the people who lived in New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century: Cuba and Haiti are not far away, hordes of immigrants came from Europe, half of the inhabitants were African and half of them were slaves - and every culture can be found in jazz. A unique melting pot with one river, the Mississippi, as a wonderful resonating body, as it was once so aptly described in the programme ‘Lust for Life - Jazz – from the roots to the New Orleans’ Jazz’ on ORF Upper Austria.

I am a fan of New Orleans jazz and attend the Dixieland Week in Zauchensee every year as a guest. Because the protagonists on stage here are unrivalled in the scene: The New Orleans Dixieland band with its frontman Wolfgang Friedrich. And here it comes: Wolfgang Friedrich is an honorary citizen of New Orleans and is probably the only Austrian musician to have performed in New Orleans once a year since 1988 (except during the Covid era from 2020 to 2022).

What makes the band special is that it always performs in different line-ups with three to seven musicians. This guarantees an inexhaustible range of titles that can be played for any occasion. Whether concert, Christmas dixie, Dixieland for kids, company parties, gala evenings, birthdays, weddings ... Tip: Their playlist includes 561 jazz & Dixie standards, 200 commercial titles (mainly classics), 22 children's songs, 28 Christmas songs and 15 wine and Viennese songs from the years 1851 to 1967.

You can imagine that when they get going in Zauchensee, the whole place is swinging! They play either on the sun terraces, in the hotel bars or in an umbrella bar. You can hear the unmistakable style of traditional, stylish Orleans and Creole jazz from afar - I'm sure it will also infect you with the light-heartedness and joie de vivre contained in this music. So that you don't miss any of the nine free concerts, here is the programme for Dixieland Week 2025 in Zauchensee. Ideally, you should combine the concerts with a day of skiing in the sun. On the piste in the morning and swinging to the Dixie sound in the afternoon/evening - sounds like a perfect day, doesn't it?

photo credits: Nadia Jabli Photography, Zauchensee Liftgesellschaft