23 - 31 MAY 2025 //
USF VERFTET // BERGEN
A Collective Endeavor to Strengthen Bergen's Jazz Scene
Before the Bergen Jazz Forum (BJF) was established in 1972 and the BJF board initiated Nattjazz, there had been a number of jazz venues in Bergen. These venues shared the common feature that they were usually run by a few passionate individuals, and their operations were vulnerable to the priorities of these individuals. Only a few of these venues lasted more than a couple of years.
BJF and Nattjazz could hardly have survived for 50 years if they were not collective endeavors. BJF was started by a group of people in their early twenties. Most of them were students and musicians, with the opportunity to invest a lot of time and energy into running the club and the festival.
From the outset, the organizational structure was notably collective. The club and the festival were run by a large working board. The members had various roles and tasks, but decisions were made collectively. As an organization, BJF/Nattjazz reflected the ideals of grassroots democracy that were prevalent in the 1970s.
In more recent times, there has been a widespread belief that BJF/Nattjazz was established as a countercultural reaction to the bourgeois Bergen International Festival (FiB). This was also a time when the number of students in Bergen had rapidly increased, and countercultural impulses and radical political ideologies shaped Norwegian student communities. The BJF environment also had its radicals. But what united the people in BJF was a strong sense of community and the goal of developing Bergen's jazz scene as an alternative to the then Oslo-dominated Norwegian jazz scene.
Behind the music
NATTJAZZ 50 YEARS
Heads nodding rhythmically to Art Blakey. Hearts breaking to Maria Kannegard's delicate piano playing. Excited Bergen residents getting to experience "The King of Soul." Over 50 years, Nattjazz has given musicians the opportunity to play, and audiences the chance to listen and feel. But a festival like Nattjazz is much more than just music. This is one story about some of the things behind the music.
By Trond Erlien
More Competition
Before Nattjazz celebrated its tenth festival in 1982, its profits had never fallen below 13 percent. The 1982 festival made a profit of 5 percent, and five years later, the festival experienced its first deficit. The explanation lay partly in increased competition. The audience now had more options: at home, in nightlife, and in cultural life. At the same time, the festival's growing ambitions had driven its expenses upward.
When Nattjazz moved to the Student Center in 1978, it opened up entirely new possibilities. The festival grew in size, with more stages and concerts, and more expensive artists. Nattjazz continued its original mission of promoting the Bergen jazz scene. However, the festival's program increasingly featured international artists within jazz and related genres.
The festival's finances began to demand more attention. It still relied almost entirely on ticket sales for its income. BJF also put more energy into securing public funding. In the 1980s, even FiB's funding was cut, making this work a challenge. From 1978 to 1988, both BJF and Nattjazz received sporadic public funding to cover deficits on individual events. It wasn't until 1989 that Nattjazz received regular municipal support.
The years from 1978 to the early 1990s were characterized by gradual growth and expansion of the festival's profile. Several developments in the 1990s marked a shift, making it fair to say that a new festival was emerging.
Photo: Radka Toneff, Nattjazz 1982
A New Economic Reality and a New Organization
In 1994, Nattjazz moved from the Student Center to USF Verftet. The move was controversial. Many feared the loss of the atmosphere at the Student Center and the student audience. However, USF was a prestigious project that the BJF/Nattjazz community had been investing time and resources into since 1984. Verftet offered more and larger stages, was better equipped for professional stage operations, allowed less room for partying, and provided better conditions for high-quality concert experiences.
The attendance record at the Student Center was around 18,500. In the first year at USF, the festival attracted 30,000 visitors. The organization’s ability to capitalize on the opportunities offered by the venue also expanded significantly.
The festival received state funding starting in 1993, which gradually increased over time. With public funding as a foundation, efforts to secure sponsorship funds were intensified. In 1988, 87 percent of the revenue came from ticket sales, 12.8 percent from public support, and 0.2 percent from sponsorship. By 1998, 22 percent of the income came from sponsors, and 35 percent from public support. During the same period, the festival's revenue more than doubled. This financial growth allowed Nattjazz to build its organization.
BJF/Nattjazz had a shared managing director starting in 1989 and hired a producer in 1994. From 2002, Nattjazz appointed its own managing director on a full-time basis and employed a production manager. The efficient use of the civilian service program also contributed to expanding administrative capacity.
While the professional organization strengthened the continuity of operations, USF set new demands for volunteer work. Before 1994, all work related to planning and running the festival had been carried out by a working board that was involved year-round. From the outset, USF required that Nattjazz build a temporary organization for each festival, consisting of professionals, 20-30 paid volunteers in leadership roles, and several hundred volunteers who handled tasks such as security, ensuring artists' needs were met, selling tickets, and cleaning. This large corps of volunteers became a crucial condition for the festival's existence.
Photo: The Band, Nattjazz 1994
A New Jazz Festival Takes Shape
Around 1990, Nattjazz received criticism for giving local musicians preferential treatment by offering them regular gigs. Internally, there was also some dissatisfaction with the local focus. At the same time, there were changes within the organization, with some long-standing members leaving. The new professional organization was made up of people who did not share the same attachment to the original goals of the 1970s.
During the 1990s, the organization set new and more ambitious objectives. Greater financial flexibility, larger and more adaptable venues, and a larger, more complex organization made it possible to achieve these goals. The festival moved away from its local profile. Other Norwegian jazz, particularly from the "jazzlinja" (jazz program) in Trondheim, gained more attention. At the same time, the festival’s focus became broader and more international. From the start, American jazz had held a central place, but the program increasingly included European jazz and other forms of rhythmic music from around the world.
The most visible change, however, was the large concerts held outside the venue, in the open air and in tents in the square in front of the venue, or in the industrial hall at "Kjødetomten."
Inspired by major European festivals such as North Sea Jazz, Montreux, and the London Jazz Festival, the management began booking international artists with commercial appeal. With artists like The Band, James Brown, and Diana Krall, Nattjazz became recognized on a much larger scale. Between the 1990s and 2000s, Nattjazz became Norway's largest jazz festival for several years, surpassing the older festivals in Molde and Kongsberg.
Photo: Røkeriet, before it was renovated in 2013.
Great Opportunities, Great Mistakes
For a festival with ambitions to become one of Northern Europe's largest and foremost for progressive rhythmic music, the years from the late 1990s until around 2010 were something of a golden age. Broad public support and professional sponsorship efforts gave the festival management significant room to maneuver. However, greater freedom also opened up more opportunities for mistakes.
It is impossible to run a festival for 50 years without "messing up," as one central figure at Nattjazz has stated. Nattjazz has undoubtedly had its "mess-ups," where high ambitions collided with poor planning and a lack of financial discipline. In 1996, Nattjazz ran a deficit amounting to more than 20 percent of its revenue. In 1999, the rain-soaked Van Morrison concert led to the festival being harshly criticized in the local press.
For Nattjazz, such events have served as "wake-up calls." The organization has had to learn to plan with greater precision—both financially and in terms of event logistics.
Nattjazz 2008, Bryan Ferry
50 Years of Jazz?
A broader profile has attracted new and more audiences to the festival. At the same time, some have disappeared.
From the start in 1973, the program was firmly rooted in traditional American jazz. By the early 1980s, new jazz clubs began emerging in Bergen as a result of Nattjazz focusing more on modern jazz, while traditional genres like swing and dixieland were given less attention. Since the 1990s, the festival has faced criticism for diluting the concept of jazz: for featuring too many commercial elements, for incorporating other forms of rhythmic music besides jazz, and for having too much modern improvisational music (sometimes called "pling plong").
Over 50 years, the program profile has undoubtedly changed, both due to deliberate choices and because the musical landscape is constantly evolving. However, all 50 Nattjazz programs have still seemed shaped by the belief that there is no contradiction between presenting jazz and other types of music. On the contrary, the underlying idea seems to have been that a varied program both attracts new audiences to jazz and helps finance more dedicated jazz events.
Photo: Medeski, Martin & Wood, Nattjazz
A More Focused Profile
In the 2000s, lucrative sponsorship deals gave the festival the opportunity to maintain a high level of activity. The program had a broad profile, with classic "headline" artists who had wide commercial appeal.
After 2010, the sponsorship market dried up, and competition became stronger. For a time, Nattjazz held a unique position when it came to attracting major artists to Bergen. In the last 10-15 years, players like Bergen Live/Bergenfest and Stageway have taken over this market. More festivals have emerged, and FiB has increasingly booked typical Nattjazz artists. In a situation with less financial flexibility and increased competition, the festival's profile has consciously shifted.
Following the renovation of Verftet in 2011-2012 and Nattjazz's revitalizing role as a neighborhood festival in Vågsbunnen in 2012, the festival has honed a more focused format at Verftet. The festival is now shorter, with fewer stages and concerts. Its profile is more firmly rooted in narrower genres, including jazz and other rhythmic and improvisational music. One goal is for 70% of the program to feature newly written music, and the festival is commissioning more music. The festival now focuses less on artists with broad commercial appeal and more on artistically distinctive musicians who fit the profile. Nattjazz has fewer visitors, but many of them attend several concerts. There are now more dedicated Nattjazz followers.
Photo: The great success in Vågsbunnen. Nattjazz 2012
A Festival Based on Volunteers
In the early 2000s, Nattjazz took its final step toward professionalization. The board, which until then had been a working board where everyone took part in the festival's operations, was now restructured into a professional board responsible only for overarching principles. As part of its strategic planning, the board discussed taking the professionalization even further. Inspired by the model of large European festivals, some envisioned Nattjazz becoming a business-like event organizer with only paid staff. This idea was quickly rejected.
Instead, Nattjazz has focused on being as much of a volunteer-based organization as possible. The fundamental idea behind the organization is that creating a great festival is about ensuring that those who work there feel like they are part of the festival. This is not achieved with money, but by making the festival a place where people want to be. If Nattjazz is, in any way, a good festival, one important reason is that those who do all the work behind the music want to be there.
If that’s the case, it bodes well for the future.
Alcohol Monopoly and Success
While the Bergen International Festival (FiB) did not serve as an ideological motivation for establishing a jazz scene, the country's largest music festival at the time was crucial to the creation of Nattjazz.
With support from FiB, BJF received the first liquor license for a nightclub in Bergen. "Night Jazz," as the event was called in its early years, was an intensified club operation spanning 15 evenings organized by BJF. The venue from 1973 to 1977 was *Håndverkeren*, the basement of what is now known as *Ricks*. Each night featured two bands, most of which were locally based and played multiple nights.
At a time when alcohol regulations were restrictive, FiB helped BJF maintain a monopoly on offering Bergen residents "a drink" after 10 p.m. The combination of an alcohol monopoly and live music on late spring evenings proved to be a successful formula. Nattjazz sold out every night during its first five years. With minimal expenses and ticket sales as the sole source of income, the profit margin varied between 13 and 30 percent. The profits from the festival were used to develop the Bergen jazz scene.