Charles ‘City’ Gatt and all that jazz
“I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light.” – Miles Davis
Charles ‘City’ Gatt, who sadly passed away last February, will always be associated with the Malta Jazz Festival and its origins in the early 90s. He has left a legacy that will be a hard act to follow. However, Gatt, besides being one of Malta’s best-ever jazz exponents, for almost a decade was also the head of the Malta School of Music, nurturing a love for the jazz music form among many of his students.
This year, the Malta Jazz Festival, in its 32nd edition, will feature a number of big names performing on the stage at Ta’ Liesse, a place that symbolises the festival itself. Organising a jazz festival in Malta had been the dream of Gatt for years, thinking of the spectacular setting of the Grand Harbour and the Three Cities and the Cottonera area as its majestic backdrop. In fact, I believe it was Chick Corea, the late eminent jazz pianist, who, during one of his two performances at the Malta Jazz Festival, marvelled at the spectacular environs and exclaimed: “I never thought I would perform in such a postcard setting.”
“My first memories of the jazz...