Per Erik – more than 50 years in the festival's service!

Per Erik Stokke has been involved in the Kongsberg Jazz Festival for over five decades. He is a volunteer in the media group, where he is responsible for audio and video recordings for the archive. Throughout their time at the jazz festival, the group has collected several thousand sound recordings.

Per Erik was hooked on the festival as early as 1967, when he came from Drammen to hear Roland Kirk, a blind jazz multi-instrumentalist who played four horns at the same time. - It was an intense experience, once in a lifetime, and the experience from Kirk's concert is the reason why Per Erik is involved in the festival.

In 1970, he had a serious job interview at Gamle Norge, where he got a job as a sound technician. In the first years, it was four or five people who made the sound and did everything. At that time there were 5 concerts every day for 4 days.

- It is the intense work during the festival that keeps you going. This makes the jazz festival a part of you, explains Stokke.

- You get a close relationship with the people you meet during jazz week, says Per Erik and continues - It's special this year, when we can't hug anyone, which is really special on Monday and Tuesday during the festival, when you meet very good friends again.

Photo: Thomas Hegna

Photo: Tor Magnus Anfinsen

The jazz festival is also an important place to get to know people. He says that he always met acquaintances when he visited Kongsberg but lived elsewhere. It also meant that the choice to move to the jazz city was easy to make. Here he had an established network precisely via the jazz festival.

Stokke thinks it is difficult to single out certain highlights during his years in jazz, especially because he has been privileged to have attended many events. Nevertheless, he highlights Radka Toneff's concert in 1977 as a landmark concert, which can be confirmed by the CD release in 2009 of the recording from the old cinema. And Per Erik states that it is "we" who have made the recording for this record.

- The important thing is to meet the person behind the concert, says Per Erik thoughtfully.

It is important that the jazz festival gives everyone a feeling of being at "their" festival and to build an identity. - For us, it is the jazz festival, and it must have space within the folk festival. People must feel that they are at a jazz festival, and we must build clear meeting places for those interested in the jazz festival itself. This needs to be worked on. This also means that young people can become interested in the festival and the music, believes Stokke.

- An important concept that is important to keep in mind is not how many years you have been involved in jazz, but rather "if you were involved last year". It is important to bring people along in the future. It is particularly important this year, which is a critical year, where people have distanced themselves from the festival. The officials are the gold of the festival and must be treated as such. It is important that jazz retains its identity, concludes this year's 50th anniversary.

Editor's note: Do you want to experience the memorable concert with Radka Toneffs at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in 1977 you will find the concert recording here.

Text: Ann-Mari Lofthus / Cover photo: Thomas Hegna