XJazz Festival

Since 2014, the current jazz scene has found its outlet in the annual XJazz Festival with a variety of local and international jazz avant-gardists, purists and an eclectic array of cross-genre hybrids sharing stages in clubs, bars and churches around Kreuzberg. This year is no exception. Overlapping with the FilmPolska festival, it brings our eastern neighbours into the mix with a series of Polish team-ups, including a one-off opening performance by the Berlin X Warschau Ensemble at Watergate (May 3). XJazz makes a point of encouraging boundary-breaking partnerships between instrumentalists and rap artists; always on the lookout for the next big collaboration, Berlin’s André de Ridder has taken up the baton this time around, inviting rappers Inna Modja and Malikah to join his Stargaze ensemble at Emmauskirche (May 6). Our city’s ever-resurgent obsession with Afrobeat gets a nod in the form of Nigerian veterans Orlando Julius and Tony Allen, and the programme tops off with some of those experimental pop and electro artists who tend to find their way onto Berlin festival line-ups regardless of genre, like Pantha du Prince, Liima (ex-Efterklang), Dillon and Max Graef. Various venues, see website for full programme.