With the philosophy of offering top-class cultural activity during the city’s quietest month, in 2003 the Mas i Mas group began the San Miguel Mas i Mas Festival, an event which today is a classic feature of August nights in Barcelona. The Mas i Mas Group’s premises at the time – the Jamboree, La Cova del Drac-Jazzroom, La Boîte and the Moog – hosted nearly all the 70 concerts scheduled in this first festival. However, the event had a surprise in store for fans: for the first time in its history, a jazz session was held at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. A group led by trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonist Bill Evans was the first jazz band to set foot on stage at the opera house in La Rambla. A band led by Jerry González closed the first festival at the Victòria Theatre.
The first San Miguel Mas i Mas Festival was a success and the event gradually became established as the most important cultural activity in the city during August. In 2004 there was once again jazz at the Liceu, this time with two super combos, one led by Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Joshua Redman, and the other by Llibert Fortuny and Perico Sambeat. Musicians like Robert Glaspert, Antonio Hart, Las Migas and DJ Óscar Mulero were on the bill in 2004. The following year, the festival made the leap to the Palau de la Música Catalana, with Raynald Colom, Llibert Fortuny, Pepe Habichuela and the Cuban Ibrahim Ferrer. In 2006, it was the turn of McCoy Tyner, Esperanza Spalding and a brand-new duo, Mayte Martín and Omara Portundo, at the Palau and a coproduction with the Enderrock group, “Dioptria 2.0”, to pay tribute to Pau Riba in the big hall at the Auditori.
The 2007 festival enjoyed the presence of a jazz legend, Wayne Shorter, who offered a performance with his famous quartet at the Auditori, the same stage where Peret celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth of Catalan rumba. Apart from a significant increase in Cuban music (Manolito Simonet y su Trabuco, NG La Banda, etc.), that year Perico Sambeat presented his big band at the Grec Theatre. The historic amphitheatre at Montjuïc was one of the star venues in 2008, hosting two sessions of live music a day, with artists as diverse as Giula Valle, Astrio, Nevoa, Miquel Gil and so on. Apart from the Grec, another distinctive feature of this year was the consolidation of the classical music sessions, with the “30 Minutes of Music” cycle at La Pedrera.
The singers Rokia Traoré and Sole Giménez were among the stars of the 2010 festival. As an important new feature, a cycle of small-format performances was begun in the chamber music room at the Palau de la Música, with three half-hour sets a day of jazz, flamenco, classical music and world music. Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Refree opened the cycle, which continued in 2011 with two outstanding concerts: Llibert Fortuny as a solo artist and Santiago Auserón with the guitarist Joan Vinyals. The other significant new feature was the recovery of the orchestral piece Nova Catalònia, by the composer Joan Manén. In 2012, the pop group Level 42 opened the festival at the Palau de la Música. That year at the Apolo, tribute was paid to Miles Davis by an ad-hoc big band with special guests including Andrea Motis and Carles Benavent.
Soul, featuring Imany and Sara Pi, was one of the outstanding genres of the tenth-anniversary edition of the festival. Other names from 2013 were: Andrea Motis and Joan Chamorro, at the Palau; Hermeto Pascoal, Erik Truffaz and Sun Ra Arkesta at the Apolo; and the Barcelona Municipal Band, conducted by Salvador Brotons, which gave a free concert in the Plaça del Rei. In 2014, the Born Cultural Centre was added as a festival venue, with a series of concerts by Maria del Mar Bonet. Another important name from 2014 was Paquito D’Rivera, who performed with different line-ups for a whole week at the Jamboree. The Reial Cercle Artístic, hosting classical concerts, was the new venue in 2015, when artists such as Pepe Habichuela performed.
2016 was one of the most prolific festivals, with successes as great as the historic performance by Hermeto Pascoal at the Jamboree. Other outstanding concerts from 2016 were: Maria del Mar Bonet and Martirio in a joint concert at the Palau, Manolo Sanlúcar, also at the Palau; and Lee Konitz, Ellis Marsalis, John Abercrombie and Peter King at the Jamboree. The Grec Theatre was once again a festival venue in 2017, with performances by Chano Domínguez, Mariola Membrives, Eva Yerbabuena and Paco Ibáñez, among others. The soul of Imany and the acid jazz of Incognito respectively opened and closed the festival at the Palau. Uri Caine, on solo piano (Jamboree); Alfonso Vilallonga and Marco Mezquida (El Born); and Karime Amaya (Los Tarantos) were also outstanding names at the San Miguel Mas i Mas Festival ’17.
The Coliseum Theatre was the venue gained by the Mas i Mas Festival in 2018. Incognito, Andrea Motis and Clarence Bekker all performed there. The other great new feature was the agreement with the Global Music Foundation (GMF), a well-known academic organisation based in London, to hold a seminar in Barcelona during the first week in August with teachers like Eddie Henderson, Bruce Barth, René Marie and Perico Sambeat, who also performed at the Jamboree. The dancers El Yiyo and El Tete were the great sensation at the Tarantos. The same dancing pair performed in 2019, when the GMF experiment was repeated, with legends like Charles McPherson, Jean Toussaint and Carla Cook. Performances at the Coliseum included the show “I’m a Soul Woman” and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.
