Anchorage Jazz Hero
A musical force of nature who relocated to Alaska from New York City in 2002, Jazz Hero Yngvil Vatn Guttu has single handedly built a musical empire in the far north for independent Alaskan musicians. As a jazz trumpet player, creator and director for Anchorage’s most beloved jazz festival and the founding director for numerous nonprofit initiatives dedicated to amplifying Alaskan music, her mark on Alaska’s music scene is indelible and vibrant.
Yngvil’s approach to musical advocacy and community-building is as free-form and inspired as musical improvisation. Her vision for activating Alaskan musicians in new ways continually ventures into uncharted territory and, like improvisation, spirals off into a million colorful directions before finding its way back to the theme.
“I am an improviser at heart,” she says, “but I like things to eventually have some kind of structure . . . My passion is learning and trying new things, so I end up ‘dragging’ my collaborators along through the process . . . for good or for bad!”
A native of Oslo, Norway, Guttu arrived in Anchorage in summer 2002 as a touring musician and after three days felt a strong sense of community here and the calling to stay. She worked in the state early on as a youth educator in music and theater (Alaska Theatre of Youth, University of Alaska Anchorage Theater Department, EnviroBeat), before turning her attention to jazz.
At the time, there was no platform for composing jazz musicians in Alaska to perform original music. She dreamed up the Spenard Jazz Fest in 2008 and launched the first festival with a cohort of eight jazz musicians who were also composers presenting one hour of material each. It was such a huge success that 15 years later the festival has become an annual tradition for a varied swath of the entire state’s performing musicians, from jazz to folk to classical.
Today, the Spenard Jazz Fest spans multiple weeks; attracts internationally known headliners and features dance, film, poetry, musical wilderness hikes and visual arts alongside music workshops and concerts. It was the first Alaska festival to go online during the summer of 2020 and offered three weeks of nightly two-hour live-streamed and pre-recorded events.
Yngvil’s vision for original music also led to the creation of the AK Real Book, the far north’s version of the bestselling jazz book of all time, featuring 52 Alaskan composers and 310 pages of original music. The AK Real Book is distributed to schools across the state and is available as an online download and in print.
Her musical legacy also include three album releases on Kachemak Records, her own label, with one album reaching number five on the CMJ charts in both the United States and Canada. She has performed as a side woman on dozens of other recording projects.
A mostly comprehensive list of the Alaskan music projects and organizations Yngvil currently leads or co-leads includes the Alaska Independent Musicians Initiative, the annual Alaska Music Summit, Amplify Alaska (a fundraiser series focused on pairing Alaskan musicians with nonprofits), Music City Anchorage Project, Music Alaska (the state’s nascent organization focused on branding and exporting Alaskan music) and Northern Culture Exchange besides the Spenard Jazz Fest.
She has been honored by the Alaska State House and Senate for her work in the community and is the recipient of numerous performing grants and artist awards. Needless to say, it’s hard for Yngvil to maintain a performing career with all that she has going on.
“These days I’m a composer, producer, teacher, nonprofit director, festival director, grant writer, music advocate . . . I’ll get back to performing one day. There’s too much other work to be done.”
And when it comes to work to be done for Alaskan musicians, Jazz Hero Yngvil is doing it. — Emily (Kurn) Tallman; photo © Josh Genuino
