Malta will be alive with the sound of jazz this summer, no more so than at the 5-star Phoenicia Hotel's 'Rotunda' on Monday July 15 when Phoenicia's 7.5 acre garden hosts Jazz on the Fringe in the form of trio Sandro Zerafa on guitar, Matyas Szandai playing doublebass and Lionel Boccara tapping out on the drums. Entrance is free to the general public and the performance commences at 8:00pm.

In parallel with Jazz on the Fringe, British artist Jeni Caruana will be exhibiting her jazz-fusion-art in Phoenicia’s lobby launching on July 15, to coincide with this special Jazz on the Fringe performance.

Jazz on the Fringe, a 12-day programme of local jazz music, will bring together some of Malta’s renowned jazz musicians and international performers to play in various music venues, restaurants and bars around the island. In the days preceding and following the main Malta Jazz Festival, a number of events, including masterclasses and open-air concerts like the one at Phoenicia's 'Rotunda' will also be held. The Fringe gives everyone the chance to share their jazzy gifts.

Sandro Zerafa is one of the most active guitarists on the Paris jazz scene. Graduate of the Lyons Conservatory he is winner of several awards at La Defense jazz contest and a founder member of the Parisian based jazz musicians' collective, Paris Jazz Underground. He has recorded 2 award-winning albums as a leader and 14 albums as a sideman. He currently leads his own band featuring Laurent Coq, Yoni Zelnik, Fred Pasqua and Olivier Zanot. He has performed and recorded with musicians as diverse as Chico Buarque, Manu Katché, Joe Cohn, Youn Sun Nah, Sergio Krakowski amongst others. He has toured extensively in France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Brazil, S.Korea, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Morocco. He is artistic director of the Malta Jazz Festival and Jazz on the Fringe since 2009.

For this Jazz on the Fringe event, Sandro will be accompanied by a rhythm section composed of Matyas Szandai on bass and Lionel Boccara on drums. They will revisit standards from the American songbook.

Matyas Szandai is a graduate in doublebass from the classical departement of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. He has had the opportunity to play and record with famous musicians such as Archie Shepp, David Murray, Herbie Mann, Chico Freeman, Rosario Giuliani, Charlie Mariano, Hamid Drake, William Parker, Rob Brown, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Gerard Presencer, Robin Eubanks, Chris Potter, Flavio Boltro, John Ellis, Zbigniew Namislowski, Daniel Szabo ,Mihaly Dresch, Kalman Olah etc. With various line-ups he has toured America, India and has performed in almost every country in Europe. He is currently residing in Paris, France.

Lionel Boccara is another highly active musician in the Parisian Jazz Scene. He tours regularly with Japanese piano player Yutaka Shina (of Elvin Jones' Jazz Machine fame) and he is resident drummer in a number of venues in the French capital. He performs regularly with Romain Pilon, Hugo Lippi, David Prez, Martin Jacobsen and other important musicians active in Paris.

With her new exhibition at Phoenicia, Jeni Caruana shows how her work as a pioneer impressionist painter of Malta’s jazz scene has created an international iconography to wide acclaim that has deepened audience enjoyment in Malta’s premier jazz festival. Jeni’s Jazz Cocktails highlight her auricular brush with Malta’s jazz performers in scintillating chromatic intensity with a range of painting forms including representation, collage, advanced graphic techniques and abstract impressionism. All Jeni’s jazz paintings are created live at the events and not working from photos or sketches. The works are therefore immediate impressions created on the spot, which is what lends the paintings a unique and distinctive character. The exhibition runs to July 24 at Phoenicia’s Palm Court.