What is European jazz, what makes it different from the original of the species - and is it better, asks Stuart Nicholson

The re-release of Europeana, an evanescent album by pianist Joachim Kühn and the Radio Philharmonie Hannover NDR, once again raises the question of whether there is such a thing as European jazz. A seemingly straightforward question, but like so many questions in the world of jazz, there are no straightforward answers.

A European playing jazz does not always result in European jazz. While jazz may be a universal language, the dialect in which it is usually spoken is American. To break the mould poses problems of "authenticity" - particularly for Americans, to whom a music shaped by the Afro-American experience becomes less meaningful when played by non-Americans in a non-American way.

This culturally imperialistic view was reflected in the 10-part television history Jazz by the American film-maker Ken Burns, screened by the BBC in June 2001. In it, the narrative of jazz history was set exclusively within the borders of the United States. It completely ignored how jazz has acquired other histories in other countries, such as Europe, which embraced the music as an engagement with modernity after the horrors of the first World War.

Today, "European jazz" is a vast catch-all that includes "global" American styles played à la mode by Europeans and a variety of hybridised local - or "glocal" - approaches to the music. One way in which a glocal response to jazz has been shaped is through the incorporation of local folkloric traditions into the music.

This can be traced back to the American saxophonist Stan Getz's 1951 recording of a traditional Swedish folk-song called Ack, Värmeland du Sköna. It was subsequently recorded twice by Miles Davis as Dear Old Stockholm, the second time most famously on 'Round About Midnight, his historic debut on the Columbia record label released in 1957. For musicians in Europe it effectively gave the green light to introduce local folkloric elements into jazz.

In 1962, the Swedish trumpeter and arranger Bengt-Arne Wallin became a pioneer in combining folk and jazz with his album, Old Folklore in Swedish Modern (now re-released by the ACT label). At the time Wallin argued: "folk music is a definite form, a living phenomenon, created by real people, inherited and brought to perfection through generations, and is still full of life today."

The album became a favourite of record producer Siggi Loch. "In retrospect this was the birth of Swedish folk jazz and a milestone of jazz made in Europe," he says. "Since I first heard it, the music never left me. Thirty years later and now a producer for my own record label, I asked Michael Gibbs to write Europeana using folkloric themes from around Europe arranged for symphony orchestra and jazz soloists. We recorded it in 1995 with Joachim Kühn and the Radio Philharmonie Hannover and dedicated the record to Bengt Arne-Wallin."

Yet the suite, which includes two songs from Ireland, She Moved Through the Fair and Londonderry Air, was never performed in public until September 10th this year. In Hamburg's Laeiszhalle, Europeana finally had its world premiere with the NDR Pops Orchestra, conducted by Jörg Achim Keller, with jazz soloists Joachim Kühn, Nils Landgren, Klaus Doldinger, Markus Stockhausen, Christof Lauer, Lars Danielsson and vocalist Viktoria Tolstoy.

It was a stunning event. Arranger Michael Gibb's orchestrations sounded fresh and dynamic, while each soloist seemed to rise to the occasion with performances, profundity and joy that perfectly matched the music's intention.

After the concert, the Norwegian trombonist Nils Landgren said: "Europeana has grown in meaning since it was released. When it first came out I must be honest and say I didn't pay that much attention to it. I liked it, but I didn't get the full meaning of it, then I realised the way Mike Gibbs has orchestrated it is absolutely a stroke of genius, you can sense every country like a trip in music.

"It says a lot about European jazz that we can take our own music and mix it with jazz. If we were to ask Bengt-Arne about it today, I feel sure he would say that back in 1962, when he did Old Folklore in Swedish Modern, it gave him and all the other musicians in Europe a chance of finding their own identity, which was not the case before, because everybody was trying to imitate as much as they could, and play as good as they could, the American way of playing jazz."

Today, across Europe, many musicians are reflecting their own cultural heritage in the music. "In Europe we have a very personal jazz language - each country," says the German saxophonist Christof Lauer. "It's a kind of identity, from each country, and it sounds totally different. [ In Europeana] I played this song from Finland, Kylä Voutti Utta Kutta, and it's a simple melody, but it sounds Finnish. It's a kind of tune you wouldn't find in Germany, for example. And the way Michael Gibbs did it, I like it - he's the kind of writer and arranger that has his ear in the songs, and arranges the songs in their own way.

"I play a lot with French musicians, for example, and they have something different in their music, something that I have to say is 'French', and this holds true with Italian musicians I often play with. They somehow sound 'Italian'. I don't know how to describe any other way. For me in Germany I am influenced by classical music. I think this is the European way of jazz. I have an American friend, [ saxophonist] Joe Lovano, and he says that America is now looking to Europe, they are inspired by the way we deal with music here. We have our own sound and they are interested in this."

In a concert that was never short of high spots, a memorable moment was provided by the Swedish singer Viktoria Tolstoy, whose vocal on Ack, Värmeland du Sköna was nothing short of inspirational. With it the wheel seemed to turn full circle, from the realisation in 1951 that jazz could be enriched from "local" sources outside the United States, to Tolstoy's vocal that was a triumphant celebration of what has become a distinctive European approach to jazz.

"Folk music defines us, gives us a sense of identity," she says. "Every country has its own style, energy and tone language, I really think it is a big part of our identity as Europeans. Jazz in Europe is very much alive, it comes through more and more now, it is important we don't hide in the music where we come from. From my perspective European jazz is now more in the air than American jazz - that's my opinion."

Europeana with Joachim Kühn and others has just been re-released on 16-bit Direct Stream Digital (ACT 9802-4)