Festival News

Attendance for Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival Tops Last Year

Source: All About Jazz
July 6, 2009

With a strong artist lineup that included performances by Patti LaBelle, George Benson and Bettye LaVette, SPAC's 2009 Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival had higher attendance than last year. The two-day festival attracted 12, 027 guests, a one percent increase over last year. The northeast's premier jazz festival, the Freihofer's event features more than 20 performances by established and emerging artists from across the jazz spectrum. It has become a destination event for jazz aficionados who appreciate the quality of the ...

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The Great Taste of July in Edmonton

Source: All About Jazz
July 6, 2009

This July, there's something to suit everyone's taste on the Edmonton events calendar. For those who dig jazz, whether it's cool, slow and blue or red hot and hoppin', there's the Edmonton International Jazz Festival, which runs through Sunday, July 5th. Acts at the festival so far have included John Abercrombie Organ Trio and Branford Marsalis Quartet. Once the musical director of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and a sideman of Sting, Marsalis has been compared to the jazz ...

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Montreal International Jazz Festival by the Numbers

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
July 6, 2009

6 - major award winners in 2009. (Bruce Lundvall, Stevie Wonder, John Pizzarelli, Ornette Coleman, Susie Arioli, Toots & The Maytalls)13 - The number of days of the festival this year not counting several preview concert events.30 - When this 30th annual festival began in 1980, a ticket to see opening headliner Ray Charles cost $9.50. This year's top ticket is $129.50 for guitarist Jeff Beck. In contrast, 2009 opening outdoor headliner Stevie Wonder's show was ...

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MIJF 2009 Opens Wonder-Fully

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
July 6, 2009

What a way to kick off the Montreal International Jazz Festival's 30th edition, a 13-day programming marvel that opened June 30 and runs through July 12. Montreal pianist Oliver Jones opened the festival's newest venue, MIJF's year-round cabaret-style jazz club L'Astral, located in the festival's new multiple-purpose Maison du Festival Rio Tinto Alcan (House of the Festival). The six-floor building also contains a bistro, a gallery space that becomes the bustling media center during festivals, archives and staging offices. L'Astral ...

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Worldwide Beat Goes On in Montreal

Source: All About Jazz
July 4, 2009

The International Festival de Jazz de Montreal continued Thursday, July 2, with a slate of fine performances featuring artists from around the globe.

Japanese saxophonist/flutist Sadao Watanabe put on a particularly memorable show in his festival debut at Montreal’s Theatre Jean-Duceppe, backed by a five-piece band that traveled with him all the way from the Land of the Rising Sun. Watanabe’s set made a powerful emotional impact, touching on many jazz styles: swing, bossa nova, a bop burner, contemporary smooth, ...

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Jazzelation at Greenbelt Festival

Source: All About Jazz
July 4, 2009

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Montreal's Amazing Block Party

Source: Ken Franckling's Jazz Notes
July 3, 2009

One of these years, I am truly tempted to go to the Montreal International Jazz Festival strictly for its free, outdoor concerts. The great variety of talent for the paid, indoor concerts in 10 or more venues each night makes it difficult.But the outdoor stages transform downtown Montreal's Place des Arts (soon to be surrounded by an expanded Place des Festivals) into an immense block party that opens in leisurely fashion at midday for early risers. By evening, ...

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Bruce Lundvall Rewarded for His Contributions to the Music Industry

Source: Michael Ricci
July 3, 2009

In keeping with a tradition dating back to the 10th edition and repeated every fifth year with the addition of a new prize, the Festival International de Jazz de Montral marks its 30th anniversary with the creation of the Bruce Lundvall Award, to be presented annually to a non-musician who has left a mark on the world of jazz or contributed to the development of music, through media, concert or record industries. And who is better to be the first ...

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