Festival News

Brazil's Carnival Kicks into High Gear with Parades

Source: All About Jazz
February 23, 2009

Brazil's five-day Carnival got into high gear Sunday with its famous parades in Rio de Janeiro adding choreographed extravagance on top of lusty street parties and fancy-dress balls already underway.

Locals, tourists and television audiences around the world were to be treated to thousands of dancers and the drum bands from the city's samba schools marching behind topless, sequined beauties for two nights of colorful processions.

The parades, a carefully timed competition that comes at the mid-point of Carnival, mark ...

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Springsteen to Headline Glastonbury

Source: All About Jazz
February 23, 2009

Rocker to play Saturday night main-stage. Organizers say Bruce Springsteen will headline Glastonbury, Britain's leading summer music festival.

Glastonbury chief Michael Eavis says the 59-year-old rocker will play the prestigious Saturday night main-stage slot on June 27. Springsteen is due to play an outdoor concert in London's Hyde Park the next day.

Eavis called The Boss “one of the all-time rock legends."

Glastonbury was founded in 1971 and is held on Eavis' farm in southwest England. It is famous for ...

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5th Annual Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival Set for March 6, 7 and 8

Source: All About Jazz
February 23, 2009

In 2004, Peter F. Gontha exclaimed, “If we want to create a jazz festival, let's go all the way; let's make it big, the biggest in the world if possible!" He wasn't joking. On 4, 5 and 6 March 2005, Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival was established. There were 11 stages and 146 performances from Indonesian and international musicians alike. Jeff Lorber, Deodato, George Duke, Angie Stone, Incognito, Michael Paulo, Steve Thornton, Jeff Kashiwa, Tania Maria, Laura Fygi, Vinny Valentino, ...

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Name Your Own Price at Frank Demiero Jazz Festival

Source: Seattle Jazz Scene
February 22, 2009

Tickets for the up-coming Frank DeMiero Jazz Festival are now being offered to the public at not just a reduced price, but at “name your own price” prices. Emails have been sent out offering tickets to all three headlining concerts, which are currently priced between $35 - 40 each, for whatever the ticket buyer would like to pay. From the email: For a limited time, we invite you to NAME YOUR PRICE. That’s right, you decide how much to pay ...

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Celebrate Mardi Gras with New Orleans Piano

Source: All About Jazz
February 22, 2009

It's Mardi Gras week in New Orleans, so it's as good a time as any to join in the celebration with a brief but broad overview of some of the Crescent City's many extraordinary pianists.

One of the beauties of New Orleans piano music is that once you hear it, you'll know it whenever you encounter it again, regardless of context. Whether it's played as jazz or blues or funk, the cultural gumbo that makes up this piano style is ...

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Portland Jazz Festival, Part 3

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
February 21, 2009

Final report on the opening days of the Potland Jazz Festival:

In elegant Schnitzer Hall, clarinetist and tenor saxophonist Don Byron had Edward Simon on piano and Eric Harland on drums in his Ivey-Divey Trio. It was the same instrumentation as the Gross-Frishberg-Doggett trio that played the night before in quite different circumstances (see Part 2). In makeup, feeling and interaction, both groups reflect the Lester Young-Nat Cole-Buddy Rich trio of the mid-1940s. Their lead voices, respectively Byron and John ...

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S.F. Blues Festival Canceled

Source: JamBase
February 20, 2009

REVERED OUTDOOR FESTIVAL STARTED IN 1973 CANCELS 2009 EDITION AND MAY NOT RETURN

Johnny Winter In an article in the Oakland Tribune on Tuesday, San Francisco Blues Festival founder Tom Mazzolini announced that the 2009 festival was being called off, saying, “We may well have seen the last San Francisco Blues Festival."

This year would have marked the event's 37th anniversary, making it one of the longest continuously held blues gatherings in the U.S. Over the years, the ...

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Carnaval to Burst to Life in Hollywood

Source: Michael Ricci
February 20, 2009

Suddenly, Los Angeles is feeling a little like São Paulo. SoCal's largest annual Brazilian Carnaval celebration returns to the Palladium after years in Long Beach.

First, two large Carnaval-related events will take place this weekend -- a festival in Santa Barbara and the annual Brazilian Carnaval at the Palladium Saturday. Then, a DJ-centric dance party dubbed Made in Brazil returns to Hollywood early next month after a well- received August turn at the Avalon, and automaker Scion is ...

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