Festival News

Roland Held First Ever V-Accordian Festival

Source: All About Jazz
October 6, 2008

In conjunction with the second International Roland V-Accordion Festival, Roland Corporation U.S. held the first ever U.S. V-Accordion Festival in Los Angeles on September 20, 2008. Contestants hailed from all over the country, and played in styles ranging from Jazz to Celtic. Each contestant was given an FR-7 V-Accordion to play during their five-minute performance. A panel of five judges including Frank Marocco, Joan Cochran Sommers and Eddie Monteiro awarded top honors to finalist Joseph Natoli. As the grand prize ...

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Sights from the 2nd Street Festival

Source: RVAjazz
October 6, 2008

The Jackson Ward community came alive this weekend with the 18th annual 2nd Street Festival. The festival kicked off on Friday night with a dance party featuring Johnny Houston & The Legends, but it wasn't until Saturday that all four performance stages would show some of Richmond's best musicians.From 2nd Street FestivalI started off early Saturday afternoon at the Waverly R. Crawley Main Stage to catch a little bit of Saturday's first performers, the Johnny Peyton ...

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Big Festival in a Small Town

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 4, 2008

The Yakima Herald-Republic asked me to write about the musicians who will appear in The Seasons Fall Festival October 10-18. The piece ran in On Magazine, the paper's weekly arts and entertainment supplement. Here is the lead paragraph:

A weeklong festival of this quality would make a splash in any major city, including New York and Los Angeles. The Seasons has managed to put it together in a high-desert town of 85,000 people in the upper left corner ...

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Jazz Fans Can Start Bopping Again

Source: All About Jazz
October 3, 2008

Just three weeks ago, it looked like the end of the road for the Portland Jazz Festival. As the event’s organizers explained, a major sponsor had pulled out, leaving them with no choice but to pull the plug on the five-year-old event, which had attracted so much favorable attention — not to mention tourist dollars — to the City of Roses. Unless they received a “miracle” infusion of $100,000, they said, the festival — including all events scheduled for this ...

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Chandler Home of Growing Jazz Scene

Source: All About Jazz
October 3, 2008

Already one of the largest cities in the state, Chandler is growing more sophisticated as well. One of the premier events on the downtown social calendar is the yearly jazz festival. The ninth annual Chandler Jazz Festival this spring drew an estimated 20,000 people over three days, besting the previous high of 8,000. It included free concerts in A.J. Chandler Park and ticketed events at the Center for the Arts featuring national acts. “Last year we took it to another ...

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Portland Festival Performers to be Named

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 3, 2008

The Portland Jazz Festival's news conference yesterday yielded no information about performers for the revived festival. A pledge of major support from Alaska Airlines on Tuesday brought the festival back from the dead. The demise of the event was announced in early September, but Alaska Air came zooming in “out of the blue," as artistic director Bill Royston put it, to resuscitate the festival.

At the news conference, festival officials did not name headliners or other musicians for the festival, which ...

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Alaska Airlines Rescues Portland Jazz Festival

Source: All About Jazz
October 2, 2008

The 2009 Portland Jazz Festival will go on after all, organizers announced Wednesday, after Alaska Airlines donated $100,000 over two years to save the festival. Money was tight. Organizers had already canceled the Portland Jazz Festival, and now staffers were ready to cut off the office phone when “The Call" came. Seattle-based Alaska Airlines was on the phone. The company wanted to help save the festival at the eleventh hour. “It was my all-time favorite cold call," said Sarah Bailen ...

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Austin City Limits | 09.26 - 09.28 | Texas

Source: JamBase
October 1, 2008

Words by: Sarah Hagerman | Images by: Dniel Perlaky & Jacqueline Fernandez

Austin City Limits Music Festival :: 09.26.08 - 09.28.08 :: Zilker Park :: Austin, TX

This past weekend I found myself at Austin City Limits Music Festival, with a dizzying amount of music to choose from - “130 bands, eight stages, 3 days," the sign bragged.

ACL 2008 by Perlaky Honestly, I prefer smaller festivals, where you can stick to a concept, as well as keeping the ...

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