Edmonton Jazz Festival
Edmonton has a decades-long jazz tradition and a vibrant music and arts community in general; legendary jazz artists Big Miller, Bob Stroup, Judy Sing, PJ Perry and (Senator) Tommy Banks, are but a few of the musicians who launched their storied careers here in Festival City. Perhaps most notably, the Edmonton Jazz Orchestra, an 18-member professional ensemble, sprang from the seeds of the Edmonton Jazz Festival Society.
Festival Project Manager, Liz Lepper, says the jazz scene here owes much to local institutions which turn out a good percentage of talent; from Grant MacEwan University's Bachelor of Music in Contemporary and Jazz, to The University of Alberta and Concordia, both of which offer reputable music studies.
“The Festival runs from June 24 to July 3, and takes place in venues throughout the city,” says Lepper. “Essentially, its a series of indoor concerts running over 10 days, rather than a centralized festival taking place on one outdoor stage.”
Lepper says that the Jazz City Festival ran in Edmonton for nearly 30 years before it was dissolved in 2005. At that time, the Edmonton Jazz Society established the Yardbird Jazz Festival in the summers of 2005 and 2006, with producer Kent Sangster - a Juno-nominated jazz saxophonist - at the helm. Since 2007, Sangster, in coordination with the Edmonton Jazz Festival Society, mounted the present Festival. The event was quick to establish its roots and has since attracted talent from around the globe - as well as here at home.
In addition to it's refined line-up of concerts, the Festival offers the JazzWorks Program – a series of workshops, professional development presentations, and opportunities to perform, for up-and-coming musicians.
This year, American chanteuse, Madeleine Peyroux, is gracing the stage – an absolute must for jazz aficionados and music fans in general, who appreciate refined skill and craft. Peyroux began her music career as a teenage busker and honed her vocal and guitar skills in Europe, basing her approach on the stylings of jazz and blues cornerstones, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong.
Trombone Shorty brings an unprecedented mix of rock, funk, jazz, hip-hop and soul; his unique and compelling signature sound has been coined “supafunkrock”; and with more than 30 recordings and nine Grammy Awards, trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis, is a giant in the jazz world. He is presently the artistic director of the Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra, a dynamic band which features 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players in the world.
You can also catch many intimate New York-style gigs featuring the Curtis MacDonald Quartet, François Bourassa, Full Blast, Eivind Aarset and the Sonic Codex Orchestra, Mederic Collignon, Marianne Trudel, Alex Pangman, Jacek Kochan, Sisters Euclid, Atomic, Ben Powell Quartet, Kellylee Evans’ Nina Simone Project, Kazutoki Umezu KIKI Band and Robert Glasper Trio.
Ticketing details and a full schedule of events are available at www.edmontonjazz.com.