List of jazz festivals

This is an incomplete list of notable jazz music festivals, broken down geographically. The festivals mentioned here should have at least some international recognition. This list generally excludes multi-genre festivals with only a partial focus on jazz, though such fusion festivals may be listed under individual subtopics of Jazz festivals by country.

Jazz has appeared in various festivals since the turn of the century, after the genre originated in African American communities during the late 19th and early 20th century. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, giving rise to many distinctive styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, and Gypsy jazz were the prominent styles. Bebop and cool jazz emerged in the 1940s, and the 1950s saw free jazz, hard bop, and modal jazz. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electronic instruments and the highly amplified stage sound of rock, with large festivals exhibiting the sounds in response. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called "smooth jazz" became successful, and other jazz styles include Afro-Cuban jazz and various fusion genres.

Copenhagen Jazz Festival

Copenhagen Jazz Festival is an annual Jazz event, taking place in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, each July. Copenhagen Jazz Festival was established as a festival in 1979, but already from 1964 Tivoli Gardens presented a series of concerts under the name Copenhagen Jazz Festival with Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and many others.

According to reports, the total attendance was 240,000 people during Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 2004. In 2006 the number of concerts increased to 850, and today Copenhagen Jazz Festival numbers more than 100 venues, 1100 concerts and approximately 260,000 guests - making it one of the largest music events in Europe.

Musicians who have performed at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival include Sonny Rollins, Oscar Peterson, Ray Charles, Michel Petrucciani, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, John Scofield,Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Michel Camilo, Ornette Coleman, Annette Peacock, Svend Asmussen Quartet, Richard Bona, Tony Allen and Chick Corea.

Copenhagen

Copenhagen (IPA /ˌkoʊpənˈheɪɡən/;Danish: København [kʰøb̥m̩ˈhɑʊ̯ˀn] ( listen); also known by other alternative names) is the capital and most populated city of Denmark with an urban population of 1,263,698 (as of 1 January 2015) and a metropolitan population of 2,013,009 (as of 1 October 2015). It is situated on the eastern coast of Zealand, 164 km (102 mi) east of Odense and 28 km (17 mi) northwest of Malmö, Sweden. The city itself is divided in several municipalities. The core "Copenhagen Municipality" for example contains the enclave of Frederiksberg, a municipality in its own right.

Philip Catherine

Philip Catherine (born 27 October 1942 in London, England) is a Belgian jazz guitarist, born to an English mother and a Belgian father, known for his collaborations on numerous albums and with jazz musicians like Chet Baker, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Richard Galliano, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Stéphane Grappelli, Toots Thielemans, Robert Wyatt, Klaus Doldinger, Buddy Guy, Karin Krog, Carla Bley, Larry Coryell, Mike Mantler and Joachim Kühn, and within the progressive rock band Focus.

Biography

Catherine came from a musical family where his grandfather was first violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra, and he early evolved an ear for music. When he picked up the guitar after listening to the guitar of George Brassens, he began listening to jazz from this period. Soon he got the opportunity to play with some of those musicians when performing in Belgium, where he was residing at the time. Catherine has been at the forefront on the European jazz scene from the 1960s, and he got to work with artists like Lou Bennett, Billy Brooks, Edgar Bateman, John Lee, Gerry Brown, Jean-Luc Ponty, Larry Coryell, Alphonse Mouzon, Charlie Mariano, Kenny Drew and Tom Harrell, in addition to the those mentioned above. His unique approach and sound, his dedication to music and, above all, the highly emotional lyricism of expression in his playing and in his music, have been important and influential.

Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated from African American communities of New Orleans in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African American and European American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz spans a period of over a hundred years, encompassing a very wide range of music, making it difficult to define. Jazz makes heavy use of improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swing note, as well as aspects of European harmony, American popular music, the brass band tradition, and African musical elements such as blue notes and African-American styles such as ragtime. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience to the music as well. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".