Barbados

Coordinates: 13°10′N 59°33′W / 13.167°N 59.550°W / 13.167; -59.550

Barbados (ⁱ/bɑːrˈbeɪdɒs/ or /bɑːrˈbeɪdoʊs/) is a sovereign island country in the Lesser Antilles, in the Americas. It is 34 kilometres (21 mi) in length and up to 23 kilometres (14 mi) in width, covering an area of 432 square kilometres (167 sq mi). It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about 168 kilometres (104 mi) east of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and 400 kilometres (250 mi) north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados is outside of the principal Atlantic hurricane belt. Its capital is Bridgetown.

Inhabited by Kalingo people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Amerindians, Barbados was visited by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century and claimed for the Spanish Crown. It first appears on a Spanish map from 1511. The Portuguese visited the island in 1536, but they left it unclaimed, with their only remnants being an introduction of wild hogs for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited. An English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados in 1625; its men took possession of it in the name of King James I. In 1627, the first permanent settlers arrived from England, and it became an English and later British colony.

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.