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Sac. Jazz Jubilee
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Click here for PHOTOS of past Jubilees.
Click here for the JUBILEE website.
Click here for VIDEOS of a few musicians.
What is the Sac. Jazz Jubilee? Every Memorial Day Weekend since 1974, Old Sacramento and other downtown venues have drawn a horde of jazz fans to the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, the top jazz festival in the West. Sponsored by the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society, the event features a lineup that this year includes about 60 bands from all over the USA and Canada, and from all over the stylistic map: traditional jazz, Condon-style classic jazz and swing, rockin' blues, jazzy blues, New Orleans funk (street beat), Western swing, ragtime, salsa, zydeco, gospel, barbershop, and other jazz-influenced music. Some sites are devoted to a certain styles of music (e.g. the Swing Dance Emporium, Blues Unlimited).
The event kicks off with crowds lining the street for a colorful parade on Friday morning, then sparkles with Mardi Gras beads all day long as it runs throughout the weekend and into Monday, propelled by a number of unique shows along the way: a headline act, children's concerts; a Sunday morning gospel "Celebration of Faith"; almost a dozen youth groups; and a "Swing Dance Extravaganza" featuring hundreds of top swing dancers in competition.
Free shuttles transport concertgoers between the event's 20 venues in Old Sacramento and the Convention Center and Midtown hotels. Visit the Jubilee Web site: www.sacjazz.com
Photo by Nancy Giffin. More photos ...
Office Volunteers
Office help is always needed, especially in the months leading up to Jubilee. Please contact us if you can be of help. Thanks! We appreciate you.
Pre-festival Events
"Styles of Traditional Jazz" is a free concert series that takes place in the weeks leading up to the Jubilee. The series has presented, jointly by the Sacramento Public Library and the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society, every year since 1995. Concerts take place in the Tsakopoulos Galleria in side the Sacramento Main Library at 828 I Street (8th and I St.). All bands performing in the series are included in the lineup for the Jubilee. Some of the styles featured in past years: "Ragtime," "Early Swing," and "West Coast Style" Jazz.
Thursday Night Kickoff Party—For those who can't wait for the fun to begin, go to the Radisson Inn on Route 160 just west of downtown on Thursday night before the Jubilee for a grand kickoff concert by the world famous Count Basie Orchestra directed by Bill Hughes. Jubilee volunteers and students and those holding Jubilee all-events badges are eligible for a special discount to the concert. Tickets are sold in advance at the STJS Office or (for a few dollars more) at the door.
Jazz Ambassadors travel throughout Northern California to provide informative entertainment for breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings for hundreds of schools and organizations. If you're looking for a great program for your group, contact the STJS office at (916) 372-5277.
Sacramento Jazz Festival Volunteers—nearly 2,000 of them—are the folks who have made the first three decades of our jazz festival possible. And if we are lucky enough to go a few more years, the volunteers deserve a big chunk of the credit. Volunteers construct and manage the sites, provide cleaning and maintenance, electricity, arrange housing and transportation for musicians, facilitate communications, staff the badge sales locations, conduct demographic and marketing studies, supervise sound and shuttle bus services and handle the myriad of other duties and details a successful festival requires. (Yes, even the bartenders are volunteers. And no, we are not looking for additional volunteers in that category. Don't even ask.) Volunteers wear distinctive shirts and badges at each festival. If you have a question or a problem, ask one of them. You'll find them to be knowledgeable, friendly, and willing to go out of their way to be sure you have a good time.
To learn more about Jazz Sunday concerts,
click here.
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ALL PHOTOS © 2008 NANCY GIFFIN
View more photos on the local news station website, KCRA