San Jose Jazz puts on one of the nation's top jazz festivals and recently added a winter series. They also engage in youth education. It's been going since the 1980s, when it was started by Sammy Cohen and Henry Schiro. Though both are sadly gone from this earth, a new generation of leadership has taken over and kept the festival evolving, embracing funk and blues, with acts like George Clinton, Los Lobos and Amanda Shaw while continuing to attract top flight classic jazz musicians. One of San Jose's top cultural events.
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- EIN 77-0140627
- info@sanjosejazz.org
- 408 288-7557
- 145 West San Carlos Street San Jose CA 95113 USA
- http://www.sanjosejazz.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Mission: San Jose Jazz is a 22 year old 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to promoting jazz through performance and education. The organization is committed to serving one of the most richly diverse and rapidly growing regions in the U.S. Renowned for producing one of the finest jazz festivals in the U.S., San Jose Jazz is also an innovative educational organization whose commitment to education goes back over fifteen years and is at the very core of the organization’s mission.
Geographic areas served: Silicon Valley, Nothern California
Programs: San jose jazz summer festthe san jose jazz summer fest is one of the leading urban music festivals in the nation. It draws in excess of 100,000 diverse attendees annually and features legendary jazz, blues, and salsa, latin jazz artists while providing performance opportunities for emerging and local musicians. The festival is structured around its stages. The main stage is home to the festival's most well-known acts. It's located in plaza de cesar chavez and surrounded by the festival's finest vendors and the finest food. Non jazz lovers oftentimes come to the festival and never leave the main stage area. Jazz at the rep stage is an indoor state-of-the-art stage with great acoustics. It is home to many jazz traditionalists who prefer music in an intimate setting. The latin stage exemplifies its name. For two days, people who love latin jazz frequent this culturally-based stage. Some of the finest regional and national latin jazz artists appear on this stage. The smith dobson tribute stage features exceptional local talent and up-and-comers. Named after a local jazz legend who died too young, this stage is always bursting with talent that may not have national or international reputations yet. The salsa stage schedules talented, high energy, latin dance bands. This is the most consistently filled-to-capacity stage area at the festival. It's a nonstop dance party with cultural significance and a major fan base. The blues stage is home to the blues and people who follow the blues. To a blues lover, it doesnt get any better than a blues band, a lawn chair, and a summer afternoon. The future of jazz stage features young people from middle and high school students to college students. Many of these bands bring their audiences with them. One can always spot parents and relatives as well as music instructors in this enthusiastic crowd. The 48-hour jazz club stage starts early and ends late. It features local bands, an indoor stage with great seating, and great entertainment. Late in the evening, it's where jazz "night owls" hang out. The jazz beyond stage, known for pushing limits, draws copious numbers of young people and "hard core" arts fans who take great pleasure in pushing limits and exploring new frontiers.
san jose jazz education programssummer jazz camp (70-80 students) propels student-musicians forward as musicians and individuals. The two-week camp enables young talented students to work closely with professional jazz musicians to help them achieve a greater mastery of performance and improvisation techniques while advancing their knowledge of music theory, arranging, composition, performance, and jazz history. San jose jazz high school all stars big band program provides some of the most gifted, motivated, young, jazz musicians in the south bay region with an advanced opportunity to grow and develop as musicians and young adults. Participation is accomplished through a competitive audition process. Progressions is san jose jazz's new, k-12, youth development program that uses music to connect with low-income, at-risk students, challenges them with a rigorous music education program, helps them build a prosocial community, and stays with them until they graduate from high school. The program focuses on helping to keep participants in school, out of gangs, and on the road to becoming better students and contributing citizens. Progressions is taught by professional musicians/educators/mentors who teach students to read music, master instruments, and collaborate in ensembles, bands, and choirs which help them: develop as individuals, learn to set and achieve goals, and understand what it takes to succeed in life and in the classroom.
san jose jazz concerts and eventswinter fest has many of the same ingredients of the summer fest except that it's teasingly smaller. Winter fest brings diverse performers that range from legendary and emerging artists to world sounds. Jazz wednesdays is a series of 52 free concerts produced in downtown san jose. It was created to provide jazz aficionados with regular access to live jazz and to provide local musicians with paying gigs. On the first and third wednesdays of each month, attendees will find a jazz jam session at the hedley club in the hotel de anza. All other wednesdays one can find free concerts at the hilton's affinity lounge or the sainte claire's palm room. South 1st fridays is a monthly, eclectic, evening of live arts and culture in san jose's growing arts district, sofa. San jose jazz, in partnership with eulipia restaurant, presents a free concert as part of south 1st fridays featuring regional jazz musicians who consciously push some of the boundaries of jazz. The concerts are free and take place the first friday of the month.