Native Son Wayne Escoffery Headlines the 30th Annual New Haven Jazz Festival
Saturday, August 17, 2013 at New Haven Green
Wayne Escoffery
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jul. 15, 2013 - NORTH HAVEN, Conn. -- New Haven, CT – Jazz Haven, Inc., an all-volunteer, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, in cooperation with the City of New Haven’s Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism, presents the 30th Annual New Haven Jazz Festival and Jazz Week, the city’s annual celebration of America’s classical music, August 13 – 17. For the second year in a row in its expanded, week-long format, the festival includes educational events and over 20 live performances across the city, concluding with a free outdoor concert at the New Haven Green on Saturday, August 17, featuring world-renowned saxophonist/composer/bandleader The Wayne Escoffery Quintet plus special guest Jeremy Pelt; Zaccai Curtis and Insight with Natalie Fernandez; The Hawkins Jazz Collective; and The Neighborhood Music School Band Summer Orchestra.
Bridgeport native and New York-based jazz vocalist Giacomo Gates, whose latest CD “Miles Tones” celebrates the music of Miles Davis, is also featured in a special concert on Friday, August 16, at Firehouse 12, 7:00 – 9:00 pm. Tickets for that event are $30.
Jazz Haven, which has produced the festival since 2008, seeks to broaden this successful expansion to include more venues, live performances in Temple Plaza, street performers and family-oriented events and youth activities. In an effort to restore the tradition of New Haven jazz festivals of decades ago when artists such as Ray Charles performed on the New Haven Green, Jazz Haven created Jazz Week to serve as an important and exciting community-building vehicle in this city.
“Breaking new ground has always been very exciting to me, ” says Doug Morrill, founder of Jazz Haven. “We want to build on the positive momentum from last year’s expanded festival and continue to present the true diversity of jazz featuring some of the best international stars, along with our own homegrown talent. Our state has given the music many jazz stars, from Horace Silver to Brad Mehldau, and we want to show that we still have more amazing jazz musicians right here.”
For Jazz Haven President/Director, Craig O’Connell, the jazz festival “showcases the great swinging diversity of the music free of charge to the public, on the bandstand, and more importantly in the classroom. Jazz, since its inception has always been multicultural, and many aspects of it, especially the emphasis on teamwork and improvisation, can be adapted and adopted in many educational curriculums for our youth.”
In addition to the music, the New Haven Jazz Festival continues its annual celebration of the visual arts. The works of Hartford-born visual artist Andres Chaparro, known for his jazz-influenced expressionist pieces, will be exhibited throughout the area during Jazz Week.
For more information on Jazz Haven and the New Haven Jazz Festival, please visit http://www.jazzhaven.org.
