A New Year for Jazz

Kicking off our 13th year of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, we are unveiling several fundraising (but fun!) events where you can enjoy the best of Sonoma food, wine, jazz and hospitality. First off, save the date for a special event of celebrate the North Bay’s premier jazz destination. Thursday, February 3 Jazz on the Menu Dine to the music of informal dinner jazz from many of our favorite musicians as

Jazz is… Not Free

You’ve all heard the saying “free jazz.” Or maybe you’ve heard some discordant, hard-to-follow music in a seeming flurry of notes, and said, “Is this what they mean by ‘free jazz’?” It is and it isn’t. Free Jazz was a genuine phenomenon in the music, spearheaded by players like Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Albert Alyer and Pharaoh Sanders, exemplified by John Coltrane’s “sheet of sound” technique as well

Jazz is… a Gift

The ability to play jazz, to create spontaneous melodies and variations on a song’s structure and themes, is more than a talent – it’s a gift. Like any gift, it’s best when shared. And jazz musicians – standing on stage at Carnegie Hall or in a smoky basement club – share their gift with the audience, giving them the gift of their talent. Sure, you can take music lessons to

Jazz is… Creative

Jazz is a lot of things, such as international, improvisational, diverse and creative. But there are also creative ways of helping jazz, as you’ll read in this posting. Jazz fans have to become creative listeners. Like theater-goers, we enter into a state of suspended disbelief — we defer our expectations of where the song is going next, yet bear in mind its building blocks: chords, melody, themes, rhythms. As you

Jazz is… Diversity

Jazz is an important part of our national story, and how it’s often been music that has brought people together, in spite of their differences in race, gender, national origin and more. In essence, diversity is what the Healdsburg Jazz Festival stands for: promoting the “awareness and appreciation of jazz by facilitating cross-cultural interaction, providing performance opportunities, and educating young people and adults about the important role of jazz as

Jazz is… American music

Nearly everyone agrees that jazz came from the African-American culture, most probably around New Orleans at the end of the 19th century. But did you know there’s also a connection to baseball — and Sonoma County — in the earliest reportage on jazz? It’s universally recognized that jazz is America’s defining contribution to world music. In fact, even the US Congress noted this — in 1987, the 100th Congress passed

Sept. 17 Letter from Jessica Felix

Special Appeal: Support the Healdsburg Jazz Festival First of all, I want to thank everyone who stood up for the Healdsburg Jazz Festival and the music it represents. This is a victory for real, true jazz in a time when many jazz festivals have been moving away from the format, even while still calling themselves a “jazz festival.” Thankfully, the local community recognized how important the Festival is to Healdsburg,

July 29 – Sept. 8 Articles & Comments

Thanks to the support of the Healdsburg community, plans are moving forward to produce the next annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival next year, in 2011. Jessica Felix, founder and artistic director of the Festival, is formulating plans not only for the Festival line-up but interim music events, fund-raisers for the Festival, as well as recruiting for a new Board of Directors. In addition, this original website for the Festival, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org, has been

Sept. 6 Board resigns, reinstates Jessica Felix

Breaking news HJF Board announces reinstatement of artistic director Jessica Felix On Labor Day, September 6, the Board of Directors of the Healsburg Jazz Festival announced that in response to public support for artistic director Jessica Felix, they were reinstating her position and electing her Chairperson of the Board. They then announced their resignation as a Board, clearing the way for Felix to appoint a new board for the Healdsburg Jazz

July 29 Board announcement with comments

Press Release from the Board of Directors The Healdsburg Jazz Festival Announces Hiatus of Jazz Festival for 2011 Season and Renewed Focus on Music Education Program July 29, 2010 Today the Healdsburg Jazz Festival Board of Directors announced that the organization will focus the resources of the organization on its signature music education program, Operation Jazz Band for the 2011 season. Pat Templin the Board Chair said, “Operation Jazz Band

10 Reasons No. 5: Intimate Settings

Yet Another Reason to Attend the Jazz Festival Just a week to go before the Festival begins! And already we’re halfway through our series of Ten Reasons to attend events in this year’s 12th Annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival. Reason No. 5: Intimate Settings One of the core tenets of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival is personal contact – that jazz artists and their audience need to meet each other, to know

10 Reasons No. 6: May 26

Another Reason to Attend the Jazz Festival Less than two weeks left before the Festival! As what the San Francisco Chronicle calls “probably the best small jazz festival in the country” nears, we continue in our series of Ten Reasons why you will want to attend events in this year’s lineup, along with updates and offers to get you as excited as the 12th Annual Healdsburg Jazz Festival as we

Ten Reasons Countdown: May 19, 2010

The Countdown Continues… 10 Reasons to Attend the Jazz Festival The Healdsburg Jazz Festival is fast approaching — it all kicks off officially on Friday June 4  with Jazz Night at the Movies in Healdsburg’s historic Raven Theater. Host for this unusual evening of archival film is Mark Cantor, a Bay Area film historian who has joined us several times before, including at the second Healdsburg Jazz Festival in 2000.

Ten Reasons Countdown: May 17, 2010

The Countdown Begins… The Healdsburg Jazz Festival starts less than three weeks from today, on Friday June 4. (Keep an eye on our home page for the daily countdown!) As what the San Francisco Chronicle calls “probably the best small jazz festival in the country” nears, we’ll be sending out a series of reasons why you will want to attend one or more events in the this year’s lineup. Ten

Press Announcement, 12th Annual HJF

The Future Is Now! Jazz Visionaries Join Forces in Wine Country Rising stars and veteran masters to fill Healdsburg with virtuoso performances in the Festival’s 12th Season Healdsburg, Calif.  — Jazz’s dizzying rate of evolution means that every five or six years a new generation takes root. Healdsburg presents a thrilling international cast of improvisers, from artists who defined their era half a century ago to today’s most innovative musicians,