Concord Jazz Festival
The Concord Jazz Festival was an annual jazz festival in Concord, California . It was founded in 1969 by Carl Jefferson and is dedicated to mainstream jazz .
Jefferson was a car dealer and jazz fan who wanted to create alternatives to the then overwhelming dominance of rock and pop music, which was also noticeable in jazz. The first festival took place on January 26, 1969 at Concord Boulevard Neighborhood Park near the high school and was attended by 17,000. In 1975 the Concord Pavilion (today Sleep Train Pavilion ) on the eastern edge of Concord was opened (with an opening concert on May 16 with Sarah Vaughan and Henry Mancini ), which covers 3500 seats, but also allows other open air listeners to participate, as it does not Has walls. The architect was Frank Gehry . It is also used for many other events and corresponds to the idea of a festival without social barriers that Jefferson had in mind. The festival drew many visitors from the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California.
The festival included Ella Fitzgerald , Oscar Peterson , Gerry Mulligan , George Shearing , Dave Brubeck (who was born in Concord), Scott Hamilton , Ray Brown , Ernestine Anderson and Pearl Bailey . Jefferson also had a penchant for mainstream jazz guitarists , who performed here particularly frequently. Live albums were made with the Woody Herman Big Band with Stan Getz in 1981, Charlie Byrd (Sugarload Suite 1980), Herb Ellis with Joe Pass (Seven, Come Eleven 1973).
Jefferson expanded his commitment with his own record label ( Concord Records ) in 1972 (merged with Fantasy Records in 2004 ).
Later it received the addition of sponsor Fujitsu . For example, there is a live album from the 27th Fujitsu Concord Jazz Festival in 1996. This also organized gigs in Japan. Today there are still events in the Sleep Train Pavilion, but no jazz festival.
literature
- Alexander Schmitz: Carl Jefferson and CONCORD JAZZ. A record label and its history. In: Guitar & Laute 8, 1986, issue 3, pp. 31–33.