Cool Jazz is Hot!
If you’re IN-to jazz there’s no place else to be but Hollywood Bowl this weekend for the Playboy Jazz Festival June 9-10, 2018, where the days are hot and the jazz is cool.
Not everyone’s into jazz, but we at SeeCalifornia are. In fact, it wouldn’t be possible to put together these lists of concerts, attractions and events without a little background music to motivate the worker(s). While one of our favorite non-commercial stations is KJEM at Washington State University, California’s very own KKJZ (aka KJAZZ) from the campus of Cal State Long Beach certainly rivals any jazz station, anywhere!
Jazz isn’t for everyone but there are so many types of jazz — Smooth, Latin, Swing, New Orleans and Dixieland, just to name a few — that some don’t even know they’re listening to it. It’s one of the true “made in America” music genres which originated in New Orleans African-American communities beginning in the late 1800s.
California could easily be considered the epicenter of contemporary jazz as so many musical artists create, record, perform and live in the Golden State.
Jazz Festivals 2018
June-July
- Healdsburg Jazz Festival June 1-10
- San Francisco Jazz Festival June 5-17
- Long Beach Uptown Jazz Festival June 9
- Hollywood Playboy Jazz Festival June 9-10
- San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Festival June 30-July 1
- Temecula’s Thornton Winery Champagne Concert Series
- Los Gatos Jazz on the Plazz
- Portola Vineyards Summer Jazz
- San Luis Obispo Jazz at Court Street
- Newport Beach Hyatt Summer Jazz Series
August-September
- Long Beach Jazz Festival
- San Jose Jazz Festival
- Idyllwild Jazz in the Pines
- Gardena Jazz Festival
- Guerneville Jazz and Blues on the River
- Monterey Jazz Festival
October-November
- Avalon (Catalina) Jazztrax Festival
- San Diego Jazz Fest
