 | The Chicago Jazz Festival is a popular and well-known four day free celebration of jazz in downtown Chicago. It is run by the Jazz Institute of Chicago during Labor Day weekend, integrating both world-famous and local artists. A wide variety of jazz music is played. The Chicago Jazz Festival, the city of Chicago’s longest running music festival, announces the dates for the 30th annual event, August 28-31, 2008. What began as a festival to remember jazz greats Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, has turned into an annual celebration of jazz music that is not to be missed. |
| The four-day festival is the centerpiece of seven days of jazz activities beginning with Monday's Made in Chicago closing concert in Millennium Park, Tuesday's Jazz Institute 40th Birthday gala concert and Wednesday's Jazz Club Tour. Sonny Rollins (see photo), a two-time Grammy Award winner and 2004 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, will open The Chicago Jazz Festival on August 28 at 6:30 p.m. at Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930 in New York City) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins' long, prolific career began at the age of 11, and he was playing with piano legend Thelonious Monk before reaching the age of 20. Rollins is still touring and recording today, having outlived most of his contemporaries such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Max Roach, and Art Blakey, all performers with whom he recorded. In 2007 he received the prestigious Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, Sweden, together with Steve Reich and Colby College award Rollins a Doctor of Music, honoris causa, for his contributions to jazz music. The Chicago Jazz Festival then moves to Grant Park, August 29-31, for three stages of free music, activities and more from 11:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily. Closing out the event on Sunday, August 31 at the Petrillo Music Shell is saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman. Known as the creator of what has been called "free jazz," Coleman's contribution to the jazz idiom has been the theory and practice of "harmolodics" - an approach that has been internationally recognized as a founding principle of creative improvised music. Coleman's timbre is easily recognized: his keening, crying sound draws heavily on blues music. His album Sound Grammar received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music. Event: Chicago Jazz Festival 2008 Date: August 28 (Thursday) - 31 (Sunday), 2008 Location: Millennium Park Grant Park Chicago, Illinois USA | |
| SOURCE: Chicago Jazz Festival 2008 |
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