There’s a new jazz fest coming to Denver next spring
The Denver Jazz Fest will run April 3-6 next year, organizers announced on Oct. 31.
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The Denver-Boulder area has long been an excellent destination for the arts. And in 2025, a new, large-scale jazz festival, hopefully to become a local tradition, will take place.
The Denver Jazz Fest will run April 3-6 next year, organizers announced on Oct. 31.
“Denver has such a rich history in terms of jazz artists who have lived here, performed here and grew up here,” says Don Lucoff, veteran publicist, jazz lover and president/co-founder of Denver Jazz, the Colorado 501(c)(3) nonprofit behind the festival. “It’s really about the local artists, the education community, and the national artists. The infrastructure is strong here to support a jazz festival.”
Lucoff and his partners are certainly pulling out all the stops when it comes to the inaugural lineup: Guitarist Bill Frisell, who grew up in Colorado, will play DU’s Newman Center on April 3, and Denver’s multi-Grammy-winning vocalist Dianne Reeves will conclude the festivities there on April 6. Also scheduled to appear on various stages in the Denver and Boulder area: Charles McPherson and Terell Stafford, Garaj Mahal, Ghost-Note, The Headhunters, Rico Jones and Isaiah Collier.
A “pre-fest event” is scheduled at Dazzle jazz club on Nov. 26, with ECM’s Rubisa Patrol Revisited, featuring flugelhorn and soprano sax expert Mark Isham. Boulder’s Art Lande, who headed up the bill on the beautifully polished 1976 “Rubisa Patrol” album, will be on piano. Tickets for the pre-event and the 2025 Denver Jazz Fest went on sale on Nov. 1 at denverjazz.org.
RECORD STORE DAY’S Black Friday event is Nov. 29. Vinyl fans assemble! Here are a few of the limited-edition titles to be snapped up at your neighborhood independent retailer that day:
- The sadly forgotten guitarist Emily Remler’s “Cookin’ at the Queens,” recorded in Vegas in the 1980s;
- An engaging B.B. King live date circa 1977, “In France”
- The latest excavation of live Sun Ra recordings, “Lights on a Satellite”
Coincidentally, there’s a new recording from the Sun Ra Arkestra, also titled “Lights on a Satellite,” featuring the now 100-year-old Marshall Allen on saxophone. If you’re a fan and that’s confusing, do the sensible thing and pick up both albums. Details are available at recordstoreday.com.
AND MORE JAZZ in November:
The energetic multimedia experience Cowboy Bebop Live arrives at the Boulder Theater Nov. 7. … Nocturne’s November lineup includes the Dru Heller Quintet “Celebrating Philly Joe Jones and Miles’ First Quintet” on Fridays at 6 p.m., and the Steve Denny Quintet honoring Colorado composers Nov. 9 and 16. … The Blue Sky Jazz Collective appears at the Muse Performance Space on Nov. 3. … Bassist Mark Diamond plays the Vine Street Pub & Brewery on Nov. 7. … The BTTRFLY Quintet features members of Lettuce and the John Scofield Band. They’ll perform at Cervantes’ Other Side on Nov. 15. … Denver’s Dazzle, at 1080 14th St., has a particularly impressive lineup this month: South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini performs selections from his searching, excellent “Unomkhubulwane” album there on Nov. 11; trumpeter Nicholas Payton plays the history of the music brilliantly through his horn, and his trio appears Nov. 18-19; and celebrated vocalist Jane Monheit takes to the Dazzle stage Nov. 20-21.
Bret Saunders is a Boulder radio deejay and freelance writer.
