After attending one of the earliest Evergreen Jazz Festivals, a national columnist wrote, “This is the best jazz festival anywhere!” This year’s EJF is July 26-28, and the event continues to live up to that description. “I think it’s the combination of world-class bands and our upclose-and personal venues that makes it so special,” says Festival
President Wendy Potthoff. “Of course, our beautiful mountain setting adds a wonderful touch, too.”
The Festival presents over 80 hours of live traditional jazz ranging from Dixieland to swing to blues, boogie-woogie
and ragtime. It was started by a small group of jazz-loving Evergreen locals in 2001 and has become a major event on
the community calendar and on the calendars of jazz fans across the country.
This year’s event features ten bands, about half from Colorado and half from California, Chicago, Nashville and New Orleans. “One of the biggest problems we have,” jokes Music Director Ed Danielson, “is that audiences want all the bands back every year, and that makes it hard to bring in new talent! But we manage to provide a good mix and everyone seems happy.”
Evergreen Jazz Festival
The Sunday gospel service featuring the Queen City Jazz Band and vocal great Wende Harston is a longstanding tradition of the Evergreen Jazz Festival. From Southern California, the Carl Sonny Leyland Trio’s boogie-woogie, barrelhouse and blues always have audiences cheering. The Holland-Coots Jazz Quintet brought their swingin’ sound from Nashville to last year’s 20th Evergreen Jazz Festival.
As many as four stages are active at any one time, with patrons welcome to move freely from one to another. The Elks Lodge Ballroom is especially popular with dancers, while the Elks Patio provides a delightful outdoor listening environment. Evergreen Christian Church is an acoustic marvel, and the beautiful Evergreen Lake House provides an idyllic setting for great music. A new venue this year is Center Stage with comfortable theater seating and superb
acoustics.
Other festival highlights include an opening “edutainment” set, which is free and open to the public, dueling pianos and Sunday gospel service. For complete details, visit www. EvergreenJazz.org.