About the Northampton Jazz Festival
Cocomama | Pulaski Park | 2022
The Northampton Jazz Festival seeks to expand the exposure of people of all generations, ethnicities and orientations to live jazz, bring new visitors to downtown Northampton, and increase the cultural vitality and economic strength of the city. In so doing, the Northampton Jazz Festival is dedicated to carrying forward our great American music tradition of live jazz for generations to come.
Founded in 2011, the Northampton Jazz Festival is unique in its ability to stage live jazz music in downtown Northampton in multiple venues over a two day period, thus bringing audience members to a variety of locations downtown. All but the headliner concert at the 800 seat Academy of Music are free and open to the general public. We stage performances from Grammy Award winning, internationally renowned jazz artists to local student groups, with nearly every age, race, ethnicity and gender identity of musician represented.
On Friday, Jazz Strut night, audiences patronize the six or seven breweries, bars and restaurants downtown where we stage jazz ensembles of primarily local, student and regional musicians. Visitors also move up and down Main St. on Saturday, Jazz Fest Day, as they attend concerts in six or seven different venues. The venues are mostly indoors (churches, small performance halls) where we stage concerts by jazz artists from throughout the northeast, as well as outside at Pulaski Park on Main Street in the heart of downtown.
Merchants and restaurants benefit from the over 2,000 people we bring to town on Jazz Fest weekend. We have no food vendors; we want audience members to frequent all that downtown Northampton has to offer.
In 2018, we initiated the Jazz Artists in the Schools program in partnership with the Band and General Music Instructor at the JFK Middle School in Florence, MA through a generous donation from The Davis Financial Group. We bring professional jazz musicians in to work and play with jazz band students two to three times a year. In 2019, we expanded the program to the Northampton High School as a result of an outpouring of gifts in memory of former Northampton High School student and musician, Elliot Ross.
Staging live jazz all around town in different venues has been such a success that we have continued this model in subsequent jazz festivals. "Downtown Northampton felt like New Orleans last night!" said one patron. "This is the best thing that's happened to Northampton in 10 years," remarked a Main Street merchant.