The Red Sea Jazz Festival is a
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival ...
held annually in
Eilat,
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.
The Red Sea Jazz Festival was first held in 1987. It is a four-day-long event featuring 9-10 concerts per evening, 6 workshops with guest artists and nightly
jam sessions
A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without ext ...
. All performances are held outdoors at the Eilat port. The workshops take place at a nearby hotel.
The festival offers a combination of performances by international jazz artists and local talent. It also provides a venue for collaborative efforts, with special productions exclusive to the festival. Some of these special productions have included
Randy Brecker
Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B.
Early life
Brecker was born on No ...
&
Mark Egan
Mark Egan (born January 14, 1951 in Brockton, Massachusetts, United States) is an American jazz bassist and trumpeter known for his membership in the Pat Metheny Group and the Gil Evans Orchestra. He is co-founder of the jazz fusion band, Elem ...
, The Jazz Beatles,
Miroslav Vitous Miroslav may refer to:
* Miroslav (given name), a Slavic masculine given name
* ''Young America'' (clipper) or ''Miroslav'', an Austrian clipper ship in the Transatlantic case oil trade
* Miroslav (Znojmo District), a town in the Czech Republic
S ...
&
John Abercrombie, and
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...
&
John Scofield
John Scofield (born December 26, 1951), sometimes referred to as "Sco", is an American guitarist and composer whose music over a long career has blended jazz, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul and rock. He first came to mainstream attention in th ...
.
The festival draws audiences of 70,000, with an average of 2,500 people per concert. It is run as a non-profit organization and enjoys the support of the Municipality of Eilat, the Ministries of Culture and Tourism, the Eilat Hotel Association and various business sponsors.
In 2008, Israeli jazz bassist
Avishai Cohen was named artistic director, replacing
Dan Gottfried
Dan Gottfried ( he, דן גוטפריד ; born 1939) is an Israeli jazz pianist and music educator. In 1987 he founded the Red Sea Jazz Festival, which he directed until his retirement in 2008. He is president of the Israeli Musicians Union.
Bi ...
, who initiated the festival and served as artistic director for 22 years. During his tenure Gottfried has showcased over 1500 world-famous Jazz artists and established the reputation of the festival as one of the leading Jazz events worldwide. Under Cohen's direction in 2009, the festival showcased young talent and original compositions along with world-renowned jazz artists.
The festival is held in the last week of August.
A 3-day Winter Jazz Festival, held on the third weekend in January, was initiated in 2010.
Notable artists
2006
*
Mory Kante Mory is the name or part of the name of three communes of France:
* Mory, Pas-de-Calais in the Pas-de-Calais ''département''
* Mory-Montcrux in the Oise ''département''
* Mitry-Mory in the Seine-et-Marne ''département''
Mory is also the name of t ...
*
Gonzalo Rubalcaba
Gonzalo Rubalcaba (born May 27, 1963) is an Afro-Cuban jazz pianist and composer.
Early life
Rubalcaba was born Gonzalo Julio González Fonseca in Havana, Cuba into a musical family. He adopted his great grandmother's name for professional use, ...
*
Suthukazi Arosi
*
Latin Groove Orquestra
*
The Mingus Dynasty
*
Rick Margitza
Rick Margitza (born October 24, 1961) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Biography
Margitza's paternal grandfather, a Hungarian Gypsy violinist, taught him to play the violin at the age of four. His father also played violin with the Detro ...
*
Franck Amsalem
2007
*
Tomasz Stanko Tomasz is a Polish given name, the equivalent of Thomas in English.
Notable people with the given name include:
*Tomasz Adamek (born 1976), Polish heavyweight boxer
*Tomasz Arciszewski (1877–1955), Polish socialist politician and Prime Min ...
*
Chris Potter
*
Incognito
Incognito is an English adjective meaning "in disguise", "having taken steps to conceal one's identity".
Incognito may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''Incognito'' (1937 film), a Danish film
* ''Incognito'' (1997 film), an American crime ...
*
Sara Lazarus
Sara Lazarus (born April 1, 1962) is an American jazz singer who lives in France.
Music career
Lazarus was born in Wilmington, Delaware and began piano lessons when she was eight. She was a member of the band in school, playing tenor saxophone ...
*
Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead is an American jazz fusion group.
History
The group arose out of spontaneous sessions at Seventh Avenue South, a jazz club in New York City owned by saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter brother Randy Brecker. The first three al ...
*
Conrad Herwig
*
Joey DeFrancesco
Joey DeFrancesco (April 10, 1971August 25, 2022) was an American jazz organist, trumpeter, saxophonist, and occasional singer. He released more than 30 albums under his own name, and recorded extensively as a sideman with such leading jazz perfo ...
2008
*
Randy Brecker
Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B.
Early life
Brecker was born on No ...
*
Bill Evans
*
Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling (born November 2, 1967) is an American jazz singer and songwriter.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church. He sang in cho ...
*
Carla Bley
*
Mike Stern
Mike Stern (born January 10, 1953) is an American jazz guitarist. After playing with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he worked with drummer Billy Cobham, then with trumpeter Miles Davis from 1981 to 1983 and again in 1985. He then began a solo career, ...
*
Richard Bona
Richard Bona (born 28 October 1967) is a Cameroon-born American multi-instrumentalist and singer.
Early life
Bona Penda Nya Yuma Elolo was born in Minta, Cameroon, into a family of musicians, which enabled him to start learning music from a y ...
*
Ben Riley
*
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...
*
Terri Lyne Carrington
Terri Lyne Carrington (born August 4, 1965) is an American jazz drummer, composer, producer, and educator. She has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Yellowjackets, and ma ...
*
John Fedchock
John William Fedchock (born September 18, 1957) is an American jazz trombonist, bandleader, and arranger.
Early life and education
Fedchock was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied at Ohio State University and the Eastman School of Music at the ...
*
Omar Sosa
Omar Sosa (born April 10, 1965) is a jazz pianist from Cuba.
Biography
A native of Camagüey, Cuba, Sosa studied percussion at the Escuela Nacional de Musica and Instituto Superior de Arte. In the 1980s he started the band Tributo, recording alb ...
*
Zbigniew Namyslowski
*
Avishai Cohen
2009
*
Dee Dee Bridgewater
*
John Scofield
John Scofield (born December 26, 1951), sometimes referred to as "Sco", is an American guitarist and composer whose music over a long career has blended jazz, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul and rock. He first came to mainstream attention in th ...
*
Eli Degibri
Eli Degibri (Hebrew: אלי דג'יברי) (born May 3, 1978, in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel) is an Israeli jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger.
Early life
Degibri first began playing the mandolin at age 7 in an after school music program at ...
*
Rob Ickes
Rob Ickes hymes with "bikes"is an American dobro (resonator guitar) player, born 1967 in San Francisco, California, United States. Ickes moved to Nashville in 1992 and joined the contemporary bluegrass band Blue Highway as a founding member in ...
*
Paquito D'Rivera
*
Lionel Loueke
Lionel Loueke (born 27 April 1973) is a guitarist and vocalist born in Benin. He moved to Ivory Coast in 1990 to study at the National Institute of Art.
Biography
Loueke grew up in what he has described as a family of poor intellectuals in the ...
*
Jean-Michel Pilc
*
Chano Domínguez
Chano Domínguez (born Sebastián Domínguez Lozano; 29 March 1960, Cádiz) is a Spanish Latin jazz, post bop and flamenco pianist. Dominguez has released over 20 albums as a bandleader, and collaborated extensively with other jazz artists inc ...
*
Kurt Rosenwinkel
Kurt Rosenwinkel (born October 28, 1970) is an American jazz guitarist, keyboardist, composer, bandleader, producer, educator and record label owner.
Biography
A native of Philadelphia, Rosenwinkel attended the Philadelphia High School for the ...
Israeli jazz acts included:
The ApplesFunk'n'SteinAmos Hoffman*
Marina Maximilian Blumin
2010
*
Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and author. Over the course of a career that spans five decades, she has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, pop, soul, and jazz. A two ...
*
Dave Weckl
Dave Weckl (born January 8, 1960 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American jazz fusion drummer and the leader of the Dave Weckl Band. He was inducted into the ''Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 2000.
Biography
Weckl started playing his first set ...
*
Gary Burton
Gary Burton (born January 23, 1943) is an American jazz vibraphonist, composer, and educator. Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the prevailing two-mallet technique. This approach caused him to be he ...
*
Nikki Yanofsky
Nicole Rachel "Nikki" Yanofsky (born February 8, 1994) is a Canadian jazz-pop singer from Montreal, Quebec. She sang the CTV Olympic broadcast theme song, " I Believe", which was also the theme song of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. She also p ...
*
Jeff Watts
Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey.
Music
* DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes
* ...
*
Hermeto Pascoal
Hermeto Pascoal (born June 22, 1936) is a Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in Lagoa da Canoa, Alagoas, Brazil. Pascoal is a significant figure in the history of Brazilian music, mainly known for his abilities in orches ...
*
Dave Douglas
*
Stefon Harris
Israeli acts included:
*
Berry Sakharof
Berry Sakharof ( he, ברי סחרוף, ; born 7 July 1957) is an Israeli rock guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. Sakharof is one of Israel's most popular and critically acclaimed rock musicians, and is often referred to as "the prince ...
Marsh DonduramaOfer Ganor
2011
*
Avishai Cohen
*
Michael Kaeshammer
Michael Kaeshammer (born 7 January 1977) is a Canadian jazz and boogie-woogie pianist.
Early life and education
Kaeshammer grew up in Offenburg, Germany, where he studied classical piano for seven years. At age thirteen, he became interested i ...
*
Steve Smith Stephen, Steve, Stevie, or Steven Smith may refer to:
Academics
* Steve Smith (political scientist) (born 1952), British international relations theorist and senior university manager
* Stephen Smith (journalist) (born 1956), American journalist, ...
*
Grégoire Maret
Grégoire Maret (born May 13, 1975) is a jazz harmonica player.
Background
Maret studied at Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, then The New School in New York City. On March 13, 2012 Maret released his first album as a leader. He has worked wi ...
*
Gretchen Parlato
Gretchen Parlato (born February 11, 1976) is an American jazz singer. She has performed and recorded with musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Barron, Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Miller and Lionel Loueke.
...
*
Assaf Avidan
Israeli acts included
Yael Deckelbaum,
Yoni Rechter
Yoni Rechter ( he, יוני רכטר; born 18 November 1951) is an Israeli musician, composer, pianist, arranger and singer.
Biography
Yonatan (Yoni) Rechter was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is the son of Israeli architect Ya'akov Rechter and st ...
, and Zohar Fresko, among others.
2012
*
Christian McBride
Christian McBride (born May 31, 1972) is an American jazz bassist, composer and arranger. He has appeared on more than 300 recordings as a sideman, and is an eight-time Grammy Award winner.
McBride has performed and recorded with a number of j ...
*
Carmen Souza
Carmen Souza (born 1981) is a Portuguese jazz singer and songwriter of Cape Verdean heritage. She combines traditional forms of Cape Verde with contemporary and traditional jazz.
Biography
Carmen Souza was born in Lisbon on 20 May 1981, to paren ...
*Richard Bona
*
Sean Jones
*YES! trio (
Aaron Goldberg
Aaron Goldberg (born April 30, 1974), is an American jazz pianist. Described by ''The New York Times'' as a "post-bop pianist of exemplary taste and range," Goldberg has released five albums as a solo artist and has performed and collaborated wi ...
,
Omer Avital
Omer Avital (born May 13, 1971, Givatayim, Israel) is an Israeli-American jazz bassist, composer and bandleader.
Early life
Avital was born in the town of Givatayim to Moroccan and Yemeni parents.
At age 11, he began his formal training, s ...
, and
Ali Jackson)
*Minvielle/Suarez/Dufour trio
*
Gilad Hekselman
*
Geri Allen
Geri Antoinette Allen (June 12, 1957 – June 27, 2017) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. In addition to her career as a performer and bandleader, Allen was also an associate professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh ...
*
Kenny Garrett
Kenny Garrett (born October 9, 1960) is an American post-bop jazz musician and composer who gained recognition in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and for his time with Miles Davis's band. His primary instruments are alto and ...
Israeli acts included:
*
Karen Malka
*Tomer Bar Trio
*
Dudu Tassa
David "Dudu" Tassa ( he, דודו טסה; born February 10, 1977) is an Israeli rock musician, singer, songwriter and record producer of Mizrahi Jewish descent. Besides having had a successful solo career in Israel, Tassa has been the leader of ...
*
Daniel Ori
*
Yuval Cohen, among others
2013
*
Al Foster
Aloysius Tyrone Foster (born January 18, 1943) is an American jazz drummer. Foster's professional career began in the mid-60s, when he played and recorded with hard bop and swing musicians including Blue Mitchell and Illinois Jacquet. Foster ...
*
Antonio Sánchez
*
Nicholas Payton
Nicholas Payton (born September 26, 1973) is an American trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist. A Grammy Award winner, he is from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is also a prolific and provocative writer who comments on a multitude of subjects, inc ...
*
Gerald Clayton
Gerald William Clayton (born May 11, 1984) is a Dutch-born American jazz pianist, composer and bandleader.
Biography
Clayton attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts; USC's Thornton School of Music, where he studied piano with ...
*
Jeff Ballard
*
João Bosco
João Bosco de Freitas Mucci, known professionally as João Bosco () is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist. In the 1970s he established his reputation in ''música popular Brasileira'' (Portuguese: "Brazilian pop music") with lyricist ...
*
Motion Trio
Motion Trio is a Polish accordion trio founded in 1996 by Janusz Wojtarowicz.
The band has performed on six continents and in forty two countries: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, China, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France ...
Israeli acts included
Ester Rada
Ester Rada ( he, אסתר רָדָא, born March 7, 1985) is an Israeli actress and singer.
Biography
Rada was born in Kiryat Arba, Israel, to a religious Ethiopian-Jewish family. Her parents, originally from a village near Gondar, were res ...
,
Tatran and
Tammy Scheffer among others.
2014
*
Fred Hersch
*
Antoine Roney
*
Dayna Stephens
Dayna Stephens (born August 1, 1978) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. In addition to leading his own group, Stephens has performed extensively with Kenny Barron, Ambrose Akinmusire, Taylor Eigsti, Julian Lage, Eric Harland, and Ger ...
*
Lee Konitz
*
Leny Andrade
*
Dr. Lonnie Smith
Lonnie Smith (July 3, 1942 – September 28, 2021), styled Dr. Lonnie Smith, was an American jazz Hammond B3 organist who was a member of the George Benson quartet in the 1960s. He recorded albums with saxophonist Lou Donaldson for Blue Note be ...
*Dave Douglas &
Uri Caine
Uri Caine (born June 8, 1956, Philadelphia, United States) is an American classical and jazz pianist and composer.
Biography
Early years
The son of Burton Caine, a professor at Temple Law School, and poet Shulamith Wechter Caine, Caine began ...
Israeli Acts included Marina Maximilian, Omer Avital and
Ofri Nehemya among others.
See also
*
Culture of Israel
*
Music of Israel
The music of Israel is a combination of Jewish and non-Jewish music traditions that have come together over the course of a century to create a distinctive musical culture. For almost 150 years, musicians have sought original stylistic elements ...
References
External links
Official site{{Jazz festival
Eilat
Jazz festivals in Israel
Tourist attractions in Southern District (Israel)
Music festivals established in 1987
Summer events in Israel
1987 establishments in Israel