Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) is a music festival held every April in the United States, in honor of

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 ...

as an early American

art form The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

. JAM was created in 2001 by John Edward Hasse, curator of the Smithsonian's

National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history. Among the items on display is t ...

.John Edward Hasse, Ph.D.
/ref> It became a national extension of the original Jazz Awareness Month created by the Louisiana Jazz Federation in New Orleans in 1980. Jazz Appreciation Month was created to be an annual event that would pay tribute to jazz as both a living and as a historic music. Schools, organizations, and governments celebrate JAM with free concerts and educational programs. Its first year was 2001, with funding provided by the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation.Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation official website
/ref> In 2012,

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was fo ...

Recordings obtained permission from the

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and Singing, vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and se ...

estate to release the recordings on the album ''Satchmo at the National Press Club: Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours'' and timed the release as part of the annual Jazz Appreciation Month. In 2018 JAM celebrated the relationship between jazz and justice. The featured artist was

Norman Granz Norman Granz (August 6, 1918 – November 22, 2001) was an American jazz record producer and concert promoter. He founded the record labels Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve, and Pablo. Granz was acknowledged as "the most successful impres ...

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jazz Appreciation Month Jazz events Commemorative months April observances