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Dear Jazzday.com,
Toronto the Good, as we are known all over the world, is becoming increasingly well known as a hotbed of jazz, and jazz promotion.
Not many markets can support a 24 hour not-for-profit ALL JAZZ radio station. Yet we have Jazz FM 91.1. The station not only gets by, but is ever expanding, bursting out of its seams in its current studio. JazzFM is ever-promoting jazz and jazz education, as well as being an important figure in the collection and distribution of jazz history. Documentaries, incredible concerts, along with numerous and prosperous initiatives encouraging children and youth to take up the jazz baton and RUN with it.
Then there is the abundance of LIVE JAZZ. Toronto is home to such venerable long running Jazz Institutions as Grossmans Tavern, The Rex Hotel, Gate 403 and more. Each presenting 10-40 jazz acts per week, each and every week of the year.
Year after year.
How many prominent names in Jazz cut their chops in these clubs?
Huge Jazz events like the outstanding JazzFM conceived and produced JazzLives sell out every time, proving we can handle, and pack the house for, a really big show. You can also find live jazz anywhere in the city on any given night. The city is Jazz Mad. There are several websites and social media feeds (like my own JazzBrat, and many others including Jazz Near You Toronto, In The Clubs Jazz Fm, Coming Up Straight Ahead and more) which provide free listings and promotion of gigs big and small, artists known and those just getting started.
Why do we do this for free? Why do we volunteer our own time to run these sites? Because we LOVE Jazz, and so do all of our followers.
Incredible venues, big and small, in and around the Greater Toronto Area mean that the problem is not FINDING a venue, but CHOOSING which one! QET, Flato Markham Theatre, JazzBistro (old Top O' The Senator), KoernerHall, Gladstone Hotel, The Local, Chalkers, Morgans On The Danforth, Musideum, Lula Lounge, just to name a few.
And of course, Massey Hall
Grand Old, Massey Hall
Home to one of the most famous jazz concerts of all time, where Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach played together for the only time in their lives.
And still best sound quality in all of Canada if not North America
And let's not forget our Jazz education programs. University of Toronto, Humber College, York University, all have world class full degree jazz programs, with faculty that is the who's who of the jazz world, all imparting their knowledge on a new generation, the new vanguard.
What else does this mean?
It means Toronto is the new mecca for aspiring jazz musicians. A breeding ground for exceptionality.
The FUTURE of jazz is here.
In Toronto
Jazz festivals in and around Toronto have grown like wildfire, spreading and gaining momentum at an unprecedented speed. We regularly attract huge Jazz figures from the past and present to headline.
And we even have a Jazz Musician running for MAYOR!
So, JazzDay, why not make International Jazz Day Global concert truly Global by holding the main event in the most culturally diverse city in the ENTIRE WORLD?
Jazz Mad Toronto
Sincerely,
The JazzBrat
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