The Heineken Jazz Festival is now selling tickets for its fiftieth anniversary and introducing an exclusive project by Jamie Cullum

Tickets will be available through the web www.heinekenjazzaldia.com

The Festival also confirms previously announced names such as John Zorn, Benny Golson, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Gregory Porter, Melody Gardot, Zaz, Jimmy Cliff, Charles McPherson, Azar Lawrence, Lee Fields, Earth, Wind & Fire Experience and many others .

There is also other interesting news, Joshua Redman will be added to the program with The Bad Plus as well as The New Standard Trio (Jamie Saft, Steve Swallow, Bobby Previte).

PUNKT Donostian project is also confirmed. The Festival and San Sebastian European Capital of Culture 2016 has collaborated to promote interaction between Basque and Norwegian artists.

A Festival with a lot of history

Since 1966 the San Sebastian Jazz Festival, currently Heineken Jazzaldia (Heineken Jazz Festival) has been one of the highlights of the summer in Donostia and one of the main cultural attractions of our city. The Jazz Festival is one of the most famous and appreciated summer events. Its reputation is international. In part, because it was one of the first jazz festivals in Europe, but also for other reasons that have been consolidated through these 50 years.

This is a participative Festival, with an average of 150,000 attendees each year in the last decade, attracting all young people and not so young ... Its numerous stages enhanced by the beauty of the city allow multiple and varied surroundings in which the Jazzaldia has managed to program the most appropriate music for each case and aimed at all types of audiences. In fact, the Festival has helped to gain many spaces of the city for leisure, culture, art and coexistence, people now enjoy the fusion between Basque and foreign artists in different styles and disciplines.. The origins of the artists in the Jazzaldia are from different backgrounds: American and European, and also, Asian, African and South American.

The San Sebastian Jazz Festival has programmed mostly all the big names of Jazz of the last 50 years. The list of musicians who have performed in San Sebastian is its mainstay, and can hardly be matched by other events. Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Modern Jazz Quartet, Sonny Rollins, BB King, James Brown, Ray Charles, Keith Jarrett, John Zorn ... up to nearly 4,000 names.

The Heineken Jazz Festival is an innovative event, supported by the most creative musicians and those most willing to break new grounds and live imbued by new influences and other musical languages. The first musical conversation between the txalaparta (traditional Basque instrument) and jazz was in San Sebastian 49 years ago, in the second edition of the Festival. And from then on it has always help to explore new ways of musical collaboration and to explore new worlds.

Therefore, it was important to develop a program for this fiftieth anniversary that would appeal to all audiences and prove itself musically interesting, fun, festive, varied and able to satisfy all those who come to our stages between the 22nd and the 26^th of July.

The 50th Heineken Jazz Festival has several unique projects, but undoubtedly the most expected one will be the 3 performances that Jamie Cullum has prepared for this anniversary. He will play in the Kursaal terraces as a DJ; in the Kursaal Auditorium alone, piano and vocals; and finally, in the Plaza de la Trinidad, with his band.

As always, the Heineken Jazz Festival will begin with the Jazz Band Ball on July 22, a party with groups and artists of different styles and for all tastes, ages and interests. On the stages of the Kursaal or the Green Stage, which are free entrance, one of the most well known and popular R&B groups: Earth, Wind & Fire Experience, authors of an endless list of songs and absolutely representative of the best black music. Also Jimmy Cliff, a reggae legend, the most recognized and prestigious name of that style along with Bob Marley. And a supergroup with 7 of the best jazz instrumentalists of today, The Cookers: Donald Harrison and Billy Harper, saxophones, Dan Weiss and Eddie Henderson, trumpet, and a super rhythm trio formed by George Cables, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart. Unbeatable!

And also in the Jazz Band Ball, singer Carla Cook and singer and percussionist Zanmari Bare, of the French island of Reunion. And naturally, Jamie Cullum as a DJ selecting the music he likes and making us dance the whole night thru.


The Plaza de la Trinidad (Trinity Square)

As of July 23, in the Plaza de la Trinidad, four double concerts with an extraordinary roster of stars. On Thursday the 23rd, Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Zaz, two of the singers of greater impact and repercussions now in Spain and France for the last three or four years.

On Friday the 24th, Jamie Cullum with his band, and as the opening act a group of Basque and Pole musicians together for this Jazzaldia: Iñaki Salvador and Andrzej Olejniczak invite trumpeter Maciej Fortuna part of a group which also has Gonzalo Tejada and Borja Barrueta.

On Saturday July 25 at the Plaza de la Trinidad the big success of last year, singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, this time sharing the stage with a group of musicians from New Orleans, led by trumpet player Irvin Mayfield. She will be revisiting the traditional and timeless music from New Orleans, traditional and timeless. But before her, we will have the opportunity to listen to a jazz trio that has launched one of the most interesting records in 2014: The New Standard Trio, led by the great keyboard player Jamie Saft, supported by veterans such as Steve Swallow and Bobby Previte.

Ending the Plaza de la Trinidad on Sunday the 26^th Melody Gardot will be returning to San Sebastian. All sensitivity and taste, she gave us one of the most unforgettable concerts a few years ago. Opening that last concert, a surprising new value of Catalan jazz, the very young singer and trumpet player Andrea Motis, with a quartet together with bass player Joan Chamorro.
Kursaal Auditorium – Kutxabank

Four great concerts will be programmed on this stage. The first one, on Thursday the 23rd a one and only solo piano and voice concert by Jamie Cullum.

On Friday the 24^th a living legend, saxophonist Benny Golson.

On Saturday the 25th, a quartet of the best musicians in current jazz: saxophonist Joshua Redman and the The Bad Plus trio.

On Sunday the 26th, the grand finale, the great leader and trendsetter of avant-garde jazz, the musician who thrilled us with the Masada Marathon, John Zorn, together with bass player and record producer Bill Laswell and the drummer of Slayer, the Cuban Dave Lombardo, forming the Blade Runner Trio, only in San Sebastian.
Victoria Eugenia Theatre - Skoda

In this stage we will be hearing one of the most innovative and original proposals of the current European jazz scene: three days in which we will experiment how the Norwegian PUNKT Festival introduces us in a new experience, a new way to listen to a concert. A project in which the Heineken Jazz Festival and the San Sebastian European Culture Capital 2016 have collaborated to widen the contact between Basque and foreign artists and present a contemporary musical sample to the audience of the Jazzaldia.

There will be three sessions in which, after 45 minutes of live music, samplers, remixers and instrumentalists will reinterpret the music that has just played. All within a context of contemporary jazz.

The groups playing will be: Heliographs Erik Honoré, on the night of July 23; Hopscotch band Josetxo Silguero and Pierre Jodlowski, the 24th; and Jamaican musicians Sly & Robbie accompanied by the European Nils Petter Molvaer and Eivind Aarset on Saturday 25th.

Another very interesting concert hosted by the Victoria Eugenia Theatre – Skoda, on Sunday the 26th, is Johann Sebastian Jazz, a project in which two extraordinary pianists, Iñaki Salvador and Alexis Delgado, a specialist in jazz, the other in classical music, put their passions together.
A study of the economic impact of the Festival and user satisfaction

During the celebration of the 49th Heineken Jazz Festival in July 2014, a polling company, Ikertalde, audited the economic impact and user satisfaction of the Festival.

The introduction to this study said: "The Jazzaldia, as a great musical event in the city (over 150,000 people), combines a specialized and a mass offering in a successful cocktail which makes it a reference in its area; and, simultaneously, an important instrument of external promotion of the city, its summer and a positive impact for the economy ".
The economic impact of the Jazzaldia

The sum of all direct costs associated with the organization and the hospitality of the participants for the event add up to 11,138,637 euros.

This is the equal to 96.5 jobs per year.

The total tax revenue amounts to 1,901,718 euros, higher than the budget of the Festival (€1,672,081) and four times the amount covered by public contributions.

In terms of total satisfaction among the audience the study gives an 8 over 10 points.