Detroit Jazz Festival Garners 1M Viewers

  I  

The Detroit Jazz Festival, which ran during the long Labor Day weekend, reports that about one million people viewed or listened to performances this year.

Sets were streamed from the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center with only select press representatives, production teams and musicians in attendance for more than 40 hours of music because of the pandemic.

“Looking back, we can now truly appreciate the cultural event we created for the worldwide jazz community and all of the effort to keep our mission of free jazz alive during a global pandemic that sidelined most of the other major music festivals around the world,” said Chris Collins, president and artistic director of the festival, in a press release.

The festival said it measured about 600,000 viewers and listeners on its own platforms, with television and radio pushing the numbers up further.

In 2019, the festival said, there were “1,000 new subscribers to the app/livestreams during the four-day event,” and that average in-person attendance was about 325,000. DB



  • Quincy_Jones_by_artstreiber.com1.jpg

    Quincy Jones’ gifts transcended jazz, but jazz was his first love.

  • Roy_Haynes_by_Michael_Jackson_2012.jpg

    “I treat every day like it’s Thanksgiving,” said Roy Haynes.

  • John_McLaughlin_by_Mark_Sheldon.jpg

    John McLaughlin likened his love for the guitar to the emotion he expressed 71 years ago upon receiving his first one. “It’s the same to this day,” he said.

  • Lou_Donaldson_by_Michael_Jackson_2015.jpg

    Lou Donaldson was one of the originators of the hard bop movement in jazz back in the 1950s.

  • Zakir_Hussain_2011_Symphony_Center_copy.jpg

    “Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.


On Sale Now
January 2025
Renee Rosnes
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad