Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
The festival will go virtual for most shows due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
(Photo: Courtesy NYC Winter Jazzfest)COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on live events in the jazz world. The latest victim is the 18th Annual NYC Jazzfest. The festival has postponed most of its live events scheduled for Jan. 13–22 due to the rise of the Omicron variant in the city. New performance dates have yet to be announced.
“After much internal deliberation, hearing from the musicians, our audience, friends in the medical community and our staff, we have decided that the most responsible decision for the general welfare is to postpone most in-person events for the 18th Annual NYC Winter Jazzfest to later dates,” festival organizers said in a press release on Dec. 27. “Even if we were to follow all current NYC and NYS guidelines with vaccination requirements and masking enforcement, we know many of you would be anxious to attend. Given the heightened transmissibility of this variant, we feel that this is the most prudent way to proceed. The safety of our patrons, staff and musicians is our main priority.”
One aspect of the festival that will go on virtually is This Is A Movement: Towards Liberation, a program formulated with The Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians) and The New School–School of Jazz. The program is aimed at working toward a more equitable jazz community along gender lines. That live-streamed event (thisisamovment.com) will take place Jan. 15–17.
For more information, go to winterjazzfest.com. DB
“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.
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