Nashville's jazz scene is taking center stage as acclaimed artists return to Music City for the second annual Nashville Jazz Festival on Oct. 23 and Oct. 24.
The festival will take place over two days at 3rd & Lindsley Bar & Grill downtown.
Presented by the Nashville Jazz Workshop, a community center for jazz education, the festival will feature live performances by some of the best artists in the nation and will spotlight the prominent jazz community in Music City itself.
The star-studded lineup includes Giovanni Rodriguez & 12 Manos, Sofia Goodman Septet, The Day Drinkers, Vanderbilt Student Brass Band, Rod McGaha, Chester Thompson, David Williford, saxophonists Bill Evans and Jeff Coffin, plus 'SUPER NOVA' featuring drummer Keith Carlock.
Vocalist
and songwriter Dara Starr Tucker will also be among those taking the stage at this year's festival.
"It's a really cool thing to be invited to do because most of my growth in music happened in Nashville. I started my career in Nashville. And I spent the bulk of my formative musical years in the city," Tucker told The Tennessean. "I have so many good memories of the city. And I'm so glad to see how the jazz community has expanded there and has grown."
She added that Nashville's thriving jazz scene is "beginning to have national prominence and significance," in part due to the fact that "you will find every kind of musician in Nashville."
In addition to performing at the jazz festival, Tucker said she will be recording a new album while in Nashville.
"It's definitely a premier destination for recording. Even though we live in Los Angeles, we're choosing to record there in Nashville, just because there are so many players," she said.
Looking ahead to her performance at the festival, fans can expect a mix of new and old songs as well as traditional jazz, gospel, R&B, soul, blues, Americana and other sounds.
"We'll be doing some familiar stuff for people who have followed my career for years. There will definitely be several recognizable songs, and testing out some new material as well," she added. "I take some chances. It's not your traditional jazz fare... When I perform live, I try to present a very broad swath of what I do."
Grammy-winning saxophonist and songwriter Kirk Whalum will close out the festival as Saturday night's headliner. Whalum has performed all over the world alongside music legends like Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton.
"I love Nashville. I had lots of good memories there and made lots of records there," Whalum said.
Whalum, who has a star on the Nashville Walk of Fame and a brass note on the Memphis Walk of Fame, said he's looking forward to returning to Music City for this festival in particular.
"This one is different because it's sponsored by the National Jazz Workshop. And that's a special group of humans who have done a lot, not just jazz as performance, but jazz as education," he added.
Beyond celebrating the genre, the festival shines light Nashville's long-standing jazz community and the musicians who have helped shape its musical identity. Whalum said that the city known as the capital of country music is now "a music capital, period."
"Jazz was the popular music of the 20s, 30s, and 40s, right? So when you talk about pop music, you were talking about jazz," Whalum said. "That music has been popular in Nashville at least as long as country. So I'm proud to be part of that continuing."
Tucker underscored the importance of events like the festival in bringing greater recognition to Nashville's jazz community. She said that, in decades past, jazz musicians in Nashville felt like they were "rapping at the gates and looking through the window a little bit into the New York and L.A. music scene." But times are changing. Now she said that she hopes jazz musicians and singers in Nashville can continue to gain "as much exposure as possible... because there are so many great ones."
Festival doors open at 5 p.m. on Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Follow Caché McClay, the USA TODAY Network and The Tennessean's music reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @cachemcclay.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Festival shows Nashville's jazz scene is gaining national recognition
