Free two-day festival featuring the finest in local jazz and national and international jazz artists; diverse performance venues; outdoor dance floor; food/beverage vendors and picnic areas; artisan vendors; and family friendly programming.

LOCATIONS
Saturday, September 28, 2019: Two Outdoor Stages at Midway Plaisance (Woodlawn-Ellis); Smart Museum; Little Black Pearl; Hyde Park Bank; International House; Oriental Institute; Augustana Lutheran Church; Hyde Park Union Church; Rockefeller Chapel, Logan Art Center; Sweetwater Foundation.

Sunday, September 29, 2019: Two Outdoor Stages at Midway Plaisance (Woodlawn-Ellis), and a free discussion with Natalie Moore in the Logan Center Screening Room.

MISSION
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival is a collaborative platform dedicated to supporting the presentation and ongoing development of jazz, particularly on the South Side of Chicago. We do this by creating opportunities for a diverse community of listeners to engage with the music and its creators, and by working with artists, organizational partners and networks to celebrate the rich tradition of jazz and to support the development of new work and ideas.

VISION AND VALUES:
We believe the South Side of Chicago is an extraordinary place. We celebrate the culture of the South Side by bringing people together for a free annual jazz festival.

We celebrate the legacy of jazz on the South Side and work to create sustainable support systems for the present and future of the music and its communities.

Jazz is many things to many people. We believe deeply in this diversity and work to build programming that allows for this diversity to thrive in both artistic pursuit and audience interest.

We look to artists and the community to help us shape opportunities for building new possibilities for collaboration, in numerous forms and in unexpected ways.

We are builders. We find opportunities to leverage what exists and create what is needed.

We listen: to communities and to artists. Our work is to facilitate opportunities for connection and ongoing development of the art form.

We trust artists. We believe they determine where the music is going and we support their journey.

We collaborate. We recognize there is a lot happening on the South Side and in Chicago. We look to partner in meaningful ways to create programs and partnerships that are more than the sum of their parts.

We know jazz is a thriving art form. We work to illuminate the creative pursuits of jazz artists by building unique, dynamic platforms to support the work of Chicago jazz artists and beyond.

HISTORY
In late 2006, Hyde Park cultural leaders convened with the community group, the Hyde Park Jazz Society, to create an annual event that would bring new audiences to the many arts and cultural venues in Hyde Park, and celebrate jazz’s great legacy and bright future on Chicago’s South Side. The University of Chicago’s Office of Civic Engagement stepped up to assist this grassroots effort. The inaugural Hyde Park Jazz Festival was held in September 2007. At the first Festival, almost 5,000 jazz fans enjoyed 12 hours of free jazz played inside many museums, art galleries and architecturally significant venues in the greater Hyde Park area. In 2012, the Festival hired its first professional director and in 2013, the Festival became an independent 501c3. The Festival originated in the community and remains steadfastly committed to its grassroots history as it grows. Now in its thirteenth year, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival has established itself as a major cultural event and an essential music festival in Chicago. The Hyde Park Jazz Festival has also expanded significantly and now includes more than 35 programs over 2 days in more than a dozen unique venues, presenting Chicago’s most exceptional musicians across age and “style” to crowds of nearly 20,000 community members and visitors. Since 2014, the Festival has commissioned a half dozen major new works, supported numerous special projects by Chicago, national and international artists, and has significantly increased the number of national artists presented in the neighborhood. The Festival is produced with the help of more than 250 volunteers and is supported by numerous generous individuals, private and corporate foundations, government agencies and the University of Chicago.

Official Website

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Tags: Chicago, Hyde Park, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Midway Plaisance