Pescara International Jazz Festival: Everything You Need to Know

But jazz is not just recorded music, it has live performance in its very DNAas a fuller and deeper form of expression. We all agree that going to a live is not like wearing headphones and starting the play: it is experiencing a unique and unrepeatable event firsthand.

This happens with all concerts, from classical to rock, to pop, to opera, but for jazz the case is different. It is one thing to love him by putting on a record in the living room, in the presence of a stage with live musicians. It is only in this circumstance that one is lucky enough to participate in that explosive combination of writing and improvisation that characterizes it. The Pescara International Jazz Festival every year between July and August we need the opportunity not to be missed on a silver platter, with world-famous musicians performing between the Pescara theater, the arena and the port.

The birth and history of the Pescara Jazz Festival

The Pescara Jazz Festival has lived for half of those over one hundred years of records. When it was established, it was among the first summer festivals, not if there were many, and its history, as often happens, is due to a visionary idea. It was a concert by Duke Ellington , one evening in 1968, that turned on the light bulb . The next morning, the person who would become the artistic director of the Festival, Lucio Fumo , was called by the president of the Tourist Office: “We have the Naiads (the swimming pool), here we have to have a jazz festival ».

“You’re crazy,” she replied at the moment. But soon after he went to Bologna to timidly propose the idea to Bill Evans. He liked it instead, and put him in touch with his agent. The following summer, in 1969 , the Pescara Festival began , the only Italian jazz event organized outdoors. Who can forget Philly Joe Jones, the drummer who got lost at the station? The members of his quintet were all ready, only he was missing because he was late because he arrived by train. Bill Evans was supposed to play after him, but he was persuaded to open the evening and play even half an hour more . Meanwhile they rang from the station to say that a black man was shouting “Jazz!” Jazz! Jazz!”