Vinterjazz Features

A history with American jazz, contemporary avant-garde fusion line-ups, legendary jazz headliners, over a hundred venues, and Copenhagen city itself, make the wintertime Vinterjazz, and the summer edition known as the CPH Jazz Festival, two singular events for a quarter million fans each year.

Historic Copenhagen Jazz

The dual festivals Vinterjazz and CPH Festival in Copenhagen, are two of the oldest, biggest and best jazz festivals Europe has to offer due to a historic love affair Copenhagen has held with American jazz greats - a relationship that began in the 1950s and continued for more than a decade, turning the city into a European jazz capital.

Genre Bending Jazz-Fusion

These twin events have remained two of the most popular jazz festivals because organisers have kept up with musical trends, so as to appeal to a wider audience and varied age groups, by incorporating styles on the fringes of jazz, featuring jazz-rock, nu-jazz, avant-garde jazz-fusion, world music and electro-synth-ambient-space-jazz like what the The Zawinul Syndicate produces, and the heady blend of sounds by Angélique Kidjo that includes Afropop, Caribbean zouk, Congolese-rumba, gospel and Latin-worldbeat. Headliners such as South African cape-jazz-folk-post-bebop composer Abdullah Ibrahim have taken centre stage as well as world-blues-folk (with electric guitars & traditional drums) by Malian Tinariwen, and traditional mbube vocalists Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Copenhagen Jazz concerts have included extreme ends of the jazz spectrum from Japanese progressive-rock-post-bop-jazz-fusion by Hiromi Uehara to Spanish flamenco nostalgia with latin-soul-jazz by Concha Buika.

Jazz Greats

Since 1979, CPH Jazz has headlined some of the world’s greatest jazz musicians of our time with appearances by (in alphabetical order): Ambrose Akinmusire, B.B.King, Bennie Carter, Bennie Wallace, Benny Waters, Bob Brookmeyer, Buddy DeFranco, Cassandra Wilson, Chick Corea, Chico Freeman, Christian Scott, Dave Liebman, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Jordan, Ed Thigpen, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta Cameron, Gerald Clayton, Gil Evans, Herbie Hancock, Herman Riley, Jimmy Smith, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Joshua Redman, Keith Jarrett, Kenny Drew, Mario Bauza, Michel Camilo, Michel Petrucciani, Mose Allison, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Ornette Coleman, Oscar Peterson, Palle Mikkelborg, Pat Metheny, Peter Brötzmann, Ray Charles, Richard Bona, Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Steve Coleman, Svend Asmussen, Terry Gibbs, Tony Allen, Tony Bennett and Wayne Shorter.

Vinterjazz & CPH Jazz Venues

A hundred venues are reserved for the Copenhagen Jazz Festival (Jazz Festival København), places like:

• Royal Copenhagen Opera House (Operaen)
• Royal Danish Theatre
• Copenhagen Harbour Park
• Copenhagen Cultural Centres
• Zillions of street cafés, bars, pubs and clubs

• Top Club: Montmartre Jazzhus – made famous  by American jazz greats who played there while living in Copenhagen during the 50s/60s.

Quirky Venues

CPH jazz festival has indoor concerts, free outdoor events in parks & city squares, street-side jam sessions/parties in Copenhagen + quirky places...

• Behind the railway station
• Along the waterfront
• Christianshavn area - trendy with quaint canals.
• Vesterbro district with hip cafes & funky shops.
• Nørrebro area - vibrant -  fun just to wander.
• Østerbro & Frederiksberg - quaint districts just outside the city.

Open-minded City

• A quarter million visitors attend CPH Jazz, but it’s also a very Danish festival.
• Copenhagen is a world-class city known for its open-minded attitude.
• It’s a city that’s safe and fun to wander & explore.

Vinterjazz Contact

• Vinterjazz
  Address: Sankt Peders Stræde 28C, 2 Fl. Copenhagen
  Phone: +45 3393 2013

• Communications
  Simon Christensen
  Email: simon@jazz.dk

Promoter

Vinterjazz / Copenhagen Jazz Festival: Sankt Peders Stræde 28C, 2, København, Denmark.