August 31, 2004 > East Bay Traditional Jazz Society Presents 4th Annual Festival

The East Bay Traditional Jazz Society presents its 4th Annual Traditional Jazz Festival on Saturday, September 25, 2004, at Swiss Park and the Holiday Inn, located in Newark, CA just off Hwy. 880 on Mowry Avenue across from Newpark Mall.

Continuous live music is scheduled from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The cream of local traditional jazz bands will be on hand with their hottest tunes. Cell Block 7, Devil Mountain, the San Francisco Feetwarmers, the Fog City Stompers, And That's Jazz, Tice Valley, and Mission Gold will play for your listening and dancing pleasure, along with talented youth bands the Barkin' Dawgs, the Dixie Cats, and the Straw Hat ensembles. Admission is $18 until September 15, $25 at the door for adults, $10 for children. School-aged children accompanied by adults are admitted free, so you'll want to make this a happy day of family entertainment.

Traditional jazz, or Dixieland, is the original form of jazz pioneered in the 1920's by American geniuses such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Bix Beiderbecke. This small-group, improvisatory style later gave way to big band swing, bop, and more modern forms of jazz. But Dixieland is such fun that it's been revived several times. Many local bands play a brassy, danceable Pacific Coast revival style, pioneered in the 1940's and 1950's by local jazz legends Lu Watters and Turk Murphy. Pacific traditional jazz has a large and lively following. If you're not already familiar with it, the East Bay Traditional Jazz Festival offers a unique opportunity to get acquainted with this special flavor of the great American art form.

Checks can be made payable to: East Bay Traditional Jazz Society and mailed to: EBTJS, 5562 Paseo Navarro, Pleasanton, CA 94566. For more information, contact John or Sharon Soulis, (510) 657-0243, email jssoulis@wwdb.org