Jazz is possibly the most popular music along southwest Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Any night of the week, jazz can be enjoyed in clubs along the beaches of Bradenton to Venice; weekend jazz festivals are frequent in the area; churches and college campuses as well as nightclubs host numerous jazz performances and concerts. At the center of all this great music, Sarasota is also the home of one of the largest and most active jazz clubs in the nation. Since 1980, the Sarasota Jazz Club has sponsored concerts, jazz cruises, jazz seminars, lectures, scholarships, and the hugely popular Sarasota Jazz Festival.
The late Hal Davis, the former publicist for Benny Goodman, founded the Jazz Club of Sarasota after he retired to the city in 1978. He managed the Goodman band in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the band’s historic trips to the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958 and the USSR in 1962. Hal Davis passed away in 1990. He was also the founding president of the Sarasota County Arts Council, and he served on the board of the Professional Alliance for the Performing Arts.
The annual Sarasota Jazz Festival is the Jazz Club’s premier community event. From its beginnings as a minor event in 1981, the Sarasota Jazz Festival has grown into an 8-day, multi-venue event that includes nightly performances, a large outdoor concert, and the popular Jazz Trolley, which moves fans among venues during the Festival. The 2013 Festival featured Giacomo Gates, named “2012 Rising Star Male Vocalist,” by Downbeat magazine, and a performance by the Grammy-nominated Four Freshmen. More than 80 volunteer-members worked to make the 2013 Festival a giant success.
The Jazz Club of Sarasota is also dedicated to jazz education; its stated mission is “To promote, preserve, perform and educate people about jazz, the original American musical art form.” Since 1980, the Club has granted over $200,000 in scholarships and awards to more than 150 promising young college and high-school age jazz musicians. The Jazz Club of Sarasota is a membership organization with more than 750 current dues-paying members. Individual and family memberships are available. Members can receive discounts to Club-sponsored events. The Club also publishes Sarasota Jazz Sounds, an informative quarterly newsletter. Sarasota is widely recognized as a leading arts-and-culture community. It’s well-known for its architecture, museums, and performing arts. The Sarasota Jazz Club and Sarasota Jazz Festival are essential elements of the Sarasota community and its special lifestyle.