Medford Jazz Festival Press Room

It's All About Jazz, Dancing And Fun At 23rd Annual
Medford Jazz Festival Oct. 7-9 2011

MEDFORD, OREGON — The Medford Jazz Festival swings into Southern Oregon Oct. 7-9 with 10 hot bands, four jazz and dance venues including a new dance-dedicated site.

As the longest-running jazz festival in Southern Oregon and Northern California, the Medford Jazz Festival showcases a talented lineup of national and regional bands playing Dixieland, Zydeco, Swing, Jump-Jive and Big Band for three phenomenal days of music and dancing. This year's bands include:

  • High Street Band
  • Tom Rigney and Flambeau
  • High Sierra Jazz Band
  • Carolyn Martin's Swing Band
  • Sister Swing
  • Wally's Warehouse Waifs
  • Gator Beat
  • Bob Draga
  • Blue Street Jazz Band
  • Oregon Coast Lab Band
  • Midiri Brothers
  • Cornet Chop Suey


Bios and videos of all bands are available on the Medford Jazz Festival website at www.medfordjazz.org.

Dance with the stars. This year, dancing reaches new heights, leaps, bounds and swings with the spacious Kids Unlimited performing arts stage serving as the exclusive dance site. The Medford Jazz Festival is proud to feature national level dance instructors offering free demonstrations (with admission), workshops and lessons for beginners and more advanced dancers. Invited back are Oregon-based dancing instruction partners Drew Laiche and Catherina Erfurth from "Eugene Swing," and Russ Bruner and Susan Kane from Portland's "Swing Time."

Socialize. Follow this year's Medford Jazz Festival and connect with other fans via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Medford Jazz Festival's website at www.medfordjazz.org is host to all of these social media outlets and is a one-stop resource to receive updates, news, and inside information on this year's quickly approaching Festival.

The Medford Jazz Festival is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to cultivating, fostering, sponsoring and developing the understanding, taste and love of traditional jazz music as an art form through youth programs and the annual Jazz Festival. The Festival Education Program will again reach over 15,000 local students during the week leading up to the Festival as a featured Jubilee band will perform for local schools. Since its inception, the Jubilee has donated more than $165,000 to Medford School District 549C for youth music programs.

For tickets or information, visit www.medfordjazz.org or call (541) 770-6972 or (800) 599-0039. On the website are maps of all of the venues, links to accommodations, and more information on each of the performers.



History of the Medford Jazz Festival through 2010

The story, told and retold over the years, starts in 1988 with Larry Bernard (leader of Journeys End Jazz Band) returning from the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee bubbling with enthusiasm over this thing called Jazz Jubilee. Medford surely needed one of these, thought Larry, and with the help of his co founders Jerry Lausmann, the former Medford Mayor (and a musician in his own right) and the late Patti Bills, former Director of the Visitors and Convention Bureau, the enthusiasm spread.

The first Medford Jazz Jubilee, now called the Medford Jazz Festival, was held in October 1989 with great success and much to do about community, music, worldwide musicians and spreading the joy of the true American art-form, Dixieland music. Just eight bands appeared that first year and the festival has grown over time to include as many as 18 bands and additional youth-oriented programs.

For the 1990 festival the event added its first Youth Program which is, today, a main focus of the festival. Just 500 children participated in that first year's program and well over 15,000 students are now entertained and introduced to jazz every year during the festival. Two front-line bands are brought in early to perform all-student assemblies at over 30 area elementary schools and to conduct music student clinics at several middle schools.

To complement the in-school program, the Oregon Coast Lab Band, consisting of over 150 students from ages 11-18, perform each year at this festival. This student band contains remarkable young people with bandleaders and parents that are to be commended for the commitment they have all made to their program. The festival takes the Youth Program very seriously and annually makes a cash contribution to Medford Schools Foundation specifically earmarked to support music. In 2007, a membership structure was initiated to help perpetuate the Jubilee and to substantially increase support levels to the schools.

Dancing at the Medford Jazz Festival has always been popular, and in the last few years has really taken off. From the energetic, uninhibited steps of Jump-Jive to the classical, intimate Waltz, the Festival is the ultimate place to dance to live music for three straight days. Each venue features a dance floor and lots of room for watching. Our dedicated dancing site features free professional dance lessons, dance exhibitions, great contests, and plenty of seating for spectators.

2010 brought new exciting changes to the Medford Jazz Festival. The biggest is probably the change of names from the Medford Jazz Jubilee to the Medford Jazz Festival. Changing to a "festival" signifies the weightiness of this community event, which is a celebration of the passion for music and the festivities that surround it.

Also in 2010, the Medford Jazz Festival bolstered its online presence with a completely renovated website as well as social marketing with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages. By doing so, we are providing convenient and informative ways for people to keep posted on the Festival, find out information, videos and audio clips on each of the bands, order tickets ahead of time, and more.

The Medford Jazz Festival is truly a musical event for all ages. Over the years we have stayed true to our Dixieland roots, but we have broadened our community and audience appeal by including Zydeco, Swing, Jump-Jive, Big Band and other music that is period-contemporary with the Traditional Jazz era.

The Medford Jazz Festival has the full support of the community and our loyal jazz fans. It is through the community support, continued attendance and great volunteer work that this Jubilee continues to be successful.