PORT TOWNSEND –– The clubs and bars of Port Townsend will come alive beginning next Thursday, as the 40th annual Jazz Port Townsend conference spills out of the confines of Fort Worden and into the streets.
Combos of the more than 230 jazz students and their instructors from around the world — skills finely tuned from the conferences at Centrum that begin Sunday — will take over venues like the Public House, the Cellar Door, Manresa Castle, the Rose Theatre and many others every night from Thursday through Saturday.
“Forty years is a long run in this business, although we like to think of it as merely a good start,” said Gregg Miller, Centrum’s Jazz Port Townsend program manager.
Since its beginning in 1975, when Centrum’s founder, Joe F. Wheeler, welcomed prominent jazz composer Toshiko Akiyoshi to Fort Worden State Park, Jazz Port Townsend has grown into Washington state’s longest-running summer jazz festival.
The festival closes with two days of main stage concerts at McCurdy Pavilion in Fort Worden.
On Friday, July 25, the 7:30 p.m. concert includes The Jensen Sisters and trombonist Wycliffe Gordon and friends.
Purchase tickets at centrum.org or by calling 800-746-1982. Tickets are also available for purchase at the box office one hour before show times.
For more information about the Jazz Port Townsend concerts, visit http://tinyurl.com/PDN-JazzPT.
