Herbie Hancock, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling and more to celebrate International Jazz Day 2024

Legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock will lead an American group of fellow jazz stars – including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, Marcus Miller and Shemekia Copeland – heading to Tangier, Morocco, to celebrate International Jazz Day 2024 (30 April). This marks the first time the event will take place on the African continent.

In a statement announcing the programming and line-up of performers for the annual celebration, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said: “Tangier's designation marks the first time that a city on the African continent will host International Jazz Day, the largest and most important jazz festival in the world. .”

Presented in collaboration with the Moroccan Ministry of Culture and the city of Tangier, the four-day celebration (April 27-30) will follow tradition and culminate with the Global All-Star Concert. The concert will be headlined by Hancock, who is also a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and music director John Beasley.

Taking place at the new Palace of Arts and Culture, the Global All-Star Concert will feature the aforementioned US artists joining a line-up that includes Claudia Acuña (Chile), Ambrose Akinmusire (USA), Richard Bona (Cameroon), Moreira Chonguiça (Mozambique). ), Antonio Faraò (Italy), Melody Gardot and Jazzmeia Horn (both USA), JK Kim (Republic of Korea), Magnus Lindgren (Sweden), Romero Lubambo (Brazil), Yasushi Nakamura (Japan) and Tarek Yamani (Lebanon ), including. The concert will be broadcast via YouTube, Facebook, the United Nations and UNESCO to viewers in more than 190 countries.

A series of educational programs, highlighted by a presentation highlighting the importance of Morocco's Gnawa music and its connection to jazz, will conclude the earlier part of the four-day event that precedes the world concert. Tangier's rich jazz heritage includes notables such as jazz master Randy Weston, who lived in Tangier for many years and collaborated with Gnawa master Abdellah El Gourd to explore the roots of jazz and African music. Weston also subsequently founded the African Jazz festival in the 70s. Josephine Baker, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Mann and Archie Shepp are also among the famous jazz artists who have played and spent time in Tangier.

International Jazz Day was established by the UNESCO general conference in 2011. The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz is the leading non-profit organization that plans, promotes and produces the annual celebration each year. To learn more about World Jazz Day and register for events, visit the official Website.