Summer is always a big music festival season, and the jazz festival giants (like Montreal and New Orleans) kick the season off in June. Now that summer’s winding down a bit, it seems like there are jazz festivals going on in every region. Here are just a few of the events going on in the next two weeks.
Rockport Jazz Festival: We’re opening for the sold out Grace Kelly Quintet on August 16. The shows for Tierney Sutton (on the 15th) and the Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band (on the 17th) still have tickets available.
Merrimack Valley Jazz Festival: Another local event, this festival started just last year. They have a free concert kickoff tomorrow and the main concerts are on Saturday featuring the UMass Faculty Jazz Ensemble, the Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra, and others.
Hudson Valley Jazz Festival: Didn’t get tickets to our performance and feeling like a road trip? The Hudson Valley Jazz Festival is going on next weekend as well. All but two of the shows are free. This is a young festival, in its third year, but it has been popular and growing each year.
Long Beach Jazz Festival: Are you a West Coast reader? Then this 25 year-old festival might be a bit closer. It’s going on this weekend, and features artists such as Kirk Whalum and Dianne Reeves.
We just got back from our Japan tour yesterday, and we were blown away by the fans and supporters who came out. Many fans had all of our CDs, and one was so nervous asking Yoko to sign them that his hands were shaking. That was just incredible to experience; our fans mean so much to us!
You may have seen some of the photos that we shared on our Facebook page, but we wanted to share some more candid photos mixed in with performance shots here on the site. We think they capture the whole feel of the tour.
the fans:
Signing CDs.
Our new CD released in Japan, Act Naturally.
the tour:
The trio with a restaurant owner at a post-show meal.
We wanted to share some photos of the fun we’ve been having on our Japan tour for our new CD. For CD information, click here. Our Japanese fans can listen to snippets of songs and more from the link.
The Yoko Miwa Trio kicking off the Japan 2012 tour in Kobe, Yoko's hometown.
Posing with students at the Koyo Conservatory in Kobe. Yoko attended the Conservatory in 1995 when she decided to pursue jazz piano full time rather than classical piano.
The poster for the performance at Gate's 7 in Fukuoka.
Performance shot at Gate's 7.
The Yoko Miwa Trio with the owner of Gate's 7.
Yoko signing CDs for fans.
We’ll have more photos, including ones not shared on our Facebook page, next week, so stay tuned.
We’re currently off to Japan to promote our new CD. Our first performance is in Kobe on the 22nd.
If you can’t make one of our July Japanese shows, you’re in luck! We’ll be back in Japan in October to play at the Cotton Club in Tokyo on October 3rd for two shows. Tickets go on sale on July 21st. If you’re in Tokyo then, click here (the link is to the English page, you can switch back to Japanese at the top right corner) for the schedule and to purchase tickets. We’re so excited to perform there!
We wanted to let our fans know about NPR’s coverage of the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island next month. It’s so important to support regional festivals to help bring jazz to new audiences. NPR plans on live streaming and more during the festival. WGBH is also covering the festival, but it’s fantastic that it’s being shared with a national audience. Especially through new outlets such as live streaming through their website and their mobile apps. Which is handy if you’re not near a radio during the festival, but you want to tune in.
For more information about NPR’s coverage, read on here.
For information about the Newport Jazz Festival, click here.
You may have noticed that there wasn’t a post or newsletter yesterday. We had a few glitches including a downed server and some formatting issues that prevented both from going out. Which is unfortunate since we wanted to share the jazz funeral event planned in protest to WGBH’s program changes. That event was last night, and we had wanted to share it with our local readers in case they wanted to attend.
Since that didn’t happen, and since part of the trio wasn’t able to attend the event either, we wanted to share this clip from the event. Yesterday was Eric Jackson’s last weekday in his old time slot on WGBH.
For the Globe’s coverage from yesterday, click here.
In all of the busyness of celebrating our win in the Boston Phoenix, being caught off guard by the recent WGBH announcement, and finalizing our Japanese tour dates, we didn’t want you to forget that we have quite a few gigs lined up at home.
If you’re in downtown Boston, check us out tomorrow at Macy’s for two gigs as part of the Boston Downtown Concert Series. We’ll be playing at noon and 4 pm in the Downtown Crossing Macy’s (101 Arch Street). We’re also playing next Monday at noon in Post Office Square as part of the same series. Enjoy a lunch break and listen to our music. Who knows, you might be more energized and productive at the office afterwards.
We’ll also be playing at tLes Zygomates on June 30th and July 10th and the Ryles on July 8th before we head off for Japan for 2 weeks. Click here for all of our upcoming shows in the Boston area. We hope to see you at one of them!
After such an amazing early part of the month, full of recording a new CD and winning best Boston jazz act, we were shocked to hear of the changes coming to local Boston jazz radio. WGBH, the station whose studio we were just recording in, is cutting back hours of two prominent jazz shows. Eric Jackson, a friend of the Yoko Miwa Trio and a prominent jazz DJ for WGBH, will no longer host his fantastic show Monday-Thursday evenings. His show is getting pushed to Friday-Sunday with fewer hours. Because of that time slot change, Steve Schwartz’s Friday show is being eliminated. Both DJs have been in the Boston jazz scene for decades, and they have both been active in curating the best of jazz for their Boston audience.
We’ll keep you updated of any developments, but some of these programming changes may start as soon as July 2nd.
To read the article on the Boston Globe, click here.
Thanks to our absolutely fantastic fans and friends, we won the Boston Phoenix best jazz act in Boston category. We are beyond elated and just cannot thank you all enough for your amazing support. It truly means the world to us to have such fabulous fans. You’re the best!
Jon Garelick and Yoko Miwa.
Yoko was presented the gold record award yesterday, and editor Jon Garelick is pictured above with Yoko after the awards were handed out. We’re honored to win such a talented category.
The award: a gold record.
Again, we cannot thank you all enough for your votes and support!
We’re so excited for the release of our new album through JVC Victor Entertainment in Japan. As we mentioned in last week’s post, we’ll be on tour in Japan next month to promote our new CD. We wanted to share our tour dates with our Japanese fans so they can make plans to attend our performances. We’ll also be translating this schedule into our Artist Data account soon.
Les Zygomates Wine Bar and Bistro
Select Saturdays Ryles Jazz Club Sunday Brunch 10:30 am 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month.
Check the schedule for current information.
