Going on to its 18th edition, Jazz in July is Singapore’s longest running annual jazz event. Unlike international jazz festivals that rely on the star power of an international lineup, Jazz in July started as, and remains an event that is focused on the jazz community in Singapore. The music has a history of more than a century on our island, and in our scene today, we have a dedicated pool of jazz practitioners who come from all walks of life. They may be full-time performers and educators, or serious musicians with non-musical day jobs—working in offices, honing their skills after hours. We have young enthusiastic jazz cats from school jazz clubs, to octogenarian veterans. For all 31 days of July, the festival brings jazz lovers of all kinds back home to Esplanade.  

In order to spread this love for the music to a wider pool of audiences, most of the festival is free-access, centered around our Concourse and DBS Foundation Outdoor Theatre venues. Each day, we feature at least one project from a different jazz collective, giving audiences a huge spectrum of styles to enjoy. We want them to know that jazz is not one single thing but a living, overarching tradition that branches off many different styles over time. The sounds range from early jazz and ragtime of the 1920s, to music that has influenced, and is in turn being influenced by other genres like hiphop and funk in recent decades.  

Jazz for Beginners  

For beginner listeners to jazz, we would recommend our vocal jazz features which happen on Mondays and our Date Night Fridays, where audiences will be serenaded with songs of love and romance. On Sundays, soak in the brassy, upbeat sounds of Singapore’s jazz big bands at the DBS Foundation Outdoor Theatre. There will also be free beginner swing dance lessons before the big bands so that you’ll be set to use those moves when the performances start. 

Regional Friendships  

One of the aims of the festival is also to build bridges between different Asian jazz scenes, collaborating with organisations like Jarasum Jazz Festival of South Korea, and Blue Note Tokyo to bring in artists from their countries. Aside from giving our audiences a taster of the dynamic flavours of Asian jazz, our hope is for Singaporean artists and their regional counterparts to build friendships through music. This helps to broaden our scene beyond the confines of our borders, into a larger Asian jazz scene, and creates the possibilities of regional artistic partnerships.  

Watch the regional performers with our local jazz musicians interact in a jam night each Friday of July, where jazz is performed in its most spontaneous format. Our regional guest performers will then have their showcase performances on Saturdays followed by a night finale of a Stage Jam at the Outdoor Theatre, where artists from Singapore and beyond meet—often for the first time on stage—to showcase their jazz chops.  

A Boutique Curation of International Jazz  

As with previous years, we invite a small and highly intentional selection of international jazz artists to perform at our festival. These are artists whom we believe are powerful and compelling interpreters of the genre, who can inspire and engage with our audiences and practitioners alike. This year we a jazz elder of the New York City scene, Johnny O'Neal and his quartet, a sublimely intimate vocal and piano duet of Vuyo Sotashe and Chris Pattishall and posterchild of contemporary jazz today, Immanuel Wilkins and his quartet. 

Each of these consumate artists showcase a different side to jazz, and apart from performances, will be conducting workshops to share some of their expertise with Singaporean jazz practitioners and jazz hobbyists.  

The abovementioned highlights are just part of a larger lineup for the festival which will happen throughout the entire month. The music you will encounter will range from lush and beautiful, to complex and messy; but at the end of the day, Jazz reflects Life itself, expressing the emotions and ideas that we have as humans. We believe that regardless of who you are there will be a flavour of the music that suits you, and hope that you will join us this July on this celebration of Jazz.  

Tan XiangHui 
Senior Producer 
The Esplanade Co Ltd