History
The Krakow Summer Jazz Festival was established in 1996, when the famous Piwnica pod Baranami club and cabaret, which has also been a place of prestigious jazz music events since the mid-fifties, celebrated its 40th anniversary in Warsaw. birthday.
It was then that the creator and director of the festival Witold Wnuk – inspired by the legendary artistic guru of the underground and cabaret leader, Piotr Skrzynecki – presented in July 1996 a month-long series of daily concerts in the Cellar.
The festival is expanding its range from year to year, gradually introducing events not only in The Cellar, but also in other places – the Krakow Philharmonic, the Krakow Opera, Radio Krakow, the Manggha Center, ICE Krakow, the Kiev Center, in all Krakow jazz clubs and outdoor events in Krakow’s Old Town. Since 2001, every first Sunday in July there is an all-day event called The New Orleans with thousands of spectators of the New Orleans Parade.
Currently, the Summer Jazz Festival is the largest festival of this type in Poland and one of the longest in Europe, where all the brightest stars of Polish jazz and nearly 100 international stars often perform, m.in.: Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clarke, Bobby McFerrin, Al Jarreau, Art Farmer, Jean-Luc Ponty, Lenny White, Lee Konitz, Branford Marsalis, Arturo Sandoval, Joe Lovano, Maria Schneider, John Scofield, Randy Brecker, Billy Cobham, Richard Bona, Kurt Elling, Pharoah Sanders, Mike Stern, John Abercrombie, Nigel Kennedy, Kenny Garrett, Al Di Meola, Yellowjackets, Robert Glasper and Charles Lloyd.