Capital Jazz Fest Tickets

Capital Jazz Festival is five days musical fest featuring live music on three stages. The Pavilion Stage will showcase the best in contemporary jazz, while The Symphony Woods Stage will showcase urban and neo-soul artists. 2007 is the Chesapeake Stage showcasing contemporary jazz artists from the Maryland, DC, and Virginia region, including past alumni of the Capital Jazz Challenge competition.

4th Annual Capital Jazz Challenge competition and the 3rd Annual Capital Jazz Poetry Slam will also be held this year. Fine art and crafts at the Festival Marketplace and culinary treats at the International Food Pavilion, and Artist workshops are also planned.

Merriweather Post Pavilion
Located between Washington and Baltimore, in a lovely 40-acre Symphony Woods, the festival will be held at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

Capital Jazz Fest
The Capital Jazz Fest is held each year in early June. This multi-day outdoor music festival is referred by guitarist Chuck Loeb as the Woodstock of jazz festivals. It's a place for some of the world's finest contemporary jazz music performed by artists you won't see anywhere else in the Washington-Baltimore area.

Since its commencement in 1993, the Fest has continually showcased the biggest names in contemporary jazz. Past performers include Kenny G, Kem, Stanley Clarke, Grover Washington, Jr., Joe Sample, Boney James, Nancy Wilson, Will Downing, Rick Braun, Incognito, Brian Culbertson, Fourplay, and others.

4th Annual Capital Jazz Challenge
On Saturday, June 2, the festival will host American Idol's fourth annual live performance competition, featuring up-coming contemporary jazz artists. Artists will compete for a $5,000 prize and a chance to perform on the festival's Pavilion stage on Sunday, June 3.

In 2000, as in past years, this included Nestor Torres, Gabriela Anders, Norman Brown, Marc Antoine, Walter Beasley, Maysa, and the current chart-toppers i.e. Keiko Matsui, Bob James, Dave Koz, Patti Austin, Hiroshima, Spyro Gyra, Boney James, Rick Braun and some rare performances by legendary performers as George Benson, Gato Barbieri, Jean-Luc Ponty.

This year, master guitarist-bassist Stanley Jordan was joined by a gentleman from India who added the mystical sitar and other native Indian instruments to create a set even more unique than Stanley usually provides. The most energetic set had to be the Saturday night headliners: Rick Braun and Boney James playing together. Both have played some of the biggest hits from each, as well as tracks from their first collaborative CD.

Capital Jazz is an amazing event: 24 concerts in two days and the whole thing go off like clockwork. There are two stages, and when one show ends, a new act starts immediately on the other one. Capital Jazz Fest has moved the event to the football stadium of the U.S. Naval Academy. The two stages are further apart, making it harder to cover all the concerts. Of course, there is no shade in an outdoor football stadium except for the highest bleacher seats.