Additional details have been announced for the 2017 DuPont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, to be held on Wednesday, June 21 through Saturday, June 24 in Rodney Square.
This will be the 29th year of the event, billed as the largest free jazz festival on the East Coast.
Additional artists joining this year’s lineup include Karen Rodriguez, who will open Thursday evening’s Latin Jazz programming, and Rob Zinn who will perform after the Wilmington Youth Jazz Band on Saturday. Also announced was a surprise special guest artist, R&B vocalist, Marsha Ambrosius, who will take the stage Friday evening around 9 p.m.
The complete festival schedule of performances and artist bios is available at www.cliffordbrownjazzfest.org.
This year, the festival will feature performances starting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and at 2 p.m. on Saturday. The festival will also feature the return of the Silver Trumpet Block Party on Friday evening that will begin at the end of the Rodney Square stage performances. The post-festival party will take place in the 800 block of Market Street.
Visitors and residents alike are encouraged to visit two public art displays dedicated to Wilmington’s jazz legend Clifford Brown. Twin Oblelisks is located on Clifford Brown Walk and Clifford Brown with Trumpet in Kirkwood Park—both of which are in the east side of the city.
At the peak of a brief, meteoric career, the Wilmington native died in a traffic accident in the mid-1950s. His recordings and compositions live on.
