Mount Fuji Jazz Festival

Mount Fuji Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival held in August in the Lake Yamanaka area, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. The three-day festival features musicians from Blue Note Records and other, performing on different stages, 1986–96. Alfred Lion came to this festival for the first time in 1986.

Notable artists at the MountFuji Jazz Festival include Andrew Hill, Herbie Hancock, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Ron Carter James Newton, Albert Collins, Bobby Hutcherson, Michael Brecker, Jackie McLean, Jazz Messengers, George Kawaguchi, McCoy Tyner, Stanley Jordan, Dianne Reeves, Tony Williams, Chaka Khan, Don Pullen, Sadao Watanabe, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, Terumasa Hino, Bob Belden, John Scofield, Lee Ritenour, Junko Onishi, US3, Joe Henderson, Murakami PONTA Shuichi and Pat Metheny.

Live under the sky (established in 1977), Newport Jazz Festival in Madarao (established in 1982) and Mount Fuji Jazz Festival (established in 1986) are the big 3 jazz festival in the history of jazz in Japan.

Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji (富士山, Fujisan, IPA: [ɸɯᵝꜜdʑisaɴ]), located on Honshu Island, is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about 100 kilometres (60 mi) south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day. Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped several months a year, is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.

Mount Fuji is one of Japan's "Three Holy Mountains" (三霊山, Sanreizan) along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku. It is also a Special Place of Scenic Beauty and one of Japan's Historic Sites. It was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site on June 22, 2013. As per UNESCO, Mount Fuji has “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries”. UNESCO recognizes 25 sites of cultural interest within the Mt. Fuji locality. These 25 locations include the mountain itself, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Shrine and six other Sengen shrines, two lodging houses, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, the eight Oshino Hakkai hot springs, two lava tree molds, the remains of the Fuji-kō cult in the Hitoana cave, Shiraito Falls, and Miho no Matsubara pine tree grove.

List of jazz festivals

This is an incomplete list of notable jazz music festivals, broken down geographically. The festivals mentioned here should have at least some international recognition. This list generally excludes multi-genre festivals with only a partial focus on jazz, though such fusion festivals may be listed under individual subtopics of Jazz festivals by country.

Jazz has appeared in various festivals since the turn of the century, after the genre originated in African American communities during the late 19th and early 20th century. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, giving rise to many distinctive styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, and Gypsy jazz were the prominent styles. Bebop and cool jazz emerged in the 1940s, and the 1950s saw free jazz, hard bop, and modal jazz. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electronic instruments and the highly amplified stage sound of rock, with large festivals exhibiting the sounds in response. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called "smooth jazz" became successful, and other jazz styles include Afro-Cuban jazz and various fusion genres.