5 Can’t-Miss Shows at This Year’s Denver Jazz Fest

David Froman and Don Lucoff know a thing or two about jazz. Froman is president of 30-year-old nonprofit Gift of Jazz, which provides adult education music classes and holds monthly jazz education sessions for Denver Public Schools students. Lucoff has been working in jazz public relations since 1983 and is the founder of Denver-based marketing firm DL Media Music. The two crossed paths in their respective jazz circles, and that’s when Lucoff (who moved to Colorado in 2021) asked Froman a simple yet loaded question: Why doesn’t Denver have a jazz festival?

At the time, though, it did. Five Points Jazz Festival brought local jazz acts together as a city-funded, one-day summer event for more than 20 years. Froman had even sat on its programming committee for fifteen of those years. But this past November, the city canceled the beloved fest (opting to set up a grants program instead).

Lucoff wasn’t talking about Five Points, though. He was thinking of something bigger. “Denver is very well suited to have a national jazz festival based on its 24-hour jazz radio station, KUVO, and based on the number of clubs that present jazz on a regular basis,” Froman says. In short: Denver is a jazz hotspot, and Lucoff and Froman want the rest of the country to see that, too.

That’s why this month, the inaugural Denver Jazz Fest, April 3 to 6, will bring royalty (hello, five-time Grammy winner Dianne Reeves) and homegrown talent (like the Ken Walker Sextet) to venues across the metro, including Dazzle, Nocturne, and the Boulder Theater. While Lucoff and Froman don’t think they could ever replace the iconic Five Points Jazz Festival, they want this year’s festivities to usher in a new era of groove to the Mile High City. “We hope that the community will look at this as a way to scratch their jazz itch when it comes to a jazz festival,” Froman says. “It’s not gonna be the same kind of festival, and we recognize that. But we know that there is interest in having national artists come to Denver, and we’re hoping to find a good balance between the national and local artists that we’re featuring.”

Ahead of this month’s fest, we asked Lucoff and Froman to share five shows that you can’t miss.

5 Can’t-Miss Shows at This Year’s Denver Jazz Fest

1. Bill Frisell

• Where: Newman Center for the Performing Arts (2344 E. Iliff Ave., Denver)
• When: Thursday, April 3, 7 p.m.
• Cost: Tickets starting at $39

A graduate of East High School, Bill Frisell went on to win a Grammy for his genre-bending instrumentalism and was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in 2017. His albums range from jazz-fusion to Americana, but for this performance, Frisell rounds up five of his closest friends and longest collaborators to perform as a new band called In My Dreams. “It’ll be a regional debut of this new six-piece group that is going to include three string players, which is a very significant departure from his typical format,” Froman says.

2. Rico Jones

• Where: DPAC Sculpture Park (1736 Speer Blvd., Denver)
• When: Saturday, April 5, 1:30 p.m.
• Cost: Free

A graduate of Denver School of the Arts, Rico Jones was named one of KUVO’s “30 Under 30” musicians at just 16 years old. “We’ve all watched him grow up and come into his own,” Froman says. Jones moved to New York and studied at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music, where he became one of the most popular saxophonists of our time. Now in his twenties, Jones returns to the Mile High City to perform at this free show. If you can’t make the free DPAC Sculpture Park performance, you’ll have two more chances to catch Jones at Nocturne on April 3 (tickets required).

3. Erica Brown with the Delta Sonics

• Where: DPAC Sculpture Park (1736 Speer Blvd., Denver)
• When: Saturday, April 5, 3 p.m.
• Cost: Free

Stick around after Rico Jones leaves the stage to catch dreamy Denver jazz vocalist Erica Brown perform with the harmonica-led Delta Sonics. The latter, which was named Westword’s best blues band for six years in a row, consists of four jazz musicians who’ve been touring their blues tunes for more than 20 years (averaging around 220 performances a year).

4. Colorado Mambo Orchestra

• Where: The Pearl (2199 California St., Denver)
• When: Saturday, April 5, 8 p.m.
• Cost: $20

This Saturday-night performance by the Colorado Mambo Orchestra is what Froman simply calls a “Latin dance party.” You’ll find salsa, Cuban, and Brazilian beats from an ensemble led by Raul Murciano Jr., former dean of University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and director of Miami Sound Machine (which featured Gloria Estefan). Located in new venue the Pearl (formerly the Mercury Cafe), this seven-person-orchestra is set to bring high-energy beats to the festival. Arrive right at 8 p.m. to catch a samba dance lesson from local instructor Tom “El Rasta Salsa” Ogunribido.

5. Dianne Reeves

• Where: Newman Center for the Performing Arts (2344 E. Iliff Ave., Denver)
• When: Sunday, April 6, 4 p.m.
• Cost: Tickets starting at $39

Even if your jazz knowledge starts and ends with La La Land, you’ve probably heard Dianne Reeves sing. Her eponymous 1987 album peaked at number one on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz chart, she performed at the closing ceremony of the 2002 Olympics, and, oh, yeah, she’s got five Grammys. “She lives here in Denver but doesn’t perform very often, so we’re really excited to have her,” Froman says. “She’s one of the best jazz vocalists in the world.” At the Denver Jazz Fest, you can catch her in an intimate performance of some of her greatest hits alongside guitarist Romero Lubambo.

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A History of Jazz in Denver

This month, Denver Jazz Fest aims to make Denver an epicenter of jazz, but according to Charleszine “Terry” Nelson, who worked at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library in Five Points for 23 years before her retirement in 2024, the city has been steeped in swing for a century. Here, the self-proclaimed History Diva of the West outlines four key evolutions in the Mile High City’s celebration of bebop and blues.

Harlem of the West

Discrimination was illegal in Colorado in the 1920s, but that didn’t stop racist hotel owners from turning away touring Black musicians. They found a safe place to stay in Five Points, which became known as “the Harlem of the West” due to its concentration of Black culture and entertainment. National acts, such as Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, often played their main shows at the neighborhood’s swanky Rossonian hotel before walking across the street to the laid-back Casino Ballroom (now Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom) for a late-night encore.

Juneteenth Music Festival

After opening Rice’s Tap Room and Oven in the 1950s, local businessman Otha Rice began hosting Juneteenth gatherings complete with live jazz, blues, and soul food at his Welton Street club. The annual party evolved into Denver’s Juneteenth Music Festival in 2012. Today, over 70,000 attendees gather on Welton for the free, family-reunion-style festival that features jazz, R&B, and hip-hop artists, a 5,000-person parade, and Black-owned businesses and food vendors.

City Park Jazz

In 1986, a small group of City Park residents eager to restore the sense of community in their neighborhood (which had become overrun by tourists visiting the Denver Zoo) began hosting impromptu jazz concerts in the park. The pop-ups drew crowds of their own, leading to the launch of City Park Jazz, a nonprofit that hosts 10 free performances each summer at the Ferril Lake bandstand. The Sunday evening shows invite exclusively local acts, including Colorado Music Hall of Famer Hazel Miller and her band the Collective, which play to Denverites picnicking on blankets and in camp chairs.

Five Points Jazz Festival

Denver deemed Five Points a Historic Cultural District in 2002 in honor of its rich jazz lore and prolific Black history. The following spring, the city held the first Five Points Jazz Festival in the parking lot of the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. “It was a snowy day, so we thought we’d have maybe 50 people,” Nelson says. “Two hundred and fifty showed up.” The one-day event’s sounds of Latin jazz, swing, funk, and blues reverberated throughout Welton Street for 21 years before its final run last June. (Event organizer Denver Arts & Venues says the fest will be replaced with a year-round grant program that will distribute funds to local jazz artists and jazz-related programs.)

Read More:

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