Jazz at Lincoln Center and JazzTimes have joined forces to co-produce the Jazz Congress, an annual conference designed to bring together artists, media and industry leaders in the global jazz community to exchange ideas in order to nurture and grow the jazz community and the underlying business and organizations that promote, produce, present, market and support the music.

JazzTimes has been organizing confabs for the jazz industry since 1979, when it first hosted the Radio Free Jazz Convention, later the JazzTimes Convention, which was held until 1998. Beginning in 2000, JazzTimes partnered with the International Association of Jazz Education (IAJE) to create the Industry Track as part of that organization’s annual conference. After IAJE folded in 2009, the magazine created a DIY Crash Course at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) conference in 2011. Working with a consortium of organizations and individuals, the Jazz Connect Conference followed in 2012 and took place as a pre-conference at the APAP conference for the three years. The conference moved as a stand-alone event to Saint Peter’s Church in 2015, where it was held for the next three years, presented with the Jazz Forward Coalition.

“We are excited by the opportunity to create an event that will expand the involvement of both the U.S. and international jazz scene,” said Lee Mergner, Publisher of JazzTimes. “We remain committed to celebrating the diversity of the jazz community, with many organizations welcome to participate as strategic partners and sponsors.”

“Let us all take pride in our collective advocacy of this great music by identifying, declaring and demonstrating our common ground.”

— Wynton Marsalis, Managing and Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center