International Jazz Day 2022

On Saturday 30th April, Deal Radio’s Jazz On The Beach radio show celebrated the 12th International Jazz Day by hosting back-to-back jazz programmes from 2pm through to midnight. Started by UNESCO in 2011, International Jazz Day ‘highlights jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting peoples in all corners of the globe’, and while there are major international events taking place including an all-star global online concert, much of the real magic of the day takes place on stages and the airwaves at a more local level. That’s where we wanted to make our contribution, to broadcast a diverse range of jazz music and the ideals it carries to both our local and wider listening community, that, as Herbie Hancock put so well, ‘show our similarities are more important than our differences’.

Each show was curated and presented by a Dealite (and one Bradstonian…that’s Broadstairs) who all brought their expertise and enthusiasm to create a whole range of excellent shows that are all still available to hear through the Deal Radio website or via Mixcloud. My deepest thanks to my friends Nik Huggins, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Roger Brockbank, Rudy de Belgeonne, David Augustin, Peter Purton and Will Vine for all your hard work and kindness, you made the whole day such great fun. And a special thank you to Deal Radio’s Marc Carey for giving us the opportunity to make this a special day of jazz music, to Tony West for all his advice, technical and studio support and to Michael Dearsley for putting together the online presentation and promotion.

I was delighted by some of the feedback from the shows I worked on, especially ‘Jazz South East’ which featured some of the jazz musicians based in South East Kent. I hope that more people become aware of the level of talent all around us, go see them perform and buy their music.

I hope we can do this all over again next year, and hopefully make it even better. But in the meantime Jazz On The Beach will continue to play jazz music from 10pm to Midnight every Wednesday evening on Deal Radio, and I hope you’ll join us.

Lsten to more jazz music!

See the full day here