Sask. Jazz Festival commemorates 30 years in Saskatoon

From Diana Krall to Sonny Rollins, some of the top names in jazz have performed at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival over the 30 years it has been around.

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Saskatoon musician Maurice Drouin has been entertaining audiences since the festival's inception in 1986.

"It was very small," said Drouin of the festival when it first began. "It was probably 99.9 per cent local talent on the streets and that was it — very poor. Not like today. Today it's huge."

He said the festival encouraged local jazz musicians to work hard for a chance to perform and compete with the bigger names that travelled to the city.

It has gotten better

"The natural progression of the event is that it has gotten better. Not that it's gotten bigger, but that it's gotten better and that means a lot of different things," said Kevin Tobin, artistic director of the festival.

"It could be from educational programs to outreach to supporting… It's great to have big shows, I mean, that's part of it, but it's all those other things that happen during the festival that really give it its character and make it unique."

He said over the years, the festival has been host to big jazz names such as Tito Puente, Pat Metheny and George Shearing.

"One of my proudest moments was seeing Sonny Rollins on our stage in the mid-2000s and the work that it had taken over years to be able to present an artist like that," Tobin added.

The festival has launched a web page commemorating its 30 years in Saskatoon.

For a walk down memory lane, click here.