Time to jazz it up

In an article, titled Reflections on 10 Years of International Jazz Day, released on April 30, 2021, Hancock writes, "As a jazz pianist and composer who has been making music for more than six decades, I know intimately well the power of music — and especially jazz — to bring people together and make a positive difference in the world.

"International Jazz Day is the embodiment of everything I have spent so many years trying to build through music — a movement in which people of all ages, nations, backgrounds, identities and ethnicities can agree that our similarities are stronger than our differences."

In November 2011, UNESCO officially designated April 30 as International Jazz Day in order to highlight the music and its diplomatic role of uniting people from all over the globe. Now, the International Jazz Day is chaired and led by UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and Hancock, who serves as the chairman of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, a nonprofit organization that is in charge of planning, promoting and producing this annual celebration.

In 2011, Thomas R. Carter, a member of the US National Commission for UNESCO, also president of the Hancock Institute of Jazz, was instrumental in establishing International Jazz Day. He recalls that, in 2010, together with Hancock and the team from UNESCO and the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, he traveled to attend the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, bringing performances and education programs to Shanghai and Beijing.

He notes that before the concert on Sunday, audiences, young and old, can watch streamed educational programs in Arabic, English, French, Mandarin and Spanish, with topics including music making for kids, improvisation, and the intersection of jazz harmony with international musical traditions.

"We have been impressed by the submissions of International Jazz Day related events in China over the past few years," says Carter. "We were enormously impressed by the musicianship in China on that visit and, since then, have been honored to work with Chinese musicians as a part of our All-Star Global Concert and as partners with organizers throughout the country each year for International Jazz Day."

For example, he mentions, Chinese musician Liu Yuan participated in Istanbul, Turkiye, in 2013, and Chinese saxophonist Li Gaoyang participated in the 2018 global concert in St. Petersburg, Russia.