Beaches International Jazz Festival

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Grandstand and crowd appearing at the Beaches Jazz Festival, Toronto, July 24th 2005

The Beaches International Jazz Festival is an annual outdoor music event in the Beaches neighbourhood, in Toronto. The festival is a four day event in July celebrating the best of Canadian and international jazz music. The Main Stage performances are the core of the festival, and are always held at the bandshell in Kew Gardens on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons of the event. Streetfest runs the Thursday to Saturday evenings of the festival, where bands line the streets for over 2 kilometers along Queen Street East, running from Woodbine Avenue to Victoria Park Avenue. In recent years almost one million people have come to the festival as a whole.

While the focus of the event is on jazz, in fact many types of music are promoted at the festival, especially during Streetfest. While walking down a couple of blocks during this event, you are likely to encounter everything from Big Band, Rhythm and Blues, Dixieland, and Reggae.

The event has been a fixture on the Beaches since 1989.