There will be free live music every day from noon to 8 p.m. in Burlington this week as part of the 35th annual Burlington Discover Jazz Festival.
Over a 10 day-period, 200 local musicians, 60 school bands and a collection of touring artists will perform across the city. The festival got under way Friday, June 1.
At City Hall Park in Burlington on Saturday, Marie and Emmanuel Ajanma stood together listening to The Makanda Project, a Boston-based band which performs unrecorded compositions of Makanda Ken McIntyre.
"We are regulars. We come every year," Marie Ajanma said. "I drag him here," she laughed, indicating Emmanuel.
"But now that I'm here, I'm enjoying it too," Emmanuel Ajanma said.
In addition to ticketed shows, the festival includes free live music daily through Sunday, June 10.
Chelsea Lafayette, the festival's managing director, said she's particularly excited about this Friday's marquis event: a block party with a band called Mal Maiz.
"Mal Maiz bills himself as a 'Costa Rican gypsy devil,'" said Lafayette. "He's got a really great music video out if you check that out. But there's gonna be dancers, and it's this, really this huge band."
Bandleader Maiz Vargas Sandoval will be one of 200 local musicians participating in the festival this year alongside national names like Anat Cohen and Bill Frisell.
Disclosure: VPR is an underwriting sponsor of the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival.
