Jazz is widely considered the world’s music.
That’s certainly the belief of drummer Claes Brondal, founder and executive director at The Jam Session, a Sag Harbor-based nonprofit production, arts and educational organization with the mission of enriching lives through music. For over 15 years, Brondal and his team’s year-round programming have highlighted the global roots of jazz via live performances, recordings, radio broadcasts and education across the East End.
The grassroots organization spawned in 2009 when local musicians looking to jam together would gather at Bay Burger (on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, where Goldberg’s is now) for weekly performances. A following grew, as did the session’s popularity. Now, The Jam Session has grown to include Jazz Night, a bi-weekly concert series at the Masonic Temple in Sag Harbor; the Winter Jazz Series, which holds off-season performances at several South Fork venues; JazzFest Radio Hour, a weekly radio program featuring live recordings of performances airing on 88.3 WLIW-FM; and Hamptons JazzFest.
Perhaps the meatiest part of the nonprofit’s core pillars is the latter — a 10-week summer festival born of the Covid-19 pandemic, presenting world-class jazz, Latin and world music across some of the most iconic venues of the South Fork.
“We curate shows in about a dozen venues between Hampton Bays and Montauk,” says The Jam Session founder and executive director Claes Brondal. (Photo credit: Barbara Masslen)
Hamptons JazzFest represents one of the longest continuous runs of live jazz programming in the region, offering both large-scale performances as well as more intimate listening opportunities. Programming features longstanding, well-established jazz figures from the East End, New York City and beyond, along with emerging, up-and-coming artists. While traditional jazz remains at the center of the festival’s heart, the genre is habitually blending and highlighting Latin, African and Indian influences and more contemporary creative music.
“We’re going into our sixth season,” Brondal says of the summertime music festival, “and we curate shows in about a dozen venues between Hampton Bays and Montauk. We’ve sourced artists from all over the world to come and perform. It’s a reflection of the wonderfully diverse tri-state area that we live in and that we try to showcase during Hamptons JazzFest.”
From early summer through September, curated indoor and outdoor shows will be popping up at spots all over the Hamptons, including the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton Arts Center, Guild Hall, Bridgehampton Museum, LTV Studios, libraries, Bay Street Theater, The Church and more, Brondal says. Over the course of the season, he anticipates an average of three performances each week at any given venue.
“I’m still trying to showcase and curate a sort of program that reflects all music under the jazz umbrella, whether it’s Indian music, African music, blues, gospel, a lot of Latin and jazz as well,” the Copenhagen-born Sag Harbor resident says. “So it’s definitely a jazz festival with a strong, global sort of connotation.”
Joining Brondal on the executive committee, which he says is “the everyday meat and potatoes of curating the programs,” are creative director Bill O’Connell and programming director Joel Chriss, a professional jazz pianist, educator and bandleader, and prominent New York City booking agent, respectively. “Between the three of us,” Brondal says, “we have a lot of connections and a lot of pull to get artists out here.”
With an unrelenting vision of sharing music while working toward cultivating a thriving cultural landscape across the East End, concert performances are not only uniquely fostering a diverse array of performers and musicians, they’re also affordable to attend. Many concerts are free. Others are in the $20 to $35 range, with a small number clocking in at a $65 price point.
“Our mission is, and not to sound so simplified and naive, but to create a better world with the tools that we have,” Brondal says. “What we can do is we can try to create community using music as our common denominator and bring people together.”
Visit hamptonsjazzfest.org to stay up to date on performances.
