The TD Edmonton International Jazz Festival traces its roots back to 2005, when local musicians and business owners teamed up with the Jazz Society of the Yardbird Suite to produce the 60-event “Yardbird Jazz Festival,” which sought to promote Edmonton’s vibrant jazz scene, as well as to offer young people the chance to learn from some of the best musicians in a workshop setting. From this fledgling festival, the Edmonton Jazz Festival Society was born, an organization which would go on to ensure that the success of the festival would continue for many years to come.

In 2006, the newly formed Edmonton Jazz Festival Society, with help from the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, partnered with the Jazz Society of the Yardbird Suite to co-host another successful festival, which saw the formation of a new festival staple: The Edmonton Jazz Orchestra, a collection of 18 local musicians who to compose, arrange, and perform songs that both draw on the history of jazz, and define what it means to be a jazz lover in Edmonton.

In 2007, the Yardbird Jazz Festival would become the TD Edmonton International Jazz Festival that we know today. Edmonton’s Jazz Festival has had a dual focus over the years: to bring the word’s greatest jazz musicians to perform in our city, and to shine the spotlight on Edmonton’s own emerging jazz talent.

This festival is only made possible through the efforts of our hard-working staff, dedicated volunteers, and the support of over 30 Edmonton organizations who help us to showcase Edmonton’s love for jazz year after year.