Things to do in London: visit the London Jazz Festival
Last Updated: Wed 11 Nov 2009

Jazz fans will have plenty of things to do in London this week as the London Jazz Festival returns to the city.

Rising stars and legends of the jazz world will perform at top venues across London, such as the Barbican, Southbank Centre and Kings Place.

This year's highlights include Saxophone Colossus Sonny Rollins, Brazil's music maestro Gilberto Gil and a tribute to Benny Goodman.

The festival runs from the Friday 13th to Sunday 22nd November and kicks off with Yots, labeled the "punk Shirley Bassey of jazz", performing her own inimitable brand of irreverent jazz and swing standards at the Cafe Consort in the Royal Albert Hall.

Closing the festival will be Sleepthief, a trio of acclaimed German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, UK pianist Liam Noble and US drummer Tom Rainey.

In the 1970s, the London Borough of Camden added a Jazz Week to their long-established Camden Festival. Up until the early nineties the Camden Jazz Week was held at several venues around the borough.

With the active support of London Arts Board (now Arts Council England), Serious - who had for some years produced the Camden weeks - engineered a transition that saw the evolution of a London Jazz Festival in 1992.

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Posted by Georgina Black.