Downtown Area Tunes Up for the 7th Annual Silver Spring Jazz Festival

The rhythmic tapping of hammers and dynamic diaphony of drills heard in Veteran's Plaza as the team from All Stage and Sound begins erecting the stage, are soon to be replaced with sounds of some of the world's finest musicians at the 2010 Silver Spring Jazz Festival on Saturday, September 11, 2010 from 3:30 p.m – 11:30 p.m.

Hosted in the heart of downtown since 2004, the Silver Spring Jazz Festival has become the city's largest annual event. According to an official at the Silver Spring Regional Center, in 2005 headliner Wynton Marsalis drew in thousands and they expect above-average crowds this year with star Aaron Neville and his Quintet featuring Charles Neville. Previous world-renowned musicians playing the Festival have included Spyro Gyra and multiple award-winning trumpeter and pianist Arturo Sandoval. WUSA's Derek McGinty will serve as the Master of Ceremonies for the 2010 incarnation, the first major event to be held at the newly opened Veteran's Plaza at the corner of Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive in downtown Silver Spring.

Reemberto Rodriguez, Director of the Silver Spring Regional Center is very excited about the event. "The 2010 Jazz Festival is the culmination of all of the hard work of the great business and civic leaders who designed Veteran's Plaza to engage the community and spark economic activity. Having Aaron Neville here this year, we are really talking about something special. I couldn't be more proud of Silver Spring."

The event kicks-off in Veteran's Plaza at 3:35 p.m with the first of three local youth jazz ensembles—including bands from Albert Einstein and Eubie Blake High Schools—that will compete on the second stage. Vocalist Janine Gilbert-Carter takes the main stage at 3:55 p.m, followed by the Rumba Club concocting their special blend of jazz and instrumental Latin dance music beginning at 5:20 p.m.

The Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band opens the evening portion with a set starting at 6:45 p.m, followed by Silver Spring's own Marcus Johnson, whose latest release of keyboard music, Poetically Justified, debuted at #10 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Charts.

Headliner Aaron Neville, and his Quintet featuring Charles Neville take the main stage around 9:15 p.m. Neville, while best known for his 1989 Grammy-winning duet "Don't Know Much" with Linda Ronstadt, has found national fame his solo work including the hit "Yellow Moon" and decades of recording and touring with brothers Charles and Cyril as the Neville Brothers.