Photo by Fred Tauerts

(MONTCLAIR, NJ) -- On January 1, 2025, SiriusXM's Real Jazz will broadcast the 2024 Montclair Jazz Festival Downtown Jamboree. Produced by Jazz House Kids, the 15th annual Montclair Jazz Festival Downtown Jamboree took place on September 14, 2024, setting a new attendance record of 26,000 music fans in Downtown Montclair, New Jersey.

The broadcast will begin at noon eastern time on New Year’s Day, and will include sets from 9-time GRAMMY-winning bassist and JAZZ HOUSE Creative Director Christian McBride and his band Inside Straight, Edmar Castañeda Quartet, Jerome Jennings & ill Philosophy, Brianna Thomas Band, JAZZ HOUSE Legacy Band, Steve Turre Sextet, Montclair State University Jazz Band featuring Dave Stryker + Steve Nelson, and JAZZ HOUSE Collective featuring Melissa Walker.

The Montclair Jazz Festival is the largest jazz festival in the greater NYC area that’s free to the public. The 2024 Downtown Jamboree welcomed music fans along nearly half a mile of Montclair’s Bloomfield Avenue commercial corridor, closed to vehicular traffic with hundreds of retailers and restaurant storefronts. The 2024 event was jam-packed with talent on multiple stages, 170+ food & artisan vendors in the Rao’s Homemade Marketplace, and the Verizon Family Jazz Discovery Zone in the Wellmont Arts Plaza. After eight hours of live music on two stages, the Montclair Jazz Festival transformed into a giant 15th Anniversary Celebration Block Party as DJ Brother Mister (AKA Christian McBride) and special guest, New Jersey’s own DJ Prince Hakim took over the Downtown Jamboree stage for a dynamic funk & soul dance party.

Now in its third decade, the nationally recognized JAZZ HOUSE KiDS transforms lives using the power and legacy of jazz through world-class education and performances that create avenues of access, learning, career development and community building. Recently featured on CBS Mornings and The Kelly Clarkson Show and celebrated by global superstar STING, the organization and students have received more than 170 awards and honors for excellence in jazz and jazz education. The JAZZ HOUSE has two locations: its headquarter in Montclair, NJ and a new satellite program in Lower Manhattan in collaboration with and fully-funded by Trinity Church NYC.

The foundation of the JAZZ HOUSE is their tremendous faculty who are full-time practitioners and educators. Every day of the week through a series of in-school programs and out-of-school programs in New Jersey and New York City, JAZZ HOUSE helps young people gain an artistic edge, fostering community leaders and global citizens who help build thriving communities. JAZZ HOUSE produces 150+ free public concerts per year to audiences close to 250,000 including the organization’s far-reaching cultural signature program, the award-winning Montclair Jazz Festival, the largest free jazz festival in the region, attracting 26,000 attendees each year.