Red Deer, Alberta · since 2022
The record
What the Red Deer Community for Jazz Music has done since it was founded in 2022 — the festivals, the monthly jam, and the people who played them.
5
Annual festivals
100+
Paying jobs for musicians
1,500+
Volunteer hours
Job and volunteer-hour figures are as reported at the end of 2024, so they are floors, not current totals.
The festivals
2026 · Fifth annual · coming up
5th Annual Red Deer Jazz Festival
September 25–27. Half Step Trio at Sunnybrook United Church on the Friday, with a jazz workshop on the Saturday and the festival jam on the Sunday.
Festival details →
2025 · Fourth annual
The Red Deer Jazz Festival
Canadian saxophonist Kirk MacDonald played the festival with pianist Bruce Barth.
2024 · Third annual
The Red Deer Jazz Festival
The Andrew Ludtke Quartet played the feature concert at The Velvet Olive.
2022–2023 · The first two
The first two festivals
The RDCJM was founded in 2022 and incorporated as a non-profit. The first festival ran that year, and the SwingTime AllStar Jam began its monthly run.
The monthly jam
The SwingTime AllStar Jam has run 2–3 PM on the last Saturday of the month since 2022 — the longest run of any jazz jam in Red Deer. Free, no audition, all levels, every month.
RDCJM was also the subject of Behind the Scene: Live Jazz in Red Deer, a documentary series produced for TELUS STORYHIVE.
In memory
Steve Tanner was an original member of the SwingTime AllStars and our primary bassist from 2022 until his death in late 2025. A lot of the nights on this page happened because he was holding them down from the back.
Were you there? We would like your photographs.
We have very few photographs from the last four years. If you have shots from a jam or a festival, phone pictures included, send them over. We will credit you, and they will end up on this page.
Free · Email and text
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Red Deer Community for Jazz Music 