America's Dee Dee Bridgewater, McCoy Tyner, Gerald Veasley, Jeff Lorber, Alexander O'Neal and Frank McComb will be joined by Brazil's Tania Maria, Croatia's HGM Jazz Messengers and Belgium's Brussels Jazz Orchestra, which performs with our own Tutu Puoane.
South African jazz greats Hugh Masekela and Sibongile Khumalo are part of a strong South African line-up, including Mango Groove, Simphiwe Dana, the African Jazz Pioneers, Tu Nokwe, Kwela Tebza, Victor Ntoni, McCoy Mrubatha, Ringo, Julius Schultz and pianist Bokani Dyer, the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for Jazz.
They join other African performers, including Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukudzi, Angola's Bonga and Nigeria's Olufemi.
Over the course a career that has spanned four decades, Grammy and Tony Award-winning jazz diva Dee Dee Bridgewater has paid homage to monumental figures of the music world, recording albums dedicated to Ella Fitzgerald, Horace Silver, and Kurt Weill.
McCoy Tyner's blues-based piano style, replete with sophisticated chords and an explosively percussive left hand has transcended conventional styles to become one of the most identifiable sounds in improvised music. Tyner has released nearly 80 albums under his name, earned four Grammys and was awarded Jazz Master from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002.
Jeff Lorber is a Grammy Award-nominated keyboardist, composer and record producer. After leading his own group, The Jeff Lorber Fusion, he went on to pioneer the smooth jazz genre in his solo career.
Wynton Marsalis will perform at Emperor's Palace on Thursday, 25 August. The trumpeter - winner of nine Grammy Awards and the first jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music - is arguably the biggest jazz artist to come to South Africa. On the same opening night bill is the Gauteng Jazz Orchestra featuring The African Soul Sisters Nokukhanya Dlamini, Nombulelo Maqetuka and Wanda Baloyi.
The Standard Bank Joy of Jazz continues in Newtown on 26 and 27 August on seven stages including brand new venue The Conga Stage, to be specially built between Bassline and Newtown's Turbine Hall. The Dinaledi Stage and the Mbira Stage will once again be erected on Mary Fitzgerald Square, creating three purpose-built venues to showcase this year's line-up. Other venues include The Bassline, Sophiatown, Shikisha and Nikki's Oasis.
For more information on the line-up and venues, go to www.joyofjazz.co.za, and www.standardbankarts.com.
Tickets are on sale at Computicket with a 15 percent discount for all Standard Bank customers (terms and conditions apply).
