Chick Corea and Steve Kujala’s concert during the 1984 Istanbul Festival marked a new beginning. Jazz started to become a major part of the Istanbul Festival. The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) announced that it would organize a separate jazz festive named the International Istanbul Jazz Festival in 1994.
The festival has aimed to push jazz to its limits since its beginning. This meant that it embraced rock, pop, blues, reggae, new age, and other genres in addition to jazz. As of 2009, the festival has given wonderful experiences to its guests with over 300 concerts performed by thousands of musicians in countless venues, clubs, and even the streets and squares of Istanbul, for 14 years. The Jazz Festival is among the events which are most profoundly felt throughout the city.
As one of the best of its kind in Europe, the International Istanbul Jazz Festival has staged numerous famous musicians including Eric Clapton, Sting, Lou Reed, Bryan Ferry, Massive Attack, Björk, Dead Can Dance, Suzanne Vega, Patti Smith, Bobby McFerrin, Randy Crawford, The Manhattan Transfer, Ornette Coleman, Marcus Miller, Jan Garbarek, Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis, Goran Bregovich, Tori Amos, Elvis Costello, Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau. It has become one of the most important events of Istanbul’s cultural life with its dynamism which knows no bounds. Jazz fans gather in Istanbul in June!
http://www.iksv.org/caz/english/caz.asp?cid=90
