ALEXANDRIA, VA—From Tuesday, May 12 through Thursday, May 14, electronic publisher Alexander Street will host the first annual Online Jazz Music Festival at http://alexanderstreet.com/JAZZfest.htm. Ordinarily accessible only to patrons of subscribing libraries, Alexander Street’s newest streaming music collection, Jazz Music Library, will be openly accessible to visitors worldwide for the duration of the festival.

Other planned festival highlights include: Concord Jazz videos featuring Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Evans, and Michael Feinstein; free music downloads; quizzes in which visitors can test their jazz knowledge; a juried playlist competition; and special discount coupons from publishing partners Concord Jazz and Jazzology. All visitors to the Online Jazz Music Festival will be entered in drawings to win prizes that include free CDs, a Flip video camera, and a free, one-year subscription to Jazz Music Library for the winning visitor’s public or university library.

Says music editor Liz Dutton on Alexander Street’s goals in hosting the festival, “We wanted to celebrate the launch of Jazz Music Library by giving access to people who might not otherwise be able to use it. It’s also a way to let people know about the collection. As more and more libraries subscribe, patrons tell us how thrilled they are to have access to this kind of resource.”

Continuously growing, Jazz Music Library currently includes more than 18,000 audio tracks featuring more than 3,800 artists in streaming audio. Covering virtually every important jazz composer and performer from the 1920s to today and the full range of jazz genres from big band to free jazz, the collection currently includes works licensed from a long list of record labels, including Audiophile, Concord Jazz, Contemporary Records, Fantasy, Jazzology, Milestone, Prestige, and Riverside. Says Dutton, “Festival attendees can listen to recordings from the Charlie Byrd Trio, Stan Getz, Eric Dolphy, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Nnenna Freelon, the Count Basie Orchestra, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and thousands of others.”

Future releases of the collection will include the NPR radio broadcast series of Marian McPartland’s Peabody award-winning Piano Jazz as well as rarely heard live performances from the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival, together with live recordings from famous jazz venues including the Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, the Apollo, the Jazz Standard, the Black Hawk, the Five Spot, and many others. Most of these recordings are made available in Jazz Music Library for the first time.

Additional information about Jazz Music Library is available on the Alexander Street Press Web site at http://alexanderstreet.com/products/jazz.htm and from the Online Jazz Festival Web Site at http://alexanderstreet.com/JAZZfest.htm.

* All dates / times are EDT / GMT -4.