The room was filled with Christmas cheer as over 200 people gathered for the The Coastal Jazz Association 41st Annual Christmas Jam Concert on Christmas Day at the Mansion on Forsyth Park. This fun holiday event is a homecoming concert that brings many local and regional jazz singers and musicians to the same place – Savannah. Featured artists included Teddy Adams, Howard Paul, Quentin Baxter, Gina Rene, Eric Jones and many other artists.
The goal of the event is to raise money for jazz scholarships. Two scholarships are given every year to local college music majors who are part of jazz program
This was the 41st Christmas concert and the Coastal Jazz Association has been involved for the last 20 of those years. Proceeds from the event are awarded in the form of financial scholarships to deserving students who are involved in Jazz programs at Armstrong and Georgia Southern Universities.
Subsequently, the awarded students are featured with the Savannah Jazz Orchestra at the Annual Duke Ellington Concert held in April.
As is tradition, the concert and jam session is divided into two parts: the concert -which featured a select group of musicians playing special compositions, and the jam session – and open to invited artists. A record number of guest musicians with the key emphasis on the future purveyors of Jazz: our youth were in attendance.