The Truth Staff
Coming soon! The Toledo Jazz Week and the Glass City JazzFest! On Monday, August 4, 2025, Toledo Jazz Week kicks off at various city venues, and continuing every night for a full week. On Saturday, August 9, the Glass City JazzFest, free as always, will take place at the Glass City Metropark on Front Street.
Later, Saturday night, a post-festival Jazz Jam at the Assembly American Brasserie will bring an end to the fourth annual JazzFest.
“We will have music from all around the world,” said Toledo City Councilwoman Cerssandra McPherson last Thursday, July 10, during a press conference announcing the musicians who will perform and the sites that will hold the events.
On Saturday, August 9, the jazz festival will begin at 12:30 p.m. and go until sunset and it’s free and open to the public. The festival is presented by the City of Toledo in conjunction with the Lucas County Commissioners, Toledo Metroparks and the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA),
The events have been organized by the Great Lakes Jazz Society (Hugh Ross and Cheryl Catlin).
The Toledo Jazz Week is the lead-in to the Saturday festival with a five-day series of jazz performances by different artists at five different venues.
Leslie Deshazor kicks off the week at the Assembly American Brasserie at the Downtown Hilton on Monday night, August 4. The second night will take place at the Middlegrounds Metropark as Lori Lefevre and the Toledo School of the Arts Jazz Vocalists perform.
On Wednesday Keith Bernhard & More Jazz Messengers hold forth at the Toledo Club’s Red Room and Thursday night’s performance will happen at Club 1343 with the Jerome Clark Trio.
Jazz Week concludes on Friday at the Glass City Metropark with Gene Parker & Damen Cook. Both Metropark venues are outside and guests can bring their own lawn chairs.
The Saturday Glass City JazzFest will feature the following artists:
“Toledo’s First Lady of Song,” Jean Holden will lead off the day of music, blending classic jazz, blues and R & B in a timeless and personal style.
Next up, from Japan, will be Akira Tana and Otonowa a quartet who fuse traditional Japanese folk melodies with contemporary jazz.
RiShon Odel & The 5th Element are the third group in the lineup. Odel, bassist, composer, producer is a multi-instrumentalist who has included smooth jazz and gospel along with his forays into classical composition and cinema scoring.
Straight Ahead is an all-female jazz ensemble from Detroit who have earned acclaim for pushing musical boundaries, weaving bebop, funk, Latin and blues influences into their innovative compositions.
The Vinicius Gomes Quintet with special guest SongYi Jeon are an international collection of artists. Guitarist/composer Gomes hails from Brazil and blends modern jazz with Brazilian rhythms. SonYi Jeon, a South Korean-born, Swiss-based vocalist is noted for her ethereal tone and global jazz sensibility.
Brian Bromberg, a Grammy-nominated bassist will close the JazzFest. Bromberg has had a career that has included acoustic jazz, smooth jazz, fusion, rock, Latin and orchestral music. His career has spanned more than four decades and he has more than 20 solo albums to his name.
The night isn’t over after the last performance at the Glass City Metropark. The Post-Festival Jazz Jam, hosted by Ramona Collins and Hugh Ross, will follow at the Assembly American Brasserie starting at 10:30 p.m. The three-hour jam session is free to musicians and $20 for the general public.
The JazzFest, free to the public, will also feature vendors with a variety of goods, along with food vendors. For those wishing to reserve seating, $100 will allow one to have a premium seat near the stage in a shaded roundtable, along with complimentary food and drink. Eventbrite for tickets: https://GCJF_Reserved_Seating.eventbrite.com.
Should visitors not want to deal with parking at the Metropark, TARTA will be providing transportation to the JazzFest from Franklin Park Mall and from Dockside for $3 roundtrip.