Umbria Jazz is the most important Italian and European jazz music festival, born in 1973 it takes place every year in Perugia during the month of July.

At first it had an itinerant form, from city to city, thanks to its free concerts, it filled up the most beautiful squares and places of Umbria (Piazza IV Novembre in Perugia, the Gubbio Roman Theatre, Piazza del Popolo in Todi, the Albornoz fortress in Spoleto) with outdoor concerts that have seen artists of the level of Jeorge Coleman, Art Blakey and Dizzy Gillespie.

Since 1982 the event became fixed in Perugia to overcome logistic problems, caused by the big influx of italian and foreign visitors and it earned a worldwide success. Artists like Sonny Rollins, Phil Collins, Keith Jarrett, Ornet Coleman, Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Sting and many others made this performance as the most important jazz event in Europe. It is divided into two currents: the conventional jazz and the black music (Blues, Gospel, Soul) which often digresses in the pop-rock. An examples are the performances of Elton John, Carlos Santana, Donna Summer and Eric Clapton.

Umbria Jazz is therefore a Jazz festival with the best part of the italian and world jazz. It attracts more and more visitors and fans who make the city of Perugia particularly attractive, making it for ten days of the year, the european capital of jazz music.
So the heart of Perugia becomes a center where every time you can listen to musical notes which spread between the palaces and medieval squares of the city, giving to it an unusual appearance of an international center, open to culture and music.

Perugia acquires a surreal atmosphere: to sip a good umbrian red wine, maybe sitting in one of the tables of the typical coffee shops, listening to the tremble of the jazz music between the old walls of the ancient city, believe us, it is a unique experience!