Who we are
We are a passionate team of jazz aficionados and professionals in the jazz industry, aspiring to shine a spotlight on jazz live events worldwide and to bring the international jazz community closer together! The hard times that jazz musicians, jazz venues, and the music/entertainment industry have been suffering since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, have made us more resilient and more decisive to give our very best in order to see our local, European and international jazz community unite, grow and flourish! We all “speak” Jazz and the principles and virtues of improvisation run in our veins!
The initial idea
The idea of a platform that would showcase the upcoming jazz live events held in her country, came to Greek Jazz vocalist Irini Konstantinidi, in February 2013. Back then she created the Facebook Group “JAZZ live EVENTS” along with the priceless contribution of radio producer, writer, and presenter Manthos Giourtzoglou, with the goal to promote and support the Greek Jazz scene and its musicians. Nine years later the group has evolved into the biggest online Jazz Community in Greece, with more than 17.000 members and hundreds of loyal visitors and jazz fans daily.
Irini Konstantinidi
Paul Koch
George Govesis
Manthos Giourtzoglou
The Jazz Events Live platform development
Amid the unique challenges posed by the pandemic to humanity and the global jazz industry, Irini chose to expand upon her initial concept and establish a worldwide artistic vision. Together with Dutch jazz lover and designer Paul Koch, they created and launched Jazz Events Live in October 2021, aiming to collect and showcase as many jazz live events as possible.
The mission was to discover and highlight jazz gigs taking place in as many countries as possible and make sure that the jazz audience and jazz travelers will find the hidden gems with a click of a button. This was, of course, hugely ambitious and brought greater pressure than what our team could actually manage. So, since we have already had strong connections with the jazz scene in Greece, we decided, along with our devoted editor George Govesis, to focus on the jazz events in the southeastern part of Europe, showcasing the jazz scene of Greece and Cyprus.
This brings us to the launch of the newly designed and bespoke platform JEL 2.0 in August 2022 and the latest upgrade in October 2023 to JEL 3.0 which also includes additional European countries.
The JEL 2.0 and 3.0 platforms
We have created a brand-new “Member” system, where it is possible for active members of the Jazz community to add their own content (jazz events, venues, jazz festivals) to our database, creating relevant and up-to-date information for the Jazz enthusiasts, looking for gigs in their region. Read more about why and how to become a member of the latest version of the platform JEL 3.0 for free, here!
With the launch of the JEL 2.0 version of the website platform, all data was stored in a large, reliable “relational” database. With this new step, which remained at the latest version of JEL 3.0, we are able to separately store Events, Venues, Artists, Groups, and Festivals with even more future possibilities for content management. The new platform also allows us to keep all data stored such as past events, which gives us the opportunity to create detailed statistics and trends about the local Jazz industry.
After the pandemic in 2020, we have also prepared our platform for advanced online streaming audio and video functionality so that LIVE jazz events can continue online whenever necessary.
Jazz is a universal language, it means openness and freedom, and it promotes peace. We wish to bring the jazz art form to as many people as possible and reinforce the spirit of the jazz community.
As jazz master Herbie Hancock says: “It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz”.