Want to be part of a global happening?  Next Tuesday, April 30 is International Jazz Day. More than 300 concerts will be taking place around the world to celebrate the musical art form.  From Australia to Zambia, Barbados to Uruguay, there will be live jazz music that you can log in to listen to!

You’ll be treated to today’s International jazz greats (Herbie Hancock, Dianne Reeves, Milton Nascimento, Hugh Masekela, to name just a few), up and comers from jazz bastions like the US, Brazil and France, and enthusiasts in Croatia, Kenya and Nepal where they are just getting a taste for jazz. Such far-flung locales promise plenty of regional riffs on the jazz theme, along with the standards.

In Barbados, that means a mix of piano and steel pan.  In a concert at Divi Southwinds, Ebe GIlkes, an iconic figure of jazz on the island, will lead his trio, along with Andre Ford, a steel pan artist, in classics as well as Caribbean jazz. Listen in at http://caribbeanwebcast.com/barbadosjazz/ at 7pm.

When you log on, you’ll be sharing the moment with people across the globe.  In Bhutan, for example, citizens have been invited to assemble near the palace to listen to the streamed concerts.  The concert at Divi Southwinds is just one of the many that will be streamed, meaning you can fill your entire day with live jazz from every time zone in the world on Tuesday, April 30.  More than 70 countries have planned events.  The concert schedule is available at http://jazzday.com/events/.  Also, more information is available at their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/intljazzday.

Started last year by Herbie Hancock, famed American jazz musician, to highlight jazz as a form of communication that transcends differences, International Jazz Day is part of the official calendar of both UNESCO and the United Nations. It’s a momentous day when music and the Internet connect us to our universal delight.