Santa Cruz Film Festival 2009

Jazz on the West Coast: Santa Cruz Swings examines the history of the flourishing jazz scene in our own hometown. Jazz took hold in Santa Cruz ballrooms during the swing era of the 1930s and proliferated in many small local clubs during the 1940s and early 1950s in the form of bebop. The jazz scene solidified in the 1970s with the creation of a groundbreaking jazz program at the local community college and the founding of the Kuumbwa Jazz Center.

Through the use of archival photographs, video footage, television performances and interviews, this history is vividly told by those who lived it. We meet local jazz musicians of all ages, up and coming students and some younger players who have moved on to international fame. Ken Koenig, filmmaker of the widely acclaimed Jazz on the West Coast: The Lighthouse, puts the spotlight on, and celebrates, the various factors and individual contributions responsible for the ongoing success of jazz in our small city.