Jazz festival returns to Uptown Waterloo

Steve Joyce, president of the Sun Life Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival, reflects on the 30 year history of the festival. (Dave Pettitt/CTV News)

The soothing sounds of jazz will be filling the air in Waterloo starting Friday night as the Sun Life Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival gets underway.

The event runs from Friday to Sunday, featuring local and international performers, and will go ahead rain or shine.

The festival is also completely free to attend.

Steve Joyce, president of the Sun Life Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival, said when the festival started 30 years ago, it was focused on street performers, but now they expect thousand of people to attend

“It was a street festival, street performers one night, and now we have three day weekend with 14 or 15 performers, a big stage, and we expect 20,000 to be here for this weekend,” said Joyce.

Several Juno award winners are set to perform.

Joyce said those who have never been should come with an open mind as there is all kinds of music this year, not just jazz.

More details about the festival can be found here.