Looking back to how the festival started 3 years ago, gotta admit it was a little bit audacious, that a company so young and with little means would even dare to embark on such a project, but are the type that once we got an idea we couldn’t get out of our heads, we knew we had to try to get it done, and we had a team that could get it done from planning to execution.

The original idea was a multi-day event, split into two sections, first part the gala evenings catered to professionals and people looking for a fancy night out, where they would get food and drinks with the jazz performance. The second part jazz markets where we would have a street market with free jazz concerts designed for the families and young people. The reason to have a dual-mode festival, was to try to bring in a larger spectrum of people to the festival to enjoy jazz.

Originally we had wanted to host the festival at the end of October, but due to the challenge of securing the right venue from the local government (due to restrictions and other considerations) for the event, we had to move the date to the middle of December. But we were happy we got the permit for the Wu Garden, a cultural park in the heart of the city, that witness three important periods of Taiwan history. The venue turned out to be a very good one for the festival, one four years later we are still at.

 We are thankful for the jazz artists that performed at the festival, trusting with us to come in the first place, and working with us as we changed our dates along the way. For the opening performance we were thankful to have been able to invite Yenting Lo with her quartet, a Taiwanese songwriter, pianist and vocalist, whose music is original, contemporary and of Taiwanese identity. For the second gala performance we invited Sam Su to perform his Taiwan melody award winning album Ciao Bella quintet. Sam would become the artist who has performed (with three different bands) at all three Tainan Jazz Festivals. 

For the jazz market we invited guitarist Hope Yeh to perform his solo guitar, and worked with Tainan local KoSwing big band to invite its members to perform in various combo setting. 

We are thankful to the team at Ian Macleod Distillers Taiwan that were an important big supporter and partner at the first jazz festival, and a big thanks also to Mixologist Nono of The Han-Jia Pairing Dinner bistro for the wonderful cocktails and dishes at the inaugural Tainan jazz festival, the only jazz festival in Taiwan that is not founded or funded by the government, but by jazz lovers and businesses in Taiwan.