Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival

The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival, the largest west of the Mississippi, that takes place on the campus of the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho in the month of February.

In 2007, the festival was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s most prestigious arts award.

The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival is a modern tradition at the University of Idaho in Moscow. Dating from 1967, the festival was greatly expanded by 'Doc' Lynn Skinner, who was involved since 1972, and took over as the director in 1977. Doc Skinner retired in 2006. In 2010 Steven Remington joined Artistic Director John Clayton as executive director. Each year in February, thousands of college, high school, junior high, and elementary school students travel from all over North America to the campus on the Palouse in north Idaho to meet great jazz performers, partake in vocal and instrumental adjudicated performances, and attend concerts and workshops.

The first UI Jazz Festival was a single-day event consisting of fifteen student groups and one jazz artist in a sole evening concert. The festival now runs four days and features multiple concerts spread throughout the campus. Some of the jazz greats who have performed at the festival include Ella Fitzgerald, Gerry Mulligan, Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Dianne Reeves, Stan Getz, Carmen McRae, Joey DeFrancesco, Benny Green, Hank Jones, Roy Hargrove, Diana Krall, Wynton Marsalis and Sarah Vaughan and of course the eponymous Lionel Hampton and his New York Big Band, who first played at the festival in 1984. The festival was renamed for Hampton in 1985, and the UI's school of music was renamed for him in 1987.

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