Jazz Festival underway in Saskatoon

The Saskatchewan Jazz Festival is underway in Saskatoon and with 170 shows this year's festival will be one of the largest ever mounted.

The festival has eight featured headliners at the Bessborough gardens.

There are also 30 free shows at a number of venues.

One of the acts isMix'tet, made up of young musicians who came together to perform at the festival.

Trumpet player Silas Friesen said playing for such a large event is uplifting.

"It's really encouraging because it is easy to think that jazz is one of the more neglected genres," Friesen said. "But seeing the kind of support here for jazz and also small jazz like this, because we're not necessarily big names it's cool to see that kind of support."

Among the appreciative audience members was Jack Walton who remembers the first jazz festival, 29 years ago, in 1987.

"It started as a much smaller event, a little more focused on jazz, and it's turned into just a fantastic, international world music festival," he said.

The title sponsor for the festival is SaskTel.

The festival, which opened Thursday, runs until July 5.