National Youth Jazz Festival Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, and Zimbabwe. South African jazz students audition for places in the Standard Bank National Schools Big Band and the National Youth Jazz Band (NYJB). The NYJB performs regularly at festivals around South Africa—Grahamstown, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban—and has performed in New York City, Sweden and the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Netherlands. National Youth Jazz Festival The National Youth Jazz Festival runs as party of the National Arts Festival also known as the Grahamstown Festival which has been running in Grahamstown since 1974, and is the world’s second-largest single cultural festival, attracting performers
Charlie Parker of Bebop. In an interview with Paul Desmond, he said that he spent three to four years practicing up to 15 hours a day. Bands led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten certainly influenced Parker. He played with local bands in jazz clubs around Kansas City, Missouri, where he perfected his technique, with the assistance of Buster Smith, whose dynamic transitions to double and triple time influenced Parker's developing style. In late spring 1936, Parker played at a jam session at the Reno Club in Kansas City. His attempt to improvise failed when he lost track of the chord changes.