A band can be worth an entire stay. Or the start of a route from one stage to the next. The Dresdner Jazzmeile allows both: between Schlossplatz and Hauptbahnhof, eight freely accessible performance venues are spread out. Festival bands bring Traditional Jazz in all its different styles into the city centre. How many stops an individual musical stroll connects is left open.

At Schlossplatz there is one stage, and another with a special role at Piazza/Taschenberg. That is where the Open Stage is set up. Anyone who would like to introduce themselves to the Dresden audience can apply, from school students to professionals. Alongside the invited festival bands, musicians whose route into the programme comes via an application for this stage also get a place there. This is not a separate, isolated area: the Open Stage belongs right in the middle of the Meile.

On Altmarkt, the music is part of the spring market. At the hotels Lilienstein and Newa, further stages continue the route toward Hauptbahnhof. Its Kuppelhalle is itself a venue and can become a musical stop for rail travellers before departure. In the opposite direction, a walk into the old town begins here. The Meile has no prescribed starting point and no destination that must be reached.

Two Brassband-Points at Neumarkt and at Hotel Königstein add to the stops. The name refers to New Orleans, where Brass Bands moved through the streets in parades, celebrations and funeral processions. The connection between jazz and public space is part of the history of this music. On the Meile, it gets a Dresden setting: through the festival bands on the city’s squares and through the routes in between, which naturally belong to the musical stroll.

This means jazz here can be experienced from a variety of perspectives. Staying gives one band room to unfold; moving on leads to other musicians and another expression of the shared tradition. The Open Stage adds the chance to make new encounters beyond the invited festival bands. Together, the eight stages form an open route through the city centre. The Dresdner Jazzmeile is supported by WT Energiesysteme GmbH.

No festival finale would be complete without the Dixieland-Parade – and this image stays with you: up to two dozen floats, hundreds of participants, tens of thousands of spectators lining the parade route from the start at the former Carola-Brücke along Terrassenufer through the historic city centre.

The Dixieland-Parade is Traditional Jazz in its most lively, most authentic form, because jazz was literally born in the street, and because the marching-band legacy emerged in the funeral processions and festive parades of New Orleans in the early 20th century. Anyone standing along the route today and hearing the sound of a Brassband approach experiences a direct echo of that history. And anyone fortunate enough to look down from Brühlsche Terrasse onto Terrassenufer sees the panorama of this parade against the backdrop of Dresden’s old town.

The parade belongs to the city and to everyone in it.