The Fort Mose Jazz & Blues Series will return to historic Fort Mose State Park in St. Augustine, FL this year with a lineup befitting of the site’s cultural impact. A weeklong string of February concerts will bring Gladys Knight, Mavis Staples, Christian McBride’s “New Jawn”, and more to the location of the United States’ first legally sanctioned free African settlement.
Set to begin on Friday, February 10th with celebrated soul singer Mavis Staples, the Fort Mose Jazz & Blues series will also host the newly launched project from revered bassist/composer Christian McBride (2/11), Americana singer-songwriter Valerie June (2/16), “Empress of Soul” Gladys Knight (2/17), folk singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens (2/18), and finally blues torchbearer Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (2/19).
While the artists performing at the 2023 Fort Mose Jazz & Blues Series come from varying stylistic backgrounds, the proof of their success and influence is in the numbers—between them, the participating artists have won 24 Grammys and earned a total of 72 nominations.
Fort Mose is located within St. Augustine, recognized as the oldest city in the United States. In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida Manuel de Montiano commissioned the building of Fort Mose, which became the first free Black settlement in the U.S. and housed about 100 Africans who were recognized as independent by the Spanish government. The fort was destroyed during the Battle of Bloody Mose in 1740, and in 1994 was designated a Historic National Landmark. The 2022 debut of the Fort Most Jazz & Blues Festival raised over $50,000 for the Fort Mose Historical Society’s mission to build an on-site fort representation and “development of interpretive resources.”
Click below for the full 2023 Fort Mose Jazz & Blues Series schedule. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster, DiscoverFortMose.com, or the St. Augustine Amphitheater box office, operated by the series’ producer the St. Johns County Cultural Events.
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