The story
Ajazzgo Festival in Cali
Founded in 1999 by artist Diego Pombo after watching an impromptu jazz-fusion jam at Teatro Salamandra, Ajazzgo has grown from five groups performing to about 60 people into an open-air festival drawing thousands. In a city known worldwide for salsa, it deliberately programmes experimental jazz fusion instead, pairing Colombian musicians with international guest acts each year.
Ajazzgo traces back to an ordinary night at Teatro Salamandra, when visual artist Diego Pombo watched a handful of Cali musicians improvising a form of experimental jazz fusion and decided the city needed a festival built around it; working with Beatriz Monsalve, the theatre's director, he founded the event in 1999 under the Corporacion Salamandra.