Jazzit opened in 2002 in a former Communist Party headquarters building, using a layout that still follows the original meeting-room floor plan. Free Tuesday jam sessions have run every week since opening. The institutional lineage of Salzburg jazz at this address actually extends back to 1981.
The Story
Salzburg has had a jazz scene since at least 1981, when the "Jazz im Theater" series launched at the Elisabethbühne on Plainstrasse, eventually bringing acts like the Doug Hammond Trio, Lester Bowie, and Moondog to the city. When that series ended, musicians Andreas Neumayer and Susanne Ehlmann spent the following decade building an organisation around the idea that Salzburg needed a permanent jazz home, not just occasional concert series.
On 15 February 2002, Jazzit opened at Elisabethstrasse 11 in the Elisabeth Vorstadt district. The building had been the local Communist Party headquarters, then the home of the Elisabethbühne experimental theatre. A local brewery owner funded the EUR 120,000 conversion. The architecture stayed exactly what it was: plain concrete panels, a rectangular meeting-room layout inherited from Cold War pragmatism, acoustic tiles added to the ceiling for sound management. No baroque ornament, no concessions to Salzburg's festive tourist aesthetic. The first concert sold out.
The programming philosophy is similarly direct. Jazzit runs the full jazz spectrum, avant-garde, Balkan-Gypsy, smooth, electronic, world music, with free weekly jam sessions on Tuesday evenings at 8:30pm that pull in students, retirees, and regulars alongside tourists. The venue holds around 150 people. By 2007 it had already drawn 80,000 visitors. It publishes its own CD series and maintains an archive documenting jazz in Salzburg from 1981 onward.
Each October the Jazz and the City festival transforms the Altstadt and public spaces across the city into outdoor stages, and Jazzit functions as the programme anchor: the permanent club around which the festival's more dispersed events cohere.
Visiting
Jazzit is at Elisabethstrasse 11 in the Elisabeth Vorstadt, a short walk from Mirabellplatz and approximately 20 minutes from the Altstadt on foot. Close to the main railway and bus station. Hours vary by event; check jazzit.at for the current programme. Tickets approximately EUR 8-25 depending on the act; free Tuesday Jazz Jam Sessions at 8:30pm. Venue is wheelchair accessible. Book ahead for headline acts and for events during Jazz and the City in October. Combine with Rockhouse Salzburg for a full picture of Salzburg's non-classical live music scene.