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Join us on June 10, 2023 from noon to 3:00 p.m. for an afternoon of picnicking, dancing, and relaxing on the lawn at Durham’s Orchard Park, with live music by your hosts, the Mint Julep Jazz Band. Inspired by the Jazz Age Lawn Party in New York and similar events in Boston and Richmond, this began as a socially distanced event in 2021 to great success following a long pandemic winter. Now an annual event, the Orchard Park Jazz Picnic draws jazz fans, vintage enthusiasts, regional swing dancers, and passersby who decide to derail that dog walk and join the fun. 

This event is free and open to the public. We will have a virtual and physical tip jar for the band – if you’d like to tip in advance, you can Venmo to @Laura-Windley or PayPal to caab241@hotmail.com.

In the event of inclement weather, all updates will be posted in the Facebook event. If we have to cancel, this event will be rescheduled for a later date.

Thanks so much to Alexandrea Lassiter of Copper Key Photo for the incredible photos from last year!

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Photographs from the 2021 Orchard Park Jazz Picnic, courtesy of Tom Lassiter

We are excited to announce that the Orchard Park Jazz Picnic will be happening again on June 4, 2022 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. at historic Orchard Park near downtown Durham. The first OPJP in June of 2021 was a huge success, in that small, hopeful period of time between vaccinations and the rise of the Delta variant. For many, it was their first outing amongst a gathering of people and/or their first social dances since the beginning of the pandemic.

We were able to crowd fund our basic expenses for permits, port-a-potties, and band pay in order to make this event happen once again – thanks so much to our swing jazz community for supporting this event, which is free and open to the public. Our donors/sponsors are the following:

Raleigh Rolfing (official sponsor)

Sarah Price

Michael Steinman Jazz Lives

Lauren Gibson

Valerie Glassman

Laura Stamm Paye

Lindsley Bowen

Elizabeth A Watkins

Allison Meeks

Jennifer Andrews

Micki McCarthy

Dee Mathews

Eliza Biehl

Audrey Fowler MacInnes

Michelle Long

Gretchen Midgley

Natalie Gabriel

Sue Carson

Gemma Odena

Anne Marie Warren Nolan

Eris Discordia

Jackie O’Neil Plys

Ken Hanson

Alina Kerov

Saira Jane

Abbey Berkebile

Theresa-Marie Rhyne

Mary Lou Mazzara

James Posedel

Alison Matney

Andrew Wilson

Brian Green

Lily Shaw

Andrew Selzer

Cassie Stoa

Andy Nishida

Summerlin Page Webb

Gary A. Miller

Jack Mitchell

Tom Lassiter

For more information and updates, please RSVP or check in with the Facebook event.