Starting on the 3rd of July 2009, the 18th Canaries Jazz Festival kicks off with performances on Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote. Acts from all over the world are playing during the week long festival and on the second day concerts are taking place on 4 different islands in the group.

The James Taylor Quartet will play an outdoor concert on the Plaza de Europa in Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife. New York Jazz guitarist Jonathon Kreisburg will host a masterclass and then perform alongside Icelandic Funk Fusion band Mezzoforte at the Centro Cultural venue in Santa Brigida, Gran Canaria. On La Palma another outdoor concert takes place at the Plaza De Espana where the young Scicilian Saxophonist Franscesco Cafiso plays in the Italian Jazz Quartet alongside new band Okou, a funk soul fusion who will release their first album in October this year. In Lanzarote two quartets perform for an audience at the Municipal Theatre in San Bartolome Diego Barber, who was born on Lanzarote, plays with his Quartet a mix of experimental jazz and classical styles while also on the is the Patricia Kraus Quartet, fronted by the Spanish Jazz vocalist who back in 1987 was the Spanish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. Don't let that put anyone off though as these days she is an accomplished jazz singer with a number of albums to her name.

The Festival closes off with two events on the final weekend. A celebration of the classic Miles Davis album 'Kind of Blue' takes place with a jam session at Teatro Cuyas on Gran Canaria and two final concerts by the current incarnation of the CTI All Star Band, who add Tenerife and Gran Canaria to their Europe tour schedule.

The Canaries Jazz Festival is cleverly timed to coincide with both North Sea Jazz, a big festival in the Netherlands and the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, allowing the promoters to include many artists who are already performing in Europe during July.