NEW ORLEANS JAZZ & HERITAGE FESTIVAL
http://www.nojazzfest.com April 28 - May 7 2017
Mahalia Jackson, often called the greatest gospel singer, returned to
her hometown to appear at the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage
Festival in April of 1970. While attending the Louisiana Heritage Fair
in Congo Square (then known as Beauregard Square), she and Duke
Ellington, who also appeared at the event, came upon the Eureka Brass
Band leading a crowd of second-line revelers through the Festival
grounds. George Wein, producer of the Festival, handed Ms. Jackson a
microphone, she sang along with the band and joined the parade…and the
spirit of Jazz Fest was born.
This spontaneous, momentous
scene—this meeting of jazz and heritage—has stood for decades since as a
stirring symbol of the authenticity of the celebration that was
destined to become a cultural force.
From the very beginning, the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival was envisioned as an important
event that would have great cultural significance and popular appeal.
The Festival was the culmination of years of discussions and efforts by
city leaders who wanted to create an event worthy of the city’s legacy
as the birthplace of jazz. A couple of other festivals were held in the
years leading up to the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival,
but those events, different in format, did not take hold as the Jazz
& Heritage Festival would.
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage
FestivalIn 1970, George Wein, jazz impresario behind the Newport Jazz
Festival and the Newport Folk Festival (begun respectively in 1954 and
1959) was hired to design and produce a unique festival for New Orleans.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit
organization, was established to oversee the Festival.
Wein’s
concept of the Louisiana Heritage Fair—a large daytime fair with
multiple stages featuring a wide variety of indigenous music styles,
food booths of Louisiana cuisine, and arts and crafts booths, along with
an evening concert series—formed a construct that would prove vastly
appealing and enduring.
In addition to Mahalia Jackson and Duke
Ellington, the first Festival lineup included Pete Fountain, Al Hirt,
Clifton Chenier, Fats Domino, The Meters, The Preservation Hall Band,
parades every day with The Olympia Brass Band and Mardi Gras Indians,
and many others.
In announcing the first Festival, scheduled for
April 22 – 26, Wein said, “The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
represents a new and exciting idea in festival presentation. This
festival could only be held in New Orleans because here and here alone
is the richest musical heritage in America.” He also noted, with great
prescience, “New Orleans, in the long run, should become bigger than
Newport in jazz festivals. Newport was manufactured, but New Orleans is
the real thing.”
Wein hired Quint Davis and Allison Miner, two
young, knowledgeable New Orleans music enthusiasts, to work on the
event. Davis would quickly become the main creative force behind the
Festival, establishing the event as a dynamic annual showcase of
Louisiana music with a bold blend of national and international flavors.
Davis remains producer and director of the Festival, guiding the event
through its fourth decade of existence. Miner, who passed away in 1995,
would make numerous contributions to the Festival’s evolution, including
the creation of the Music Heritage Stage, which has been renamed in her
honor.
In 1970, only about 350 people attended the Festival,about half the number of musicians and other participants in the event.
But the Festival, which became known as “Jazz Fest” almost immediately,
was a great artistic success. When Jazz Fest was held the next year, it
was clear that the event had already outgrown Congo Square.
For
the 1972 Festival, the event moved to the infield of the Fair Grounds
Race Course, the third-oldest racetrack in America (open since 1872).
Jazz Fest would grow quickly over the next few years, constantly
expanding its use of the 145-acre site. In 1975, the Festival, still
just a five-day event with only three days of the Louisiana Heritage
Fair, had an anticipated attendance of 80,000. This was also the first
year of the Festival’s popular, limited-edition silkscreen poster, now
recognized as the most popular poster series in the world.
From
1976 to 1978, Jazz Fest expanded to two full weekends of the Heritage
Fair, and in 1979, for the 10th anniversary, the Festival scheduled
three weekends, though one entire weekend was cancelled due to rain.
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage FestivalIn the 1980s, Jazz Fest
continued to experience a tremendous growth in popularity and began to
gain wide acclaim as one of the world’s greatest cultural celebrations.
By the end of the decade, more than 300,000 people attended the Heritage
Fair, evening concerts, and workshops. The 1989 Festival marked the
20th annual event, which was commemorated with a classic poster
featuring Fats Domino, ushering in an era during which the poster would
celebrate many of Louisiana’s music legends with iconic portraits.
The decade of the 1990s saw the appeal of Jazz Fest and the Festival’s
significance as a cultural symbol soar. The New York Times would note
that the Jazz Festival had “become inseparable from the culture it
presents.” The Festival added features like the Thursday that kicks off
the second weekend (1991); an International Pavilion that celebrates
other cultures (Haiti, Mali, Panama, Brazil, Martinique, and in 2004,
South Africa); and the Native American stage and area.
In 2001,
the Festival celebrated Louis Armstrong’s centennial, and the total
attendance eclipsed 650,000, shattering records for virtually every day
of the Heritage Fair, including the all-time single-day attendance
record of 160,000. Wein’s prediction that New Orleans would become the
first city of jazz festivals had clearly come true.
New Orleans Jazz
& Heritage FestivalWith 12 stages of soul-stirring music—jazz,
gospel, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, rock, funk, African, Latin,
Caribbean, folk, and much more—the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage
Festival is a singular celebration. The event has showcased most of the
great artists of New Orleans and Louisiana of the last half century:
Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, The Neville Brothers, Wynton Marsalis,
Dr. John, Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., Ellis Marsalis, The
Radiators, Irma Thomas, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Allen
Toussaint, Buckwheat Zydeco, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Better Than
Ezra, Ernie K-Doe, Vernel Bagneris, The Zion Harmonizers, Beausoleil and
many others.
The Festival has always blended in a wide mix of
internationally renowned guests, among them: Aretha Franklin, Miles
Davis, Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Santana, Sarah
Vaughan, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, Max Roach, B.B. King, Dave Matthews
Band, Patti LaBelle, Tito Puente, the Allman Brothers Band, Joni
Mitchell, Al Green, Linda Ronstadt, Lenny Kravitz, Sonny Rollins, Bonnie
Raitt, James Brown, Celia Cruz, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Hugh Masekela,
Cassandra Wilson, Willie Nelson, The Temptations, Burning Spear,Van
Morrison, LL Cool J, Abbey Lincoln, Erykah Badu, Dave Brubeck, Gladys
Knight, Youssou N’Dour and many, many others.
Over the years Jazz
Fest has received many honors, including being named the Festival of
the Year four times by Pollstar magazine. The 2004 event marks the 35th
anniversary of Jazz Fest, which the Wall Street Journal says “showcases a
wider, deeper lineup of essential American musical styles than any
festival in the nation…” and which Life magazine has called “the
country’s very best music festival.’’
Inspired by the spirit of
Mahalia Jackson and the Eureka Brass Band back in 1970, the New Orleans
Jazz & Heritage Festival continues to celebrate the culture of
Louisiana with the combined fervor of a gospel hymn and the joy of a
jazz parade.
