The New Orleans Jazz/Heritage Festival is an iconic annual celebration of music and culture held at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, Louisiana. For 50 years, the JazzFest has attracted thousands of visitors to the city every year. It's a beloved event that has become inseparable from the culture it presents. In April 1970, Mahalia Jackson, often called the best gospel singer, returned to her hometown to perform at the first New Orleans Jazz/Heritage Festival.
The event was held in Congo Square and 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. The JazzFest was founded by George Wein, a jazz promoter who had already established the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. He predicted that New Orleans would become the first jazz-festival city and his prediction came true. Wein founded Festival Productions, which remains the production arm of the JazzFest and hundreds of other musical events around the world.
The annual festival now draws nearly half a million attendees to the festival site. Listeners can enjoy all genres of music, from jazz/gospel to R&B and rock from the multiple stages of the fairgrounds. From 1976 to 1978, the JazzFest was extended to two full Heritage Fair weekends, and in 1979, for its tenth anniversary, it scheduled three weekends, although one weekend was canceled due to rain. In 2004, AEG Live, one of the world's largest concert promoters, joined forces with JazzFest, opening the doors for even more international stars to perform at the Festival.
This April marks 50 years since its inception and thousands of locals and visitors will gather at the Fair Grounds Racecourse for this special occasion. The New Orleans JAZZ and Heritage Foundation owns the New Orleans JAZZ and Heritage Festival, so all proceeds go to that entity. Other projects include the Tom Dent—Congo Square conference and symposium series dedicated to Louisiana culture, and the Jazz&Heritage Archive, which preserves recordings of festival performances, interviews with artists, film footage, business records, and other artifacts dating back to 1970. The objections of long-time JazzFest fans were answered by explaining that artists such as Bob Dylan, The Allman Brothers Band and Joni Mitchell reflected the “heritage” in the title of the Jazz&Heritage Festival.
Sharkey Bonano, wearing his trademarked brown derby, joined The Kings of Dixieland at Municipal Auditorium in one of the nightly concerts of that first annual festival in 1970. The New Orleans Jazz/Heritage Festival is an iconic event that has become inseparable from its culture. This April marks 50 years since its inception and thousands will gather at Fair Grounds Racecourse for this special occasion.
