New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, often known as Jazz Fest, is an annual celebration of the music and culture of New Orleans and Louisiana. Use of the term "Jazz Fest" can also include the days surrounding the Festival and the many shows at unaffiliated New Orleans nightclubs scheduled during the Festival event weekends.
The Festival has been held yearly since 1970, when it was founded by the New Orleans Hotel Motel Association, to form "the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation" that owns the Festival, and George Wein's "Festival Productions, Inc" was contracted to produce the Festival. To produce the Festival in New Orleans, George Wein put together a key group of artistic advisers, among them Ellis Marsalis, Richard B. "Dick" Allen and Harry Souchon. Dick Allen, the curator of Tulane University's Hogan Jazz Archives, recommended Archive employee Allison Miner and intern Quint Davis to Wein to help produce the first festival. After Wein established the Festival, Miner and Davis ran the day-to-day operation of Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans under George Wein's and the Foundation Board supervision for many years. Quint Davis currently holds the position of CEO of Festival Productions, Inc.- New Orleans. Miner is largely credited with the founding the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Archive, which contains recordings from musicians interviewed at the festival as well as other documents, photographs and ephemera related to the Festival and the Foundation's holdings including early WWOZ 90.7-FM recordings. When Miner died on December 23, 1995, the interviewing stage was renamed in her memory, the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage. After Hurricane Katrina, the stage was temporarily merged with the Lagniappe Stage which is housed in the Grandstand, and in 2009 it was reinstated as a full stage.
Prior to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, similar "New Orleans Jazz Festivals" were held by different organizers in the 1960s. The first two New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals in 1970 & 1971 were held in Louis Armstrong Park, then known as Beauregard Square, in the area of the park known to be the historic Congo Square and the adjoining New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. Starting in 1972 Jazz Fest has been held at the New Orleans Fair Grounds and Racetrack.
The love of Jazz Fest has cemented thousands of friendships over the years. Fessheads, Pet de Kat Krewe, Threadheads and other sub-groups reunite annually at the Fair Grounds Race Course where their ritual includes flags and spirit poles easily spotted among the thousands of festival attendees. Sub-groups throw annual parties with top musical talent and invites are via word-of-mouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment