Jazz Fest is slated to return from April 28 – May 7, 2023.
“The Louisiana Heritage Festival,” was originally conceived by George Wein. He envisioned a daytime fair with multiple stages featuring a variety of local music styles, Louisiana cuisine, arts and crafts and evening concerts.
The first Jazz Fest took place from April 22-26, 1970 in Congo Square with an all-star lineup that included Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Fats Domino, Pete Fountain, The Preservation Hall Brass Band, Mardi Gras Indians and many others. Only 350 attended the inaugural event, but that would soon change.
Let’s Find out more about Jazz from these books:
The Sound that Jazz Makes
wo acclaimed picture book talents combine in this award-winning journey through the history and legacy of jazz, the unique American musical art form. Carole Boston Weatherford’s poetic text is perfectly matched with Eric Velasquez’s powerful oil paintings. From an African drum to a slave ship to a Harlem nightclub, The Sound That Jazz Makes explores the African-American experience that gives jazz its passion and spirit.
Louis Armstrong: Jazz Legend
Louis Armstrong, also known as Satchmo and Pops, became an American jazz legend in the 1920s. His voice and skill with instruments helped him become a popular musician in a time where America was racially divided. Watch as this skilled musician learns to play, buys his first instrument, and becomes one of the best music makers of the era.
This text is a sequence of biographical portraits of key jazz figures (whose innovatory work as improvisers ranks them with major composers), surveying important developments in the genre. Jazz was dubbed by Bernstein as “the only original American art form”. Its fascination lies both in its musical innovations and in the rich social history to which it bears witness. That history is recounted here from its beginnings, through the lives of nine great jazz-men, each of them offering an individual contribution to jazz. All these musicians were great 20th century composers, but since jazz is essentially an improvised musical language – themes and choruses being merely a starting point for the solos which follow – it is in this sense that their composing should be understood. In the context of popular culture, jazz is also inextricably linked with the history of American blacks, from slavery to civil rights. This text is part of the 20th-century composers series, examining composers in a biographical context, and offering a comprehensive study of key figures in the creation of 20th-century music. None of the books in the series presume a knowledge of specialized terms or musical notation. Each book in the series features a list of works, a bibliography, and a discography
