The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, better known just as “Jazz Fest” remains all the more important as a symbol of the music and spirit of the Crescent City following the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Jazz impresario George Wein, who was a major force in the birth of the Newport Jazz Festival and the Newport Folk Festival, both started in the 1950s, went to work in 1970 on a project for The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit organization that wanted to launch a festival in New Orleans. Wein took on Quint Davis to help produce it, and he would become a major figure in producing both New Orleans events and New Orleans music events in other cities. Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Clifton Chenier, Fats Domino, The Meters, and The Preservation Hall Band played at the first Jazz Fest to an audience of several hundred people. The festival has grown to extend over an entire week with two weekends included, and some festivals have drawn more than half a million people. The music at Jazz Fest has also expanded, from primarily New Orleans jazz and soul to all sorts of roots styles and their musical branches.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival