page_title: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival / History
caption_attribution_description: New Orleans, Leroy Jones, Jazz &amp; Heritage Festival
context_page_description: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, often known as Jazz Fest, is an annual celebration of the music and culture of New Orleans and Louisiana. The term "Jazz Fest" also refers to the days surrounding the festival and the many shows at unaffiliated New Orleans nightclubs scheduled during the festival weekends.
context_section_description: The Festival has been held annually 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, except 2020 when it was cancelled on what would've been the 50th anniversary. George Wein's Festival Productions was contracted to produce the Festival. Wein produced the Newport Jazz Festival (1954) and the Newport Folk Festival (1959) in Newport, Rhode Island.
  To produce the Festival in New Orleans, Wein assembled advisers, among them Ellis Marsalis, Richard B. "Dick" Allen and Harry Souchon. 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. Both Miner and Davis knew a great deal about jazz. They went to black clubs to hire performers rather than to Bourbon Street or other tourist destinations because it was at these clubs that live music was being produced. The first person the pair booked was Snooks Eaglin, a street singer who performed at the festival every year. After Wein established the Festival, Miner and Davis oversaw operations of Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans for many years under the supervision of Wein and the Foundation Board. Quint Davis holds the position of CEO of Festival Productions, Inc.- New Orleans, while Miner is largely credited with founding the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Archive. AEG Live became a co-producer of the festival in 2004.
  The Archive 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. It contains business records, photographs, video and audio recordings, as well as other artifacts. The Archive is open to the public by appointment.
  When Miner died on December 23, 1995, the interviewing stage was renamed in her memory as the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage. After Hurricane Katrina, the stage was temporarily merged with the Lagniappe Stage, which is housed in the Grandstand. However, in 2009, it was reinstated as a full stage.
  Before the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, similar New Orleands jazz festivals were held in the 1960s. The first two were in 1970 and 1971 at Louis Armstrong Park, previously called Beauregard Square, in Congo Square and the adjoining New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. The 145-acre New Orleans Fair Grounds and Racetrack began to hold Jazz Fest in 1972. The venue is located at 1751 Gentilly Boulevard, approximately ten minutes from the French Quarter. The New Orleans Fair Grounds and Racetrack is a much larger venue than Congo Square and was chosen to hold the Festival when organizers realized how popular the event was.
  The first Jazz Fest, in Congo Square, cost $3 for admission and was minimally advertised, and had only a Gospel Tent and four open stages, many of which had no microphones. Musicians were housed in Davis' and Miner's homes; there was no money for hotels. The festivities started on Wednesday night with the Pete Fountain and Clyde Kerr orchestras playing on a midnight steamboat ride.
  The first Jazz Fest lineup included Mahalia Jackson (who was not booked, but simply heard about the Festival and showed up to sing), the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Duke Ellington, Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Clifton Chenier, Fats Domino, and The Meters This first lineup received an audience of 350 people, but the numbers grew every year, especially after the introduction of a limited edition silkscreen poster series in 1975. By the end of the 1980s, attendance peaked at 300,000. In 2001, when Louis Armstrong's centennial was celebrated, 650,000 people attended. The poster series has been very popular with collectors. The first poster was designed by Sharon Dinkins and Thorn Grafton. Posters feature a performer or the overall theme of the Festival, and all posters are commissioned by the Festival. In 1998, the Festival added the Congo Square poster series. Artists such as George Durea
caption: Leroy Jones Quintet
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