The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, commonly known as Jazz Fest, is the preeminent music festival of a city that is pretty well known for its music festivals. Held on the New Orleans Fair Grounds race Course, the event takes place on the last weekend of April and first weekend of May, occupying the local weather sweet spot that links spring to summer.
With that said, while ‘Fest’ is technically a two weekend affair, in practice it feels like a two-week extravaganza. In the weekdays that link Jazz Fest’s official dates, random gigs pop off around town with satisfying ubiquity. The atmosphere isn’t as mad cap as Mardi Gras; rather, it feels like our musical city is pumping out her sonic legacy on overdrive.
Many think Jazz Fest is an all jazz affair, but remember to read the full name of the festival. That ‘And Heritage’ caveat means Jazz Fest encompasses any music influenced by the city of New Orleans, which is almost all pop music from the 20th century on. A dozen music stages and tens encompass genres and acts ranging from gospel to Cajun to rock and pop.
Jazz Fest attracts a mix of New Orleans favorites and big name, stadium-sized headliners. A major part of the appeal are food tents, which feature a regular rotating sampling of some of the city’s finest cuisine. Even more than Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest has a crop of devoted repeat attendees; a sizable amount of visitors rent out homes on an annual basis for Fest, which has become something of a pilgrimage for a certain set of music aficionados.
In 1970, the Foundation was set up to be the nonprofit owner of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest) with a mission to sow the seeds of our unique culture for generations to come.
In the early days, the festival wasn't the world-famous event that it is today... one that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to New Orleans and pumps $300 million a year into the local economy. In fact, it is often said that at the first Jazz Fest there were more performers onstage than people in the audience.
But the founders believed that Jazz Fest would one day grow into a major success. Everyone involved wanted to make sure that the festival proceeds would be redistributed into the local community.
So the Foundation, a nonprofit organization, was established with a distinguished board of directors and a full-time staff. Its mission:
"To promote, preserve, perpetuate and encourage the music, arts, culture and heritage of communities in Louisiana through festivals, programs and other cultural, educational, civic and economic activities."
Mahalia Jackson, often called the greatest gospel singer, returned to her hometown to appear at the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April of 1970. While attending the Louisiana Heritage Fair in Congo Square (then known as Beauregard Square), she and Duke Ellington, who also appeared at the event, came upon the Eureka Brass Band leading a crowd of second-line revelers through the Festival grounds. George Wein, producer of the Festival, handed Ms. Jackson a microphone, she sang along with the band and joined the parade... and the spirit of Jazz Fest was born.
The Arts Council of New Orleans is a private, non-profit organization designated as the City’s official arts agency. The Arts Council serves as one of eight regional distributing agencies for state arts funds and administers available municipal arts grants and the Percent For Art program for the City of New Orleans. The Arts Council works in partnership with the City of New Orleans, community groups, local, state, and national governmental agencies, and other nonprofit arts organizations to meet the arts and cultural needs of the New Orleans community through a diversity of initiatives and services.
WWNO, the NPR member station for New Orleans, serves southeast Louisiana and parts of southwest Mississippi by broadcasting balanced news, thought provoking analysis, classical music, jazz and other musical styles, intelligent entertainment, and unique local content. We broadcast on 89.9 FM, and KTLN 90.5 FM in the Houma-Thibodaux area as a public service of the University of New Orleans. All of WWNO’s programs, including its growing local news coverage, are available online at WWNO.org.
WWOZ 90.7 FM is the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Station offering listener-supported, volunteer-programmed community radio. WWOZ covers many events live in and around the city and across the United States, and broadcasts live from the famed New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival annually. WWOZ’s mission is to be the worldwide voice, archive, and flag-bearer of New Orleans culture and musical heritage.
Preservation Resource Center (PRC) has been preserving, restoring, and revitalizing New Orleans’ historic architecture and neighborhoods since 1974. Throughout its history, PRC has acted as an advocacy agent on a local, regional, and national scale, spreading the word about the city’s rich architectural heritage and the economic importance of preserving this heritage. PRC also takes a hands-on approach to preservation, with a history of successfully restoring over 1,400 properties. The center strengthens and revitalizes New Orleans in a way that is forward-looking and sustainable, yet sensitive to the city’s past and its heritage.
As a nexus for the arts in New Orleans, NOMA is committed to preserving, interpreting, and enriching its collections and renowned sculpture garden; offering innovative experiences for learning and interpretation; and uniting, inspiring, and engaging diverse communities and cultures.
The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) is a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to preserving the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South. Its holdings comprise more than one million items from more than three centuries, documenting moments both major and minor. Its four exhibition spaces–the Williams Gallery, the Louisiana History Galleries, the Boyd Cruise Gallery, and the Laura Simon Nelson Galleries for Louisiana Art–faithfully depict the multicultural stories of the region, from permanent displays exploring the evolution of Louisiana to rotating exhibitions showcasing history and fine art.
The Southern Food and Beverage Museum is a nonprofit living history organization dedicated to the discovery, understanding and celebration of the food, drink and the related culture of the South. While based in New Orleans, the Museum examines and celebrates all the cultures that have come together through the centuries to create the South’s unique culinary heritage. The Museum is also home to the collections of the Museum of the American Cocktail, the Galerie d’Absinthe, and a demonstration kitchen.
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities to all Louisianans.
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities’ mission is to provide all Louisianans with access to and an appreciation of their own rich, shared and diverse historical, literary and cultural heritage through grant-supported outreach programs, family literacy and adult reading initiatives, teacher professional development institutes, publications, film and radio documentaries, museum exhibitions, cultural tourism, public lectures, library projects, and other public humanities programming.
