A Brief History of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival – 
In April of 1970, Mahalia Jackson, often called the greatest gospel singer, returned to her hometown to appear at the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. 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.
This spontaneous, momentous scene—this meeting of jazz and heritage—has stood for decades as a stirring symbol of the authenticity of the celebration that was destined to become a cultural force.
From the very beginning, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival was envisioned as an important event that would have great cultural significance and popular appeal. The Festival was the culmination of years of discussions and efforts by city leaders who wanted to create an event worthy of the city’s legacy as the birthplace of jazz. A couple of other festivals were held in the years leading up to the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, but those events, different in format, did not take hold as the Jazz & Heritage Festival would.
The 45th anniversary Festival in 2014 featured Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Christina Aguilera, Phish, Arcade Fire, Santana, The String Cheese Incident, Robert Plant, Public Enemy, The Avett Brothers, Charlie Wilson, Alabama Shakes, John Fogerty and hundreds more. That same year, a major national television broadcast of Jazz Fest on AXS-TV allowed millions of viewers to experience the Festival over the four days of the second weekend including over 28-hours of live performances, interviews and behind the scenes footage.
With 12 stages of soul-stirring music—jazz, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, rock, funk, African, Latin, Caribbean, folk, and much more—the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is firmly established as a singular celebration of both historic and contemporary significance. The event has showcased most of the great artists of New Orleans and Louisiana of the last half century: Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, The Neville Brothers, Wynton Marsalis, Dr. John, Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, Ellis Marsalis, The Radiators, Irma Thomas, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Allen Toussaint, Buckwheat Zydeco, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Better Than Ezra, Ernie K-Doe, Vernel Bagneris, The Zion Harmonizers, Beausoleil and many others.
The Festival has always blended in a wide mix of internationally renowned guests, among them: Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Bruce Springsteen, Santana, Sarah Vaughan, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, Max Roach, B.B. King, Dave Matthews Band, Patti LaBelle, Tito Puente, the Allman Brothers Band, Joni Mitchell, Al Green, Pitbull, Linda Ronstadt, Lenny Kravitz, Sonny Rollins, Bonnie Raitt, James Brown, Keith Urban, Kings of Leon, Celia Cruz, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Hugh Masekela, Cassandra Wilson, Willie Nelson, The Temptations, Burning Spear, Van Morrison, LL Cool J, Abbey Lincoln, Neil Young, Erykah Badu, Dave Brubeck, Gladys Knight, Youssou N’Dour and many, many others.
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