Atlanta Jazz Festival… 1985
1985 saw the return of the festival in its 8th annual edition that spanned the summer. The stages spread across the city north at Chastain Park Amphitheater on June 1st, east to Grant Park on June 8th & 9th and July 13th & 14th, and in midtown on August 3rd & 4th and August 30th and September 1st at Piedmont Park.
The lineup was spectacular for that luminous summer with the Gary Burton Quartet, Makato Ozone, Miles Davis, Nancee Kahler and the Section, Stephanie Pettus and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Bill Taylor, Michel Petrucciani, Sphere, Emily Remler & Larry Carlton, David Murray Octet, The Crusaders, Spyro Gyra, Rare Silk, Special EFX, The Yellow Jackets, Steps Ahead, Tania Maria, The Visitors, Shake and Avec, Elgin Wells, The Dan Wall Quartet featuring Carol Veto, the Tom Grose Band, Bob James, Thos Shipley, Betty Carter TRio, Clark College Orchestra, Joe Williams featuring the Norman Simmons Trio, the Ojeda Penn Experience, the McCoy Tyner Trio, Joe Jennings & Life Force, and the Stan Getz Quartet.
While enthusiastic audiences enjoy a great summer of jazz, celebration and tragedy make the news headlines and top stories. Coca-Cola announces and brings back Classic Coke, the pre-“New Coke” Coke, with a new name. In other parts of country, Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashes while attempting to land at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, and though the original impact was in an empty field, the plane remained intact, bounced onto a 6-lane highway, and crashed into a pair of water tanks killing 136 out of 167 passengers. Finally, with Cale Yarborough’s broken belt at the Southern 500 in Darlington, SC, Bill Elliott is ensured a million-dollar celebration. Elliott won the Daytona 500 in February and the Winston 500 in May. With the win at Darlington, he became the first person to win three of the top 4 races in the NASCAR circuit.
Amidst the celebrations and tragedies, the Bureau of Cultural Affairs was experimenting with its identity and the “free” was dropped from the name as people came to understand that there was no cover charge or price of admission. It became the Atlanta Jazz Festival & Concert Series and thus began a multiple of weekends that the festival presented music. It would also be the last year that Shirley Cooks would serve as director, and programmer Mark Johnson would continue the legacy under a new leader at the helm.
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