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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Atlanta Jazz Festival… 1984

Festival programmer Mark Johnson continues the legacy of jazz under Bureau of Cultural Affairs leader Shirley Cooks with Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Damaris, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Paquito D’Rivera and the Clark College Jazz Orchestra.
The year had other significant events as the groundbreaking for the Carter Center began, after original plans were modified to answer some of the local concerns. Democrat Sam Nunn defeats Republican Jon Michael Hicks in the race for U. S. Senate that begins his 25 year career in Congress, MARTA service extends is service to the Lindbergh Center and Lenox Mall, and Whitney Houston appears in the TV show Gimme A Break as her singing career takes off at the age of 21.
The festival took place from May 25th thru May 29th in Central City Park and Piedmont Park. It was sponsored by the Miller Brewing Company, Better Brands of Atlanta – Distributors of Lowenbrau, Naturally Fresh, National Endowment for the Arts and CBS Records.

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Atlanta Jazz Festival… 1983

Atlanta is no stranger to the heat index and in 1983 on August 20th the thermometer hit 100 degrees just nine days before the opening of the jazz festival. Also that year Georgia was required to pay $3 million dollars to Black workers who were denied promotions at the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, and The Big Chill which was filmed in Atlanta and starred Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly and JoBeth Williams opened in theaters.
Festival programmer Mark Johnson continues the legacy of jazz under Bureau of Cultural Affairs leader Shirley Cooks by bringing another amazing lineup to Atlanta for the sixth annual festival that included Crescent, Allan Harris, Dexter Wise, Windstorm, Chandra Currelly, Family Jazz Ensemble, Billy Gee, Clark College Jazz Orchestra, James Newton Quartet, Space Shuttle, Dan Wall Quartet, Sil Austin, Joi Tobin, Life Force, Jimmy Smith & Kenny Burrell feturing Mike Baker, Steven Dwiggins, Carol Veto, Glenn Wisenbaker, Ojeda Penn Experience, Jeanne Lee, Pharoah Sanders, Furture Experience, Rod Smith, Paul Perez, Khaleefa Haamid and Miles Davis.

From August 29th – September 1st performances were in Central City Park. The final days of the festival performances from September 2nd to September 5th were held in Piedmont Park.

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Atlanta Jazz Festival… 1982

The year is 1982 and much is going on in Atlanta with the appointment of former President Jimmy Carter to a professorship at Emory University, Henry “Hank” Aaron is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, Coca-Cola purchases Columbia Pictures from CBS and also introduces Diet Coke, Wayne Williams Atlanta Child Murders trial is underway, MARTA’s Peachtree Center station is opened, Herschel Walker, a junior attending the University of Georgia wins the Heisman Trophy and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site is created.

While all of this is making news Shirley Cooks, Director of Cultural Affairs continues the tradition by bringing a few luminaries in jazz at the time to the city. On the bill were drummer Chico Hamilton, vocalist Carmen McRae, pianist Mal Waldron, vocalist Leon Thomas, and drummer Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers with soprano and tenor saxophonist Jean Toussaint, bassist Charles Fambrough, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison and pianist Johnny O’Neal. For many Atlantan enthusiasts during the Nineties they would get to hear Johnny O’Neal on many occasions as he took up residencies at several local jazz nightspots.

The weekend of August 30th thru September 6th with performances in Central City Park and on Labor Day weekend performance took place in Piedmont Park and OIC Sullivan Hall.

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Atlanta Jazz Festival… 1981

We continue our journey down the jazz highway and the year is 1981. The city is poised once again to bring a great lineup to the Atlanta Jazz Festival from August 31st to September 4th in Central City Park and September 5th – 7th in Piedmont Park. The mainstays are back – Clark College Jazz Orchestra, Ojeda Penn Experience Carol Veto, Joe Jennings’ Life Force holding down the local talent with new arrivals Rod Smith, Dub Hudson.

Shirley Cooks continued to be at the helm of the Department of Cultural Affairs with Mark Johnson programming to bring a star-studded lineup with Betty Carter, Max Roach, The Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Quartet, World Saxophone Quartet, Billy McPherson, Chubby Stevens, Villi Lakatos, Pat Foster, and the Bob Shaw Quartet.

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