The history of a free jazz festival in Atlanta began in 1974 when then first time may Maynard Jackson established the Bureau of Cultural Affairs. Then in his second term he recognized the opportunity and the responsibility to promote America’s only original art for whose roots are indigenous to the South. Mayor Jackson brought in Michael Lomax, who had been a member of the ad-hoc committee that designed the Bureau of Cultural and International Affairs and went on to establish the National Black Arts Festival, and was named as the first director of the bureau. iHis two-year tenure was followed by proven fundraiser Shirley Franklin, who was equally committed to the mayor’s vision and the arts.

But it was Gary Windom from Compton, California who came to Atlanta and proposed to produce a jazz festival. With a willing and able administration ready, he became the coordinator of the festival, put out a call for brainstormers and with a bleak start only Malcolm Johnson, active in city programming, attended. Once the word got out that the city was serious about putting on a world-class celebration of pure jazz, Joe Jennings, Kole Eaton and Ebon Dooley joined in followed later by Mitchel Feldman and Rob Gibson.

It took four years from concept to fruition and the celebration and in 1978 the birth of The Atlanta Free Jazz Festival became a reality, with the ambiguity by design. The intent was to inform the public that the performances were free but also make them aware of the style of playing featured – free jazz, straight-ahead, avant-garde, improvisational, harmonically and rhythmically complex and beautiful – the best performers of pure or mainstream jazz musicians.

So, friends, enthusiasts, aficionados and initiates of jazz, jump on the bandwagon as we take a ride down memory lane and visit those jazz musicians who gave their heart and soul to the city and be witness to the evolution of the music. First stop, 1978…