For almost half a century, the Atlanta Jazz Festival has gathered crowds in Piedmont Park over Memorial Day weekend to groove to the sounds of snapping snares, brassy trumpets and sultry singers at the festival’s open-air stage.
Since its founding in 1978 by then-Mayor Maynard Jackson, the Atlanta Jazz Festival has been one of the largest free public jazz festivals in the country, gathering roughly 200,000 people over the three-day weekend. It has boasted legends like Miles Davis, Nina Simone and Esperanza Spalding, while also nurturing the next generation of jazz musicians.
Fifteen artists are slotted to perform for this year’s 48th annual festival, running May 24-26. The artists are a wide range of old and new, classic and modern. Many subgenres of jazz are represented including bebop, big band, classical, Afro-Cuban, hip-hop, voodoo jazz and vocalists.
Credit: John Stephens
Credit: John Stephens
Some headliners include: Marsha Ambrosius and Derrick Hodge on Saturday night; Ravi Coltrane, Andromeda Turre and Russell Gunn and Blackhawk Quartet on Sunday night; and Dianne Reeves and The Joe Gransden Big Band on Monday night.
“We are celebrating the rich history and legacy of jazz music,” said Adriane Jefferson, the new executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs who puts on the festival. “Music has been a core discipline to bring people from different communities together … it is rooted in joy and celebration. This is an event that celebrates not just music, not just history, but people and being together in unity.”
Park Tavern will host two participatory workshops including “Jazz & hip-hop: Beats, Drums, and Breaks” on Sunday and “Swing Out: Jazz Dance Workshop” on Monday. A kid-friendly rhythm workshop will also be offered every day at the festival’s Publix Kid Zone.
On Friday night, a pre-festival concert will tee up the weekend. Five-time Grammy-winning pianist and producer Robert Glasper, known for fusing jazz and hip-hop, and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Baby Rose will play at Atlanta Symphony Hall.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed two headliners of this year’s festival.
The Joe Gransden Big Band will pay homage to two of Atlanta’s historic jazz cornerstones
Credit: Ryan Chapman
Credit: Ryan Chapman
With a sultry, swooning voice reminiscent of Frank Sinatra and a technical prowess on trumpet sharp enough to warrant Kenny G calling him a “virtuoso,” Atlanta-based musician Joe Gransden has made an impression on the jazz scene.
He’s gotten to jam at Lincoln Center and the historic Blue Note in New York City, serenaded private parties for Clint Eastwood, appeared in Hollywood films like the HBO docudrama “Bessie” about Queen Latifah and recorded with Kenny G and Glen Campbell.
These opportunities might never have materialized though, Gransden said, had he not put together his big band of Atlanta musicians more than a decade ago.
Before that, Gransden had been a hustling freelance trumpet player willing to play just about any gig.
“When the phone would ring, I would go perform anywhere. I’d go play in an orchestra. I’d go play in a Latin band … or a wedding band,” he remembers.
As his network grew, so did Gransden’s vision to put together a big band.
“I wanted to get the guys that I thought were the best jazz soloists, who could improvise the best, but were also the best readers,” Gransden remembers. “They could read the music on the spot because it‘s very difficult to get 17, 18 guys together on a regular basis to rehearse.”
As a world-class city for jazz music, Atlanta had its fair share of musicians up to the task. The band formed. But at the time, there weren’t many venues in Atlanta that could accommodate such a massive group.
Johnny Scatena, owner of Café 290, took a chance and scheduled Gransden’s band for one slot every other Monday night. It worked. The band performed there for the next 11 years.
“It made my career not only locally, but gave me the springboard to perform nationally,” Gransden said.
Scatena died in November 2024. His death was closely followed in February by the loss of another local jazz cornerstone Sam Yi, former owner of Churchill Grounds Café where many Atlanta musicians found their stride.
These two losses, Gransden said, have “devastated the jazz community.”
That‘s why this year, when Gransden and his big band take the stage at the Atlanta Jazz Festival on its closing night, 9 p.m. Memorial Day, the band will play a set that pays homage to Yi and Scatena.
This will be the first time Gransden and his band have headlined the festival. They will perform a 90-minute set in their signature style: “a cross between Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis and Count Basie,” Gransden said.
Credit: Carla Hoff Photography
Credit: Carla Hoff Photography
If the band was a cake, it would have at least seven layers. Five saxophonists can double on flute and clarinet. Four trombone players and four trumpet players bring the brass. A piano player and a guitarist lay down all the chords and harmonies. An upright bass player anchors the music in time and swing.
“And then probably the most important would be the drummer,” Gransden said. “The drummer is kind of the engine that runs the whole machine. The heartbeat.”
Gransden plays the trumpet and sings as the frontman: icing on the cake.
The arrangements are mostly crafted by Wes Funderburk, the band’s lead trombone player, whom Gransden describes as a savant at layering and building the band’s sound while showcasing solos from powerhouse players.
Andromeda Turre to perform four-concerto set inspired by environmental justice
Credit: Ma2la
Credit: Ma2la
When New York-based jazz vocalist, composer and activist Andromeda Turre visited Iceland, she was mesmerized by the way lava bled from the earth, how the waves crashed violently on a black sand beach and the glow of the aurora borealis. Most striking though was an experience she had while hiking into a melting glacier.
“I felt the glacier had some sort of consciousness,” she said. “It was almost as if it knew that it was about to meet its own demise. … I went back to my hotel room and I wrote ‘Cryosphere.’ If you listen to the lyrics, they’re written from the perspective of the glacier, as if the glacier was singing the song.”
Thus began Turre’s latest project “From the Earth,” an immersive four-part jazz suite, rooted in environmental justice, which Turre will perform at the Atlanta Jazz Festival at 7 p.m. Sunday.
The suite journeys through four concertos: Geosphere, Atmosphere, Cryosphere and Hydrosphere. To produce sonically distinct segments, Turre uses a wide range of instruments including a vibraphone (played by Atlanta resident Drew Tucker), a didgeridoo, marimba, harp, electronic wind instrument and crystal singing bowls, among others.
Embedded in some of the songs are interviews Turre conducted with individuals affected by issues of climate change and colonization.
“Jazz has always been a music that‘s been about social justice,” said Turre. “If you go back, look at Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, this has been a thread since the beginning of jazz.
“And then on the spirituality side, you’ve always had spiritual jazz. There’s Alice Coltrane, there’s Pharoah Sanders. Sun Ra. A lot of artists that have really explored their spirituality and used music as a way to raise the vibration of humanity. I took cues from both groups.”
This is Turre’s first time performing at the Atlanta Jazz Festival. Her father, jazz musician Steve Turre, will also make a guest appearance during the encore to play conch shells side by side with his daughter as she plays singing bowls. The song, called “Safe Here,” has never been publicly performed.
“I really wanted to bring something special in this moment in time to just calm people’s nervous systems,” she said. “It can help them to feel grounded and loved.”
If you go
May 24-26. Piedmont Park. Free bike valet station on 10th Street near Park Tavern (500 10th St. NE). Free festival entry. atljazzfest.com.
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