New Orleans Jazz Fest A Pictorial History

New Orleans Jazz Fest: A Pictorial History is an extraordinary documentation through photographs of the evolution of this yearly festival that in New Orleans has become a seasonal ritual comparable only to the revelry of Mardi Gras. Dividing the book into four sections of five-year periods, photographer Michael P. Smith has compiled a running history of the Fest from its first year, when it drew a crowd of only several hundred people to a small site in Congo Square, up through its third decade and its present 35-acre site on the Fair Grounds Race Track. Captured as never before are such musical greats as Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Stevie Wonder, Professor Longhair, the Neville Brothers, Irma Thomas, Dr. John, and Bonnie Raitt, as well as lesser-known but well-remembered performers such as the Como Fife and Drum Corps, the Meters, and Big Joe Williams. The philosophy of the Jazz Fest has always been to create [read more]