Hampton Jazz and Music Festival
Hampton Jazz and Music Festival: Forever Changing
by Gabriella Zziwa
After five decades of bringing together legendary jazz musicians, including Kenny G, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, the Hampton Jazz Festival, renamed in 2024 to the Hampton Jazz and Music Festival, continues to transform itself to attract broader and younger audiences.
Attendance peaked in 1995 with about 36,500 festival goers Since then, the number of ticket sales slowly decreased. The three-day event now brings in about 20,000.
“We can do much better at bringing in and infusing contemporary and smooth jazz and R&B,” said Jay Lang, manager of jazz station 88.1 WHOV RADIO, who helps organize the festival.
This year's festival, from June 27th to June 29th at the Hampton Coliseum, includes Anthony Hamilton, Lucky Daye, Pj Morton, and Lalah Hathaway on Friday. Keith Sweat, SWV, Maze, Jeff Bradshaw, and Maysa Mike Phillips on Saturday. Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight, Stephanie Mills, and Damien Escobar on Sunday. Presale tickets are available for one day, Thursday, April 17th at 10 am EST and general tickets will be on sale Friday, April 18th at 10 am EST. Tickets range from $75 to $115, per day.
Although the festival lineup has always featured R&B, funk, soul, and pop artists, it has gradually presented fewer jazz artists. The 2024 lineup featured only four jazz artists, Special EFX All-Stars, Boney James, Brian Culberston, and Jon Batiste.
Organizers insist that they don’t want to drop jazz from the festival name because of tradition. Still, change is necessary to survive, they say.
“There’s only so many times you want to see the same person do the same thing and I think for a number of years the festival got into that rut and the audience attendance suffered as a result,” Lang said.
Economic Benefits
The festival has a significant economic impact on the city, as festival goers dine at local restaurants and shop at local retail stores and boutiques. The annual festival delivers “an estimated $3 million economic impact,” according to a Hampton University press release.
“Oh, it has a major impact. First of all, from a tourism :standpoint, economic standpoint, 65% of the people who attend a jazz festival come from out of town. And so they stay in hotel rooms that generate lodging tax,” said Hampton Mayor Jimmy Gray.
“They may even visit some of our retail centers and shop in our stores. And so there's sales tax generated there.”
Nearby beaches and a multitude of restaurants help attract festival goers. The city of Hampton, Newport News, Chesapeake, and Norfolk all benefit from the tax dollars.
Festival Atmosphere
The lively jazz and music festival brings people back year after year.
“It’s really like a Black family reunion, people come from all over just to hang out,” said Lang. But, “they are aging out”.
Instruments and singers fill the air with music as people stand, dancing, laughing, and rejoicing.
“It’s just one big party,” said music connoisseur Wayne Dawkins.
The Homecoming like environment includes people from all over the country coming together to celebrate music. They mingle with friends, family, and peers enjoying food, drinks, and more. The festival is a great way to enjoy music and have fun.
“Parties are everywhere, people are happy, not thinking about worries and cares, it's just joy,” Lang said.
Festival Lineup
The Festival includes many prominent R&B, soul, and funk artists that perform alongside jazz greats.
“We are excited to present a bigger range of music and hope to reach a bigger range of fans,” Joe Santangelo, festival co-promoter, told WHRO Media.
This year’s lineup includes eight primarily non jazz artists, Anthony Hamilton, Lucky Daye, Keith Sweat, SWV, Maze, Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight, and Stephanie Mills. They are known for R&B, funk, and soul.
“You can’t continue to program to an aged-out audience because it will die out on you and the festival will die,” said Lang.
There are three jazz artists performing this year, Jeff Bradshaw, Mike Phillips, and Damien Escobar. PJ Morton and Lalah Hathaway are jazz influenced artists also performing this year.
Festival organizers started looking at the demographics of young people, said musician Ford.
“They started looking at that and the types of artists,” Ford said.. “They had to stop and ask, who are we trying to serve now?”
With competition growing from other jazz festivals in neighboring cities and states, changes had to be made.
History
The Hampton Jazz and Music Festival was created in 1968 by influential jazz promoter, George Wein, known for successfully launching the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. Wein was looking for a location to start a new festival.
George Wein was an impresario, pianist, and producer. Wein was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1925 outside of Boston and was raised in a nearby town, Newton. He started by playing jazz piano in clubs in his early teens, according to Boston University Magazine.
Wein attended Northeastern University where he briefly studied pre-med to please his father, and then served in the Army.
At 24 years old, he opened the Storyville Jazz Club in Boston’s Back Bay, just months after graduating from Boston University with a degree in history. The club was a success.
For several years, Wein and then-president of Hampton Institute, Jerome Holland, discussed a possible partnership, according to a 2017 Daily Press article.
Wein had family history with the school because his wife, Joyce Wein, had parents who met at the Institute.
They wanted to recreate the Newport Jazz Festival. The original idea for the festival was a one-time celebration for the 100-year anniversary of Hampton Institute. One member of the student committee that helped plan the festival, John Scott, was against hosting the festival at Hampton Institute.
He had been to the Newport festival and recalled when there were riots. He was worried that the same would happen if they held the festival at Hampton. Scott was successfully outvoted.
The first two festivals were held at Armstrong Stadium on the Hampton Institute campus. The festivals highlighted jazz legends such as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Dizzy Gillespie.
The early festivals also provided educational workshops to fulfill Hampton’s mission.
“An enriching academic experience in a most appropriate environment - a predominantly Negro college campus,” President Holland told Tuesday Magazine in 1968.
Founder Wein vocalized his reluctance to host a third festival due to financial underperformance of the two festivals, but when the city of Hampton joined the partnership it took pressure off of him.
“When the city wanted to join in and put the festival in the Coliseum, it was perfect for us. It eliminated the weather problems, and it made us partners with the city,” said festival founder George Wein in a 2017 interview with The Daily Press.
Transition to the Coliseum
Virginia’s unpredictable weather and concerns about the festival's financial success led Wein to consider pulling out of the Hampton Jazz Festival.
The city built the Hampton Coliseum between 1968 and 1970, a brand new arena with around the same seating capacity as Armstrong Stadium, with a capacity of over 12,000 including standing room.
Ann Kilgore, then mayor of Hampton, pitched the idea of holding the festival in the coliseum. The outdoor event then shifted indoors after deliberations about cost and weather.
It was a good decision because it rained the third year of the festival. On June 27th, 1971 the weather forecast displayed drizzle and haze from 9 am to 11 pm, according to weatherspark.com.
Early years
Early performers such as Stevie Wonder, Kenny G, Eddie LeVert, Frankie Beverly, and Pattie LaBelle recall the atmosphere and their experience performing at the festival.
“The energy in Louisiana, it was beautiful but not like here. It was very heavy here tonight,” Stevie Wonder told Norfolk’s Ledger-Star in 1973.
Performing artists recall the lively atmosphere at the early Hampton Jazz Festivals.
“Man, I don’t want this to end,” said sax player Kenny G, who performed at the festival for the first time in 1988.
In the early years artists such as Ray Charles and B.B. King, who did not play jazz, performed.
With former stars aging out, it became difficult to fulfill fan expectations.
Bob Ransom, a local jazz pianist, who had performed in the festival, thought that the name should be changed to Hampton Music Festival.
He said that “it has become more of a money maker, rather than presenting the art and the musicians and the music”, according to a 2017 Daily Press article.
Duane Smith, bandleader for Hampton’s The Fuzz Band recalls that he “went to the last one that had a lot of real traditional jazz - in 1996”, according to the 2017 Daily Press article.
Some argued that the festival had never been purely jazz, since they featured bands such as Sly and the Family Stone, a funk band.
Joe Tsao, Director at Hampton Coliseum, believes jazz has been influenced by many different forms of music. Some argued for expanding to more R&B artists.
Stage for Local Artists
Hampton Jazz and Music Festival has been a way for local talent to emerge and take the big stage. Performing before legendary artists, the festival is a good way to grow fan population and engagement.
“Once you get that up on your resume - other jazz festivals, they see that,” said musician Ford.
A performance at the festival gives credibility so bands can book other performances.
Blues singer Myra Smith from Newport News who performed in 2015 told the Daily Press that when she “got off stage, I was out there selling my album.”
The festival has proven beneficial for those asked to perform. It allows local artists to connect with some of the greatest artists in music.
“I always wanted to meet Al Jarreau. I always had a deep appreciation for Al Jarreau. I Ran into him backstage, Al Jarreau, man, held out my hand to shake it, he wouldn't shake my hand. And it was actually just cold to me,” said Jazz artist Jae Sinnett.
Jae Sinnett
Jae Sinnett, originally from Donora, Pennsylvania, moved to Virginia in the mid- 70s to serve in the Navy.
He began his music career majoring in Music Education at Norfolk State University, after completing his military service.
Sinnett advanced to a composer, consummate drummer, and bandleader. He has produced 19 albums as a leader and several as a sideman.
He is a jazz producer and host for WHRV-FM 89.5 in Norfolk, VA. Sinnett hosts the jazz show Sinnett in Session Monday through Thursday evenings, and R&B Chronicles Friday evenings.
Sinnett in Session “jazz radio show is one of the highest fundraising revenue-producing four-hour jazz shows in the country”, according to JaeSinnet.com.
He received the prestigious Scott Willis Jazz Impact Award in 2018 at the JazzWeek summit and the Duke Dubois Jazz Humanitarian Award in 2020. The Duke Dubois Jazz Humanitarian Award “is given to an individual to recognize a longstanding commitment to jazz, jazz radio, jazz education and generous service to the jazz community”, according to WGBH.
For eight years Sinnett taught history, theory, and percussion at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, Va. At Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va, he was an adjunct drum set and jazz ensemble instructor.
Sinnett is a touring clinician and music educator directing master classes at universities.
His nonprofit, Hampton Roads Jazz Inc. “offers world class jazz performance, artistic, and educational experiences to entertain, inspire, and enrich the cultural landscape of the Hampton Roads region”, according to the official website.
He founded the Phoebus Jazz Festival in 2019, a three day festival with strictly jazz.
“But I think when you want to focus on jazz-like my organization Hampton Roads Jazz-we produce the Phoebus Jazz Festival. Since we're talking about Hampton, we're producing it in a smaller venue and we're having jazz, so we go smaller,” said Sinnett.
The festival is held in The American Theatre in Hampton, Va. Sinnett’s goal was to bring a real jazz festival to the area.
“If you want to bring in the pop groups and soul groups, put them in the coliseum. But then bring in some jazz- place the jazz in smaller venues, spread throughout the city, maybe put some of the jazz in the American theater, or find great little spots- little restaurants or clubs- that would be conducive to having this kind of music. You can bring the jazz in these smaller venues,” said Sinnett.
New Times
As the Hampton Jazz and Music Festival enters a new age, some believe there is more that can be done to bring it to life and incorporate it into the city of Hampton.
“I think that the City of Hampton could do a better job in integrating the jazz festival throughout the city and surrounding areas-everybody should be Hampton Jazz Festival focused that weekend,” said Ford.
Incorporating restaurants, retail stores, and local businesses can ensure that everyone in the community benefits from the lively weekend event, Ford said.
Sinnet said the festival should be patterned after the Rochester International Jazz Festival, which gets the entire city involved. “I think their festival runs a week or two weeks. So think about all that jazz in the course of a couple of weeks sprinkled throughout the city in different venues,” Sinnet said. ”It’s a model of how we can get more of the city of Hampton involved in the music and you can really have some jazz.”