LA Jazz Fest abruptly canceled days before launch

The inaugural LA Jazz Fest, set for Aug. 7 to 23 and promising major events including a two-day concert at Dockweiler Beach with stars like John Legend, Janelle Monáe, Parliament/Funkadelic and Raphael Saadiq — was canceled Thursday at the very last minute, and commenters online are already comparing it to the famously doomed Fyre Festival.

Organizer Martin Ludlow, a former L.A. city council member (who later pleaded guilty in state and federal courts after being accused of using union workers and money for his campaign), had promoted the LA Jazz Fest as a major citywide event, including free jazz performances in parks across the region, late-night shows in local clubs and a “Caribbean Street Carnival” block party in Venice on Aug. 21.

The ambitious festival also promised a youth jazz camp and youth jazz intensive/master class, and seminars on the state of jazz in America. The LA Jazz Fest was supposed to kick off on Aug. 7 with an opening night event in Leimert Park Village with acts including Lalah Hathaway, Kenyon Dixon, Chief Adjuah and Pete Escovedo.

The main event, however, was supposed to be a “Jazz on the Beach” two-day event at Dockweiler Beach on Aug. 22 and 23. Other acts scheduled included Charlie Wilson, Ezra Collective, Free Nationals, Poncho Sanchez and Big Freedia. The event even boasted that it had organized parking at the Forum, with shuttles “along a closed-off route designed to skip the traffic entirely” to the concert.

Ludlow announced the event at a City Hall press conference in February, which was attended by Mayor Karen Bass. The LA Jazz Fest said it expected to attract 250,000 attendees and had been promoting the event up until just days ago.

By Friday, the LA Jazz Fest website had been scrubbed, with only a cryptic message that said, “August 22-23. Updated event info coming soon.” On the LA Jazz Festival‘s instagram page, comments had been removed from posts that still remained and touted a wide variety of events that now appear to not be happening.

Reps for the organizers did not respond to a request for comment by Variety, but in a statement, Ludlow told the Los Angeles Times, “Due to significant, unanticipated last-minute public safety and municipal costs associated with the final permitting of the On The Beach Festival, we have reached the decision to unfortunately postpone this year’s inaugural LA Jazz Festival. Although this decision was an extremely difficult one to reach, our commitment to the audiences and artists participating in the festival is to have a first-class experience worthy of the great legacy of jazz and our great city. We were encouraged by the enthusiastic support of the artists on the bill, the fans and our sponsors for this inaugural event, and we look forward to presenting all of the components of this incredible cultural opportunity for Los Angeles and the world in 2027 and beyond.”

But the reaction was a mix of anger and frustration among artists who had already traveled to Los Angeles from abroad to take part in the event, as well as vendors who had already purchased stock to sell at the now-canceled festival.

“Not cool for us musicians who lost money on flights and rehearsals for this,” wrote one musician on CBS LA’s Instagram page. Added another: “They canceled a big band I play with! Terribly disorganized … a real train wreck.” CBS LA News spoke to jazz musician Isiah Collier, “who landed in Los Angeles on Friday after a long tour in Europe. He was scheduled to perform this weekend at the inaugural LA Jazz Festival, but at the last minute, he found out his and dozens of other performers’ gigs were canceled.”

On KTLA’s Instagram, a rep from SB Music Management wrote, “Are they going to pay back all of the jazz musicians/crew etc. from the costs incurred, because they canceled with no notice? Too late for musicians to get money back from hotels and flights! Not just from that final weekend but the 17 days of concerts leading up to it?”

According to artists, questions about the validity of the event began to emerge in recent weeks when the event’s website took down ticketing links. And last weekend, some community media outlets had reported that the LA Jazz Festival had downsized into a handful of events, with most of the jazz in the parks and jazz at night events being canceled — but none of that was communicated to participants until this week. On Reddit, one poster suggested that their husband, a concert promoter, was asked to put together a jazz festival “with very little turnaround time,” and assumed this was it. Another user said they were approached for a marketing role after tickets were already on sale.

“The biggest issue here is transparency, ensuring that artists, vendors, third-party partners,and the community are addressed with clarity and dignity,” musician and booker Leah Concialdi said on her Instagram account. “As some of you might have seen reported on the news, several artists have incurred travel costs out of pocket. Several artists, including my own, have not received a deposit or fully executed contract and have just been kind of left in the dark, so I’m hoping, if nothing else, that they can make things right.”

Added musician Nicholas Mycio, who said he had been booked to perform a “Jazz in the Park” show, on Reddit: “Most of us were never given any info about cancellation. To say it blind sides us was an understatement. And if you never heard of the festival I dont blame you. While they had signed a contract with many artists they only announced online a few and did basically no promotion around anyone except the headliners…. I had also invested a lot of money into the production of my show that is now just gone. I am not the only artist or person who is associated with the festival who is losing money because of this. In fact, because of the radius clause I had to turn down more than $1500 of work.”

-Variety