The first-ever Los Angeles Jazz Festival is set to debut in August, unfolding as a 25-day, citywide cultural takeover designed to put L.A. firmly on the global jazz map. Backed by mayor Karen Bass and the City of Los Angeles, the festival aims to become the world’s third-largest international jazz festival and the largest Black-owned jazz festival ever.
Rather than anchoring itself in a single venue, the Los Angeles Jazz Festival will spread the music across all 15 City Council districts, with more than two dozen free concerts in parks, neighborhoods and community spaces. Organizers expect the festival to draw roughly 250,000 attendees over its nearly month-long run, culminating in a closing weekend celebration on Dockweiler Beach.
That finale, branded as “Jazz on the Beach,” will take over the sand on August 22–23, with live performances expected to draw up to 40,000 people per day. But the scope of the festival will stretch beyond the shoreline. Events include Jazz After Dark, a series of roughly 150 shows hosted in woman- and POC-owned venues across L.A., and a Caribbean street festival in downtown El Segundo that will feature four themed stages inspired by Cuba, Brazil, New Orleans and Afro-Caribbean traditions.
The lineup also includes coastal cultural tours that showcase historic sites like The Inkwell and Bruce’s Beach, a two-day State of Jazz Conference in Marina del Rey and Jazz in the Park, 25 free concerts spread across urban green spaces citywide.
At its core, the festival positions jazz as America’s classical music, rooted in the African, African American and Caribbean experience, while tying music to civic life, tourism and local business support. Airbnb has signed on as the festival’s inaugural title sponsor, emphasizing a tourism model that brings visitors into local neighborhoods.
“With the Los Angeles Jazz Festival, we are establishing a world-class festival that honors those historic human beings who gathered in Congo Square, New Orleans, and through their ‘strange sound called Jasm,’ have impacted the world to this day and beyond,” said Martin Ludlow, the festival’s founder and CEO, in an official statement.
Mayor Bass framed the event as both cultural and connective. “This will be a powerful and beautiful act of cultural storytelling, rooted in the African diaspora that is so important to L.A.’s history,” she said.
Add in a commitment to fossil-fuel-free operations and green technologies across the entire event and L.A.’s first jazz festival is more than just big—it will also be making a statement.