Cavalcade of Jazz

The Cavalcade of Jazz events were large outdoor jazz festivals held annually between 1945 and 1956 at Wrigley Field, Los Angeles, California, with the last one held indoors at the Shrine Auditorium in 1958. They were the first such large-scale events and were produced by an African American, Leon Hefflin Sr. Historical research and contemporary newspaper coverage identify the Cavalcade of Jazz, produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. beginning in 1945—as one of the earliest large, scale recurring jazz festivals in the United States. Hefflin was an entrepreneur who had started promoting dances and concerts for Black residents of Los Angeles in the 1930s. The first Cavalcade of Jazz was held on September 23, 1945, and starred Count Basie, the Honeydrippers, Valaida Snow, Joe Turner, the Peters Sisters, Slim and Bam, and other artists. Attendance was some 15,000.

Read the full article on Wikipedia ↗ · From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)