The inaugural Los Angeles Jazz Festival, which announced an ambitious two weeks of performances earlier this year, postponed its debut just hours before the first concert of the festival was set to open on Friday, Aug. 7.
When former Los Angeles City Councilman Martin Ludlow, the festival founder, stood on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall in February to announce plans for the festival, it included a kickoff concert in Leimert Park on Friday, followed by performances at clubs and pop-up venues across Los Angeles.
Dozens of musical artists from Los Angeles and across the country and around the world were booked to play shows, many of them free of charge, over the next two weeks.
The festival was set to wrap up with a two-day On the Beach Festival at Dockweiler Beach with acts such as John Legend, Janelle Monae, Raphael Saadiq, Charlie Wilson, Parliament-Funkadelic with George Clinton, and more.
Thursday, a spokesman for the festival said much of the programming would be postponed. Late Friday afternoon, Ludlow pulled the plug entirely, though the festival’s social media accounts still show the festival taking place as originally planned.
“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,” Ludlow said in a written statement.
“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,” the written statement continued. “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.”
Postponing the festival to 2027 means canceling the gigs musicians had committed to play, with the last-minute nature of those canceled shows causing hardships for artists, according to Maurice Montoya, a Culver City-based booking agent who’d arranged for 15 of his clients to play the festival.
“What can I say? It’s disappointing that the Los Angeles Jazz Festival is canceling their events in an inconsiderate fashion,” Montoya said Friday. “To cancel one week or less before the events are about to start is sort of off. It’s not professional, to say the least. It’s put all the artists they’ve curated, whether they’re mine or someone else’s, in a difficult situation.
“But I also feel it’s a sort of an injustice to Los Angeles,” he continued. “There was a deal of publicity around L.A. finally having its own big jazz festival where many of the events would be free to the public. You know, reflecting some of the festivals that exist and concert activities that exist in other major cities like New York and Detroit and Chicago
“The promise of the Los Angeles Jazz Festival was something that we all looked positively on, and why many of these artists committed to do it,” Montoya continued. “And for them to essentially, you know, pull the rug out from under us in such a short amount of time, is, you know, is disheartening.”
Musicians booked for the festival only received notice by email on Monday that their performances had been cancelled, said Leah Concialdi, who, in addition to representing some of the acts through her publicity firm, plays saxophone in Sacred Noise Unknown, also known as SNX.
“Due to unforeseen permitting and production challenges, we have made the difficult but prudent decision to postpone this year’s Jazz in the Parks, Jazz After Dark, as well as the Opening Night event and the Caribbean Street Carnival,” the email Concialdi received read.
“All fully executed contracts will be honored,” it continued a few paragraphs later. “Our team will be reaching out in the coming days to discuss those issues individually.”
Concialdi said that pledge – to provide compensation for artists who’d been booked for the festival – might not be as good as it sounds.
“To my knowledge, my roster of artists, Maurice’s roster of artists, and some other peers in the L.A. jazz scene, nobody has actually received a fully executed countersigned contract,” said Concialdi, who does publicity for some of the same artists Montoya books.
“Maurice and I are with our artist Isaiah Collier right now,” she said of the Chicago-based saxophonist and composer who was booked to play the festival on Sunday, Aug. 9. “He had a non-refundable flight, so you know he just came into L.A. to make the most of his time. Hopefully we’ll have some meetings with him out here.
“But you know his show is kaput, and it was such short notice where he really couldn’t do too much to amend that.”
Ludlow did not address the issue of payments for performers in his statement. He did say that all ticketholders for festival events would be fully refunded within 30 days.
According to documents on the website of the California Coastal Commission, Ludlow’s company, Bridge Street Inc., in 2021 received a three-year authorization to use Dockweiler Beach for two-day festivals in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The pandemic and its aftermath caused those dates to be cancelled.
In 2025, Bridge Street’s coastal development permit was amended to shift the three-year authorization to 2026, 2027, and 2028, meaning the company still holds a valid permit to use Dockweiler in 2027 and 2028 if the festival is rebooted.
“We are so grateful to all the artists – from our headliners to our musicians in the parks, many of whom went above and beyond to make this affordable to the community,” Ludlow’s statement continued. “We apologize deeply for this situation and vow to make this right over time.”
Still, the hardship created by the late cancelation of commitments made to the artists booked to play is hard to excuse, Montoya said.
“When you’re running into the kind of troubles that would make you cancel an event, you’re probably running into them 60 days out,” he said.