Leimert Park Jazz Festival unites community


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Leimert Park came out in full attendance to their Jazz Festival, with hours of jazz artists performing from start to finish. The festival took place at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza on the upper deck of the parking lot. It saw tents galore, full of art, vendors, merchants and activities for members of the neighborhood and beyond. 

The Leimert Park Jazz Festival began as the annual Sutro Avenue Summer Soirée block party in 2015, but was renamed after the overwhelming enthusiasm surrounding the addition of a jazz stage in 2018. (Jason Lopez Lopez | Daily Trojan)

Though this was the third annual LPJF, the event’s roots date back to 2015, when executive producer Diane Robertson began hosting the Sutro Avenue Summer Soirée block party in Leimert. She noticed that despite the neighborhood having a deep and rich jazz scene among the city’s wealth of festivals and concerts, there was no eponymous jazz show hosted in Leimert.

To fill the void, she approached her friend and Executive Director of The World Stage in Leimert Park Village Dwight Trible to ask him to curate a jazz stage at the event. After its introduction in 2018, the stage became so popular that the block party was renamed the Leimert Park Jazz Festival in 2020. Throughout the growth of the event, contributors say that the spirit of the original block party has remained.

“It started as a block party event,” said Leimert Park Native and jazz festival volunteer Cima Lawson. “Diane Robertson kind of started the festival, started it on her block as just a community. Everyone was invited, but it was just a block party — she still had a lot of great artists and vendors. People from the community came out and then it just got bigger every year … And now it’s a wonderful event with sponsors and community leaders who come out.” 

At the center of the festival grounds was an art exhibit featuring local works, with the main stage propped up before hundreds of chairs and tables. The sea of socializing space was filled with people connecting, meeting new neighbors and listening to the festival’s variety of artists perform. With Leimert Park being predominantly Black, the festival was a great space for Black artists and groups to showcase their talents to a diverse crowd. 

The festival hosted a variety of Black businesses and vendors, providing a great atmosphere to match and enhance the music. Some of the businesses that attended the event were Sole Folks, Nappily Naturals, Sika, Queen Aminah’s Clothing and more.

Each vendor at LPJF brought a message along with their merchandise. Sole Folks, for instance, is a clothing store located on Degnan Boulevard that’s creating more than just apparel for the community. The store is used to fund their non-profit organization of the same name, which focuses on supporting and building up over 50 global black businesses. 

Sole Folks, an apparel and entrepreneurship co-op, was one of many local Black businesses in attendance at Leimert Park Jazz Festival. (Sebastian Dominguez | Daily Trojan)

“We work with designers, creatives and entrepreneurs, to basically give them a playground to get the ideas out of their heads and into real-world markets,” said Himyo Green, a member of the Sole Folks co-op.

As for dining options, there was a great variety available for the audience, with Jammrok serving Jamaican cuisine, D’Ville’s Grille dishing out soul food and Hot + Cool Cafe catering to the vegans, among many other options from local Leimert kitchens.

The listening audience saw nine sets of different styles of jazz, ranging across generations and subgenres. Among these were several highlight performances: John Beasley’s MONK’estra’s groovy jazz set, and Kamau Daáood and A Band of Griots’ spoken word jazz performance, and around 10 minutes of Grammy-nominated Latin jazz artist Pete Escovedo.

There were plenty of world-class talents in attendance at the festival, with the aforementioned Escovedo co-headlining the event with fellow Grammy-nominated artist Patrice Rushen — who is also the chair of the Popular Music program at USC — Ernie Watts, Marvin “Smitty” Smith and Edwin Livingston.

The festival started at 12:20 p.m., with the first two sets, the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center Youth Jazz Band and the S.H.I.N.E. Mawusi Women’s African Drum Circle, lasting around 20 minutes each. After that, the Leimert Park Experience performed their set for 40 minutes, followed by a 30-minute tribute set for Barbara Morrison and Derf Reklaw, who both made their name in jazz in Los Angeles and passed away this year. Then came the two aforementioned sets, followed by the two headlining sets, topped off with a performance by Munyungo’s Jungle Jazz.

From start to finish, an abundance of people could be seen bobbing their heads along to the music, and if they were comfortable enough, dancing their heart away to some great live jazz. There was also a bit of a treat for those who attended, with an unlisted guest appearance from Grammy award-winning jazz singer Dianne Reeves who came out for a song alongside John Beasley’s MONK’estra. 

Also ever present was a plethora of volunteers around helping make sure the festival ran as smoothly as possible.

“There’s nowhere else I would sign up for a five-hour volunteer shift,” Lawson said, “My favorite part so far, even though I’ve been working, was [when] Dianne Reeves came out and performed and she wasn’t on the schedule. So that was a nice little surprise. I love her as a jazz artist.”

Full of great vibes, Leimert Park Jazz Festival highlighted three of the neighborhood’s prized qualities on Saturday: Jazz. Community. Culture.