{"id":33654,"date":"2026-08-09T01:49:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33654"},"modified":"2026-08-09T01:49:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:49:22","slug":"l-a-jazz-festival-with-john-legend-janelle-monae-and-more-canceled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33654","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Jazz Festival, With John Legend, Janelle Mona\u00e9 and More, Canceled"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/john-legend\/\" id=\"auto-tag_john-legend\" data-tag=\"john-legend\">John Legend<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/janelle-monae-2\/\" id=\"auto-tag_janelle-monae-2\" data-tag=\"janelle-monae-2\">Janelle Mon\u00e1e<\/a>, Parliament\/Funkadelic and Raphael Saadiq \u2014 was canceled Thursday at the very last minute, and commenters online are already comparing it to the famously doomed Fyre Festival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOrganizer 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 \u201cCaribbean Street Carnival\u201d block party in Venice on Aug. 21.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe main event, however, was supposed to be a \u201cJazz on the Beach\u201d 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 \u201calong a closed-off route designed to skip the traffic entirely\u201d to the concert.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tLudlow 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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBy Friday, the LA Jazz Fest website had been scrubbed, with only a cryptic message that said, \u201cAugust\u00a022-23. Updated event info coming soon.\u201d On the <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/la-jazz-festival\/\" id=\"auto-tag_la-jazz-festival\" data-tag=\"la-jazz-festival\">LA Jazz Festival<\/a>\u2018s 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tReps for the organizers did not respond to a request for comment by <em>Variety,<\/em> but in a statement, Ludlow <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment-arts\/music\/story\/2026-08-07\/la-jazz-festival-cancels-much-of-its-programming-main-show-is-still-on-for-now\" target=\"_blank\">told the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, \u201cDue 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBut 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cNot cool for us musicians who lost money on flights and rehearsals for this,\u201d wrote one musician on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Dbv4k_6jHvO\/\" target=\"_blank\">CBS LA\u2019s Instagram page<\/a>. Added another: \u201cThey canceled a big band I play with! Terribly disorganized \u2026 a real train wreck.\u201d CBS LA News <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/Dbwtym9CjzU\/\" target=\"_blank\">spoke to jazz musician Isiah Collier<\/a>, \u201cwho 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\u2019 gigs were canceled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOn <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Dbw7NpmlmDp\/\" target=\"_blank\">KTLA\u2019s Instagram<\/a>, a rep from SB Music Management wrote, \u201cAre 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?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 Mon\u00e1e, Parliament\/Funkadelic and Raphael Saadiq \u2014 was canceled Thursday at the very last minute, and commenters online are already comparing it to the famously doomed Fyre Festival&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/LA-Jazz-John-Legend.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}