The story
Hampton Jazz Festival in Hampton
The Hampton Jazz Festival has run every summer since 1968, when Hampton University staged the inaugural event for its centennial with performers including Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Dionne Warwick. Now held at the Hampton Coliseum each late June, the three-day festival blends jazz, R&B, gospel, and soul, with themed nights such as an R&B-focused Friday and a gospel-and-soul Saturday.
The Hampton Jazz Festival began in 1968 at Hampton University's Armstrong Stadium, staged to mark the historically Black university's centennial with a lineup that, in retrospect, reads like a jazz and R&B hall of fame: Count Basie, Gary Burton, Dizzy Gillespie, Ramsey Lewis, the Herbie Mann Quintet, Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, Dionne Warwick, and Muddy Waters all appeared at that first event.