Litchfield Jazz Festival was launched in 1996 with a line-up any well-established festival would have been proud of.  Litchfield Performing Arts had for many years presented a classical series which it salted with dance and theater and jazz.  The jazz performances featured, among others, Marian McPartland and Tony Bennett. People responded so well to our toe-in-the-water, we decided on a jazz cabaret series the following year. Dick Hyman, the New Black Eagle Jazz Band, Steve Kuhn, and Lewis Nash performed and wowed the audience. So, what next?

Destiny depends on two things: geography and timing.  Well, we had the geography: Litchfield County in the summertime was the second most popular tourist destination in Connecticut.  And we had the timing.  The Connecticut Commission on the Arts had just announced a small grant for local groups getting together to benefit both the organizations and the community.  So, we partnered with White Memorial Foundation and planned our first jazz festival for the summer of 1996.

As Artistic Director of LPA, I was overdue for a challenge and spent the next year meeting with jazz gurus like DJ Ken Woods from WPBX Long Island’s Public Radio Station and listening to the endless CDs he sent me, going to concerts and visiting other festivals in New York and as far away as New Orleans, and generally enjoying the heck out of making up for all the jazz music I hadn’t heard since the 70s.  It was electrifying.

So, with the help of research and advice from new friends, we presented that first year: The McEachern/Pavone Sextet with Steve Johns, Marty Ehrlich, Peter Madsen and Thomas Chapin; The Tana Reid Quintet with Akira Tana, Rufus Reid, Craig Bailey, John Stetch, and Mark Turner; the Terence Blanchard Group; Ahmad Jamal; Larry Goldings with Bill Stewart and Peter Bernstein; Diana Krall (for her U. S. festival debut) with Russell Malone and Paul Keller; Christian McBride with Joey Calderazzo, Tim Warfield, and Carl Allen; and J.J. Johnson with Renee Rosnes and Rufus Reid.  Not too shabby for a first time festival.

Litchfield Jazz Festival was a popular and credible success from the start! We spent two summers at White Memorial and started Litchfield Jazz Camp with 35 day students for a week. In 1998 we moved the festival to the Goshen fairgrounds, which could accommodate larger audiences. Over the years, the festival has presented the best of the best. It’s impossible to name them all, but a quick pick would include former campers like the wildly popular pianist Emmet Cohen, the multi-GRAMMY-winning vocalist Nicole Zuraitis, and many others.

In 2019, we brought the Festival and Camp to Frederick Gunn School, where they are both thriving today.