People attend a recent Jazz Fest. This year’s festival is set for Oct. 14-16.
Del Mar College’s Jazz Band will close out the 61st annual Texas Jazz Festival with a performance on the HEB Stage at 6 p.m. Oct. 16.
Jazz Fest got its start at Del Mar College in 1959, when Skip Vetters and Joe Gallardo called Gallardo’s uncle Al Garcia to perform with his jazz group at Del Mar for Jazz Club. After a large turnout, the seed was planted for the Texas Jazz Festival.
After the Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce recognized the potential for success of the event, it became a citywide festival and moved to the Peoples Street T-Head. The event has remained free since the beginning, relying on local sponsors, vendors and volunteer board members.
Among the performers are several local groups including Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Bradley Middle School and King, Rockport, Donna and Tuloso-Midway high schools. There will be many notable performers over the three-day weekend split between the three stages.
This will be the second Jazz Fest of 2022, after the 2021 festival was postponed to March of this year. Organizers decided to stick to tradition and hold the annual festival in October after seeing much local support of the March festival. There will a total of 50 performers over the weekend.
The festival runs Oct. 14-16 at Heritage Park, and admission is free. For more details, visit the Jazzfest website here.
