History of Music Festivals

In 1954, the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, RI, marked America's first annual jazz festival. That year, the event brought more than 11,000 people to the East Coast resort town for a mix of academic panels and live performances.

Over the years, iconic acts like Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis hit the stage, and although the festival moved to New York for a five-year span in the '70s, it returned in 1981 to Rhode Island, where it still takes place each year.