Five Points Jazz Festival Turns Twenty

Five Points was nicknamed the “Harlem of the West” during the Jazz Age of the 1920s and ’30s, with star-powered acts such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Miles Davis all stopping to play in the predominantly Black community.

Home to more than fifty bars and clubs during that time period, Five Points became synonymous with jazz. And that rings true to this day, thanks in large part to events like the Five Points Jazz Festival. The annual free affair, presented by Denver Arts & Venues, is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, taking over Welton Street on Saturday, June 10, from noon to 8 p.m. Over the past two decades, the festival's goal has remained the same: to teach about and honor the neighborhood’s musical past while showcasing the best of the Mile High City's brass bands, jazz acts, blues groups and more, along with nationally known musicians.

“If you look at the roster of musicians who have a history in Five Points, it’s people like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday. The jazz greats all came and played in Denver and stayed in the Five Points community,” says Sonia Rae, manager of cultural affairs at Denver Arts & Venues. “It was a hopping place in jazz. I think part of our impetus is to try to remind people of that incredibly rich history and keep it alive.”

This year will see the annual, New Orleans-style second line parade along Welton Street between 29th and 25th streets, with the Guerrilla Fanfare Brass Band leading the procession from 12 to 12:15 p.m., before the festivities move to four stages along Welton Street as well as inside stages at venues including the Roxy Theatre, Cervantes' Other Side, Brother Jeff's Cultural Center, Goed Zuur and the Marigold (both in the main venue and on the roof). The lineup features forty stellar musical acts, among them The Rajdulari Experience, the Colorado Mambo Orchestra, Same Cloth, Joe Smith & the Spicy Pickles, the Delta Sonics, Stafford Hunter & Latin Jazz Explorations and the MaryLynn Gillaspie Quintet.

Musicians love the Five Points Jazz Fest as much as the attendees. Gillaspie is a Colorado music veteran and was a founding member of the Boulder-born, Grammy-nominated jazz group Rare Silk in the ’80s. “I’m thrilled to present a set of music for Five Points Jazz Fest this year with my incomparable band featuring Eric Gunnison, Gabriel Mervine, Bill McCrossen and Andreas Schmid,” she says. “We’re putting a fun set together for the Roxy. I’ve got a lot of miles with these musicians, who all love performing together, so we’ll swing it and funk it up a bit.”

Al Chesis, frontman for Denver blues band the Delta Sonics, is also looking forward to returning to Five Points Jazz; his group first played the event four years ago. “The Delta Sonics are excited to play the Five Points Festival with its long and rich history of blues and jazz music,” he says. “B.B. King, Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Little Milton and Ray Charles all played in Five Points, among others, and our band is heavy into Chicago and Texas blues.”

Bands apply to be a part of the festival before a selection committee finalizes the lineup, Rae explains, adding that the energy for this year's event is palpable: “I feel the enthusiasm from musicians who really want to get back to work. We had something like 135 applications for forty slots. There was a lot of demand from musicians. Even when I go out and about in our neighborhood now, the parks are absolutely jam-packed with people whenever the sun is out. It feels like people are ready to get out again and have a good time.

"The selection committee reviewed all of the bands and their music and scored them," she continues. "Then we chose based on not just their scores, but also diversity of genre and people. Our hope is that we put together a really, really well-rounded program with lots of different kinds of jazz. We’ve got blues, swing, straight-ahead jazz. The hope is that there’s something for everybody, so that no matter what kind of jazz you like, there’s going to be something for you.”

This is only the second in-person iteration the festival has held since the pandemic, and Rae says that organizers are expecting to possibly hit the capacity at 100,000 people. “We’re hoping that we’re going to have a full house,” she says. “We were still on the cusp [of the pandemic] last summer, and it feels like we’re back to normal, so we’re hoping for great weather and a great crowd.”

Either way, the festival has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2004, which presented just three bands in the parking lot of the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. Because of inclement weather that year, musicians and concert-goers were forced inside, where library staff quickly moved to accommodate attendees and performers, but the event was still considered a success.

Denver Arts & Venues (then known as the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs) brought the festival back the following year with both indoor and outdoor performances, as well as an expansion to include more community groups and vendor activities, which remain a big part of the event today. In 2005, organizers also began to use the event as a platform to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to the Five Points community and the legacy of jazz in Denver and beyond.

So reaching twenty years is a milestone to celebrate, says Donna Smith, who produced the first event in 2004 as the performing arts and community programming coordinator at the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs. “Seeing the Five Points Jazz Festival reach twenty years makes me proud to have played a role in supporting the treasured heritage and rich legacy of this community,” she says.

Rae is thankful for the neighborhood businesses and community that collaborate on the event each summer. “We’re really grateful to the businesses and the residents of the Five Points neighborhood, who have been really great partners in this effort. We couldn’t do this without the cooperation and the enthusiasm from the people in and around Welton Street and the Five Points community,” she says. “We’ve just had great interactions with people. Quite a few businesses are donating space or having bands in their space.”

To make for a better experience, a schedule-building feature is available on the website, and an interactive Google map allows people to scan QR codes at various locations on Welton Street to see the schedules for each stage. “You can go and check out all of the artists and hear an audio clip and then add those artists to your schedule,” Rae explains. “That way you’ll never miss a band that you want to hear.”

“Denver Arts & Venues has been bringing you the Five Points Jazz Festival since its inaugural year,” adds the agency's executive director, Ginger White. “The first event was small, with three bands and a few hundred attendees. But since that first day in the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library parking lot, we have seen the festival grow year after year, and we are so excited to celebrate twenty years with Denver residents and visitors!”

Five Points Jazz Festival, Saturday, June 10, noon to 8 p.m., Welton Street, free. Find more information, including participating venues and a full schedule, at artsandvenuesdenver.org.