History of the Oakville Jazz Festival

The Beginning

The Oakville Jazz Festival had humble beginnings as an idea tossed around by a couple of members of the local community and municipal civil servants. They got together in 1993 and decided to launch a trial event . In conjunction with the Downtown Oakville Business Association, it was agreed that the jazz organizers would fund the centre stage at another successful annual event, Midnight Madness.

Funds  were raised and the performances were booked. The organizers were delighted with the results of the trial run and the following year decided to extend the programming by essentially extending Midnight Madness and running the jazz stage for 2 nights, one in conjunction with Midnight Madness, and the next evening. Success again.

1995 saw the organizers create a legal entity, The Oakville Jazz Society, whose mandate was to fund, promote, and mount the event. They now moved away from the Midnight Madness date and stood alone, with the event happening a couple of weekends prior to Midnight Madness in July. They ran stages at both Town Square and in Lakeside Park, a beautiful venue, a short walk from Downtown Oakville, with the stage located at water's edge. Boaters frequently moored off shore to view the performances. With some kind of agreement from the municipality they were able to serve beer at the lakeside venue. Very cool!

Growth

The event continued its growth over the following couple of years with a variety of additions including wine tasting venues and eventually an attempt to monetize the festival was made by mounting a performance by Ramsey Lewis at the Town owned stage in Coronation Park. Admission was $2.00 and was mildly successful, but not to the organizers liking.

During this 1997 to 2000 period, there seemed to a bit of a shake-up with the organizing committee, with a couple of principle members of the Oakville Jazz Society resigning, and the organization of the event falling on a pseudo municipal committee consisting of  2 Town of Oakville employees and couple of other key people. It also appears the Downtown Oakville Business Association became less and less involved, preferring to just be sponsors of the event.

The event seemingly became more successful with the introduction of more variety in performances and other funding venues like a wine and beer garden.

The Year 2000

The year 2000 was a dramatic year for computer systems and The Oakville Jazz Festival alike. The organizers chose this year to attempt to move the festival out of Downtown Oakville and decided to hold the event on the same July weekend as in previous years at what was known as the Oakville Entertainment Centrum, located at Winston Churchill and the QEW. There was a new fenced park area built in the center of the complex that would be used, and they charged admission to get up close  to the stage.

Strangely enough, the Downtown Oakville merchants woke up and decided that the event should not be moved and launched their own "Downtown Oakville Jazz Festival" on the same weekend in July. It featured performances by Peter Appleyard's Big Band, Ranee Lee and others. The event was down-sized but touted as a success by the Business Association. When the Jazz Festival organizers and sponsors found out that Downtown Oakville was not about to give up the event without a fight, they changed their event date to late in August. The event was besieged with bad weather, and a reluctance by the public to pay money to the performances. That was the end of the "Oakville Jazz Festival" and the original organizers and it morphed into the Downtown Oakville Jazz Festival which is still run by the Business Association and what you enjoy today.

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