Courtesy Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism
Hangout Music Festival
Gulf Shores, Ala.
Big-name performers and the beautiful white sands of Alabama’s Gulf Coast make the Hangout Music Festival stand apart from many other music events.
“Our stages are literally on the white sands of Gulf Shores,” said Shaul Zislin, who owns the Hangout restaurant, which hosts the festival. “The venue itself and the experience are absolutely phenomenal. It’s sort of a combination of a beach vacation and a music festival rolled into one. You wake up, swim a little at the beach, eat breakfast and then head down to the festival.”
The festival started in May 2010 as a way to generate positive publicity in the area after the disastrous press coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In the first two years, artists such as Paul Simon, the Zac Brown Band, Alison Krauss, the Blind Boys of Alabama and John Legend have performed at the festival.
Organizers cap attendance at 35,000 guests, who stay at the local hotels and vacation condos in the area. Once they step onto the Hangout property, visitors enjoy an environment and an attitude that fits right in with the rest of the beachfront destination.
“We actually build a full resort-style pool in front of the stage where people can lounge in the pool, be served a drink and watch the show,” Zislin said. “We serve some great local seafood, and everything we do is tied to the beach.”
The three-day weekend festival will take place May 18-20 this year.
www.hangoutmusicfest.com
South Carolina Jazz Festival
Cheraw, S.C.
Born in Cheraw, S.C., in 1917, Dizzy Gillespie honed his musical chops in this small town before going on to become one of the most famous jazz trumpeters of the 20th century. Since 2006, the people of Cheraw have honored Gillespie’s legacy with the South Carolina Jazz Festival, which takes place each year in October.
“There’s jazz being played everywhere you go,” said Lindsay Bennett of the Cheraw Arts Commission. “It consists of main stage performances inside our Theatre on the Green, where Dizzy once worked. We also have outdoor music on one of our downtown greens.”
In the early years of the festival, organizers brought in performers who had worked or played with Gillespie in his heyday. More recently, the lineup has included Nnenna Freelon, Pat Williams and Jon Faddis, a trumpeter who studied under Gillespie.
In addition to the traditional concerts, the festival includes several unconventional opportunities for visitors to hear jazz. Both evenings of the festival feature a “jazz crawl,” during which attendees can walk around downtown, popping in and out of the various restaurants that have free live jazz performances. On Sunday afternoons, groups can even hear jazz in church.
“Everything culminates with a jazz Mass at one of our local churches,” Bennett said. “They have a brass ensemble come down, and they have a community choir that sings. It’s just the voices and the brass. All the local ministers volunteer. They have a small sermon, and they serve communion to the attendees.”
The festival also features a bebop parade, in which visitors can join an Army jazz band on a route through downtown. The parade culminates at Centennial Park, where the community throws a birthday party for the late Gillespie complete with birthday cake.
Great American Brass Band Festival
Danville, Ky.
By day, Vince DiMartino is a music professor at Centre College in Danville. But he’s also known around the country as one of today’s foremost trumpet players. In the late 1980s, DiMartino established the Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, giving his friends and other standout brass musicians a place to showcase their talents.
“It’s a compilation of the best brass bands, with an Americana feel to it,” said Niki Kinkade, director of the festival. “We get a variety, from the military bands to the Salvation Army bands and New Orleans brass bands. We have a lot of military bands come and play here because they can’t get to other festivals.”
Approximately 40,000 people converge on Danville for the four-day festival each June. The celebration kicks off with a Thursday night event called Bourbon and Brass.
On Friday, concerts take place around Danville and venues in nearby Harrodsburg, including Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill and the Beaumont Inn. On Friday evening, bands go back to downtown Danville and play music to accompany an art gallery hop.
“Saturday and Sunday, we have bands on two different stages all day,” Kinkade said. “On Saturday morning, we have a big parade that marches through our downtown. It’s a New Orleans-style parade, so everyone follows it downtown to the main stage on the campus of Centre College.”
Festivities wrap up with a community church service Sunday morning, with a performance by a Salvation Army band.
