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| West Oak Lane Jazz Festival in Philadelphia The 4th Annual West Oak Lane Jazz and Arts Festival takes place June 22-24, 2007. Featured performers include, Pat Martino, Roy Ayers and WAR. Over twenty years ago, Friends of OARC (our volunteer component) organized the first Super Saturday Street Fair to encourage shoppers to return to the 7100 block of Ogontz Avenue and to foster community pride. The festival, held every June, featured rides and games for children, live music, vendors, and arts & crafts. It was a good start. In 2003, we recognized that there was a bigger needto promote the West Oak Lane community and the Ogontz Avenue commercial corridor to the surrounding communities and beyond. Building on the success and positive impact of Super Saturday, OARC transformed the community street festival into a truly regional event, The West Oak Lane Jazz & Arts Festival. Now things really started cooking. OARC brought in LifeLine Music Coalition, Inc. in 2004 to produce the first three-day festival which featured over 170 Philadelphia area jazz musicians/artists, poetry/spoken word performances, dancers and artists, and a variety of vendors at 12 venues throughout the community. LifeLine, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving jazz music and the arts in Philadelphia, worked with OARC staff, volunteers, and other festival planners to produce the successful event. In 2005, OARC contracted with October Gallery, host of the renowned African-American Art Expo, to add an art pavilion, which featured over 50 artists/exhibitors. Thanks to these artists, featured music groups, hundreds of Philadelphia area musicians, poets/spoken word performers, dancers, and a variety of arts/crafts vendors, the Festival has grown into a cant-miss event, attracting over 100,000 people for the last two years. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |