CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — The Downtown Mall will be filled with music this week as the Charlottesville Jazz Society hosts the first-ever Charlottesville Jazz Festival.

JazzFest will run from Thursday through Sunday and feature a variety of performers from both Charlottesville and across the country performing in club, concert and featured performances.

Charlottesville Jazz Society board member Steve Brecker told Cville Right Now he had discussed the idea with President Gary Funston over the years, but after attending a jazz festival at a winery in Lake Anna last year, the Society once again began seriously discussing the idea.

“We have a lot of jazz music performers in the area,” Brecker said. “There’s a rich cultural history of jazz. They have jazz music department at UVA. And we just figured out we were just going to try to see how it could be done. We gather together with one of two other people, and by October, we were planning a jazz festival.”

The original plan was to host the festival at a local winery, but once the organizers found out this year marked the Downtown Mall’s 50th Anniversary, they decided to take advantage of the restaurants and bars that already feature jazz performers regularly, as well as the larger venues in the Ting Pavilion and The Paramount Theater.

The result is a full four-day schedule, with performances stretching all across the Downtown Mall. UVA’s former director of jazz performance John D’earth told Cville Right Now the schedule is designed so attendees can “stroll down the mall” from performance to performance.

“I’m not sure how many thousands of people are going to be walking around downtown,” he said, “but my great hope is that many, many people will stop in on this music.”

The renowned trumpet player will be performing multiple times throughout the festival with a variety of groups, including his band, the John D’earth Sextet, with singer Laura Ann Singh as well as a group of young musicians he has been working with that includes members of the Walker Upper Elementary Jazz Band.

D’earth will be apart of a group dubbed the “C’Ville All-Stars,” which will serve as the opening act for the festival’s headliner — internationally recognized singer and Charlottesville native Veronica Swift.

She will be performing alongside her mother, Stephanie Nakasian, an internationally acclaimed vocalist herself who still resides in Charlottesville.

Nakasian first moved to Charlottesville with her late husband, jazz pianist Hod O’Brien, 32 years ago with the intent of starting their family. Swift went on to become a child prodigy, going through the music programs at Albemarle County Public Schools and recording her first album at age nine.

Swift now resides in California, and Nakasian told Cville Right Now her performance on Saturday, “is a wonderful opportunity for us as a family.”

Not only will Swift be returning home for the first time in a couple of years, but it will give her and Nakasian the opportunity to show appreciation to “the society that built her.”

“It takes a pretty good soil to build an artist,” Nakasian said. “It doesn’t just happen. You can have a lot of talent, but unless you’re nurtured, and not over structured, you need that space.”

Overall, this weekend will give the jazz community in Charlottesville a valuable opportunity to showcase itself. D’earth highlighted how jazz has been rooted in Charlottesville’s history, particularly in its African American community with renowned musicians and teachers like trombonist Elmer F. “Sonny” Sampson and saxophonists Calvin Cage and George Walker “Big Nick” Nicholas.

With so much history and talent behind it, could JazzFest help bring it all further to the limelight? D’earth said he wasn’t sure, but it’s “certainly the hope.”

Brecker echoed D’earth’s sentiment.

“The big goal, again, is to try to really promote the jazz culture in the Charlottesville area,” he said, “and get people to understand that we have a lot to offer for jazz music in Charlottesville.”