Faced with a lack of funds to pay for $400,000 in yearly operating expenses, the Fillmore Jazz Festival had to cancel just two months before its July Fourth weekend start date in 2025. Days later, the festival was revived by surprise funding from Avenue Greenlight, a billionaire-backed nonprofit that funds community events. In 2026, that organization and more than a dozen community sponsors are helping out again to bring the 40-year-old event back to the corridor that once hosted legends such as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
On Saturday-Sunday, July 4-5, the festival fills 12 blocks of Jackson and Eddy streets with more than 30 free jazz performances on five stages, as well as food and clothes vendors. Top performers include Todd Cochran & Friends, whose album “Worlds Around the Sun” charted as the No. 1 jazz album in the world the month of its 1972 release, and Kim Nalley, a local talent who was named “Most Influential African American in the Bay Area” in 2005 by CityFlight Magazine.
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By Davis Cuffe, San Francisco Chronicle · July 2, 2026
