By JAMIE GUMBRECHT | Monday, April 28, 2008, 08:55 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jazz lovers came out to City Hall East last week for a preview party celebrating the 31st annual Atlanta Jazz Festival, held May 24-26 at Woodruff Park. (details: www.atlantafestivals.com ).
We visited with Camille Russell Love, director of the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Nnena Nchege, jazz festival project supervisor, and JoAnn Haden-Miller, cultural and heritage marketing director in the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The event featured live jazz (of course) and samples from restaurants including Se’ Vauge, Chima, City Grill, Dailey’s, Ray’s in the City, the Loft at Castleberry Hill and Villa Christina.
Mayor Shirley Franklin, a fan of classics like Miles Davis, Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald, told the crowd she’d studied ballet but declared she’d come back in the next life as a jazz dancer.
“Some people would say I’m stuck in the past,” she joked. “I’m an old-timer.”
Since the fest is moving to Woodruff Park, we asked the mayor — given a recent CVB study confirming that panhandling is getting worse — how she thinks the 2005 ordinance banning aggressive panhandling is working.
“I’m not going to answer that,” she said.
Well, gosh.