Inaugural LA Jazz Festival Canceled Hours Before Start

Back in February, Martin Ludlow, a former Los Angeles City Councilman, announced the inaugural edition of the LA Jazz Festival, a new music extravaganza that he'd founded. The festival was set to include a few weeks of performances in parks and nightclubs across Los Angeles, as well as a Caribbean street carnival in Venice and a two-day mini-fest called Jazz On The Beach that was set to feature artists like John Legend, Janelle Monaé, Raphael Saadiq, Charlie Wilson, and George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic. But just before the festival's Aug. 7 kickoff show, which Lalah Hathaway was booked to headline, the entire festival was canceled under mysterious circumstances.As the Los Angeles Daily News reports, on Thursday a festival spokesman said that all of the programming would have to be "postponed." Late on Friday afternoon, Martin Ludlow released a written statement saying that he was canceling the entire festival. Ludlow wrote:Due to significant, unanticipated last-minute public safety and municipal costs associated with the final permitting of the On The Beach Festival, we have reached the decision to unfortunately postpone this year’s inaugural LA Jazz Festival...Although this ...