How One Man's Vision Revitalized a Struggling Community Through Jazz and Unity

[00:00:01] Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike

[00:00:04] Mikes on Mic, a conversation about politics, government and Jacksonville with 50 year opinion

[00:00:10] leaders Mike Hightower, Mike Tolbert, an award winning broadcaster and long time political

[00:00:16] observer Mike Miller.

[00:00:18] Welcome to another episode of Mikes on Mic brought to you by the Jacksonville Historical

[00:00:22] Society which is located inside the Jacksonville History Center.

[00:00:26] And as always our thanks to Alan Bliss and the kind donors who are keeping this

[00:00:29] program up and going.

[00:00:33] We appreciate it very, very much.

[00:00:35] Today we're going to be looking at one of the iconic events in the city of Jacksonville,

[00:00:40] the Jacksonville Jazz Festival.

[00:00:42] Believe it or not, the Jazz Festival has had its 44th anniversary over Memorial Day

[00:00:48] weekend this weekend.

[00:00:49] Memorial Day weekend or not this weekend but the next weekend.

[00:00:52] Yeah, we thought it would be fun to go back to the beginning.

[00:00:55] And that's in October of 1980 when the festival began as some of you may recall.

[00:01:00] As Mayport and all that jazz.

[00:01:02] And who better to share the stories than our own Mike Tolbert, who was the festival's

[00:01:06] founder and creator.

[00:01:08] And we we and the city owe you a great debt of gratitude for that.

[00:01:12] Mike, you've done a terrific job in getting that thing kicked off.

[00:01:15] How did it come about?

[00:01:17] Well, first of all, thank you for that.

[00:01:19] But I was just in the right place at the right time with the right leadership in

[00:01:23] the mayor's office.

[00:01:24] And as you might recall or have heard back in 1979 when Jake became the mayor,

[00:01:31] he brought into that office a commitment to change the auditors internally in

[00:01:37] Jacksonville to try to get us over our negative feelings which we had, our

[00:01:42] self-doubt and also give us some national stage in some ways.

[00:01:47] That's part A. Part B, he wanted to do something in Mayport.

[00:01:52] He loved Mayport.

[00:01:54] And it was struggling out there.

[00:01:56] And he knew he saw the event on the first Saturday in every May that Fernandina

[00:02:02] was having a huge shrimp festival with all of these people.

[00:02:06] So he's told me to go out to Mayport and what he really wanted to do was a

[00:02:09] fishing tournament.

[00:02:11] And he said, go out to Mayport and let me tell you what we can do.

[00:02:15] So I went out, I took my tape recorder, I took a tape with walking rail, a

[00:02:20] tape with country and a tape with jazz on it.

[00:02:23] And I sat there in Mayport near the ferry slip and I watched the ferry go back

[00:02:29] and further and I played the music because I've always believed music, you

[00:02:32] got to have music.

[00:02:35] And I didn't know anything about jazz but I went back and I told Jake, I

[00:02:39] said, man, I have a jazz festival out there.

[00:02:41] The environment's right, the music would be right for people.

[00:02:46] Country, you know, country is stereotyped, rock you're pretty real

[00:02:50] stereotyped, but I thought that jazz would cross a line of demographics.

[00:02:55] And so I recommended that to him.

[00:02:56] I think he thought it was nuts, but because he wanted to do something,

[00:03:01] he said, let's go for it.

[00:03:02] So that's how it got started.

[00:03:03] So, so it has nothing to do with just playing on the name of the old

[00:03:07] Newport Jazz Festival, right?

[00:03:09] I will tell you that from the very start, especially after when we saw the

[00:03:13] turnout, that first festival, how many people came?

[00:03:16] And I enthusiastically worked that, that set Newport set the bar for us.

[00:03:22] And I only in my mind, okay, how did we now become bigger than Newport?

[00:03:27] And so we tagged ourselves as America's largest free jazz festival.

[00:03:31] Very cool.

[00:03:32] All right.

[00:03:33] Mike, that's helpful, but let's put this in context.

[00:03:38] Mayport is tiny and in 1980 it was tiny.

[00:03:43] There was only one road in, one road out.

[00:03:46] There's only one way to get across the river, the ferry.

[00:03:50] So you wanted, you use the dock where the ferry is, which kind of took care

[00:03:56] of the one road in and one road out.

[00:03:59] What made you think that you could pull something off that would have more

[00:04:03] than a hundred people in there and wouldn't bring traffic to a halt?

[00:04:06] I mean, there's got to have been some doubters and one, you've been doing

[00:04:12] the kind of this stuff, the logistics.

[00:04:14] I mean, how in the world you get your head around the logistics?

[00:04:17] Must've been a bit of a nightmare.

[00:04:19] Well, no, you have to keep in mind, this was not my first radio.

[00:04:26] In 1977, I did the River Day celebration with

[00:04:30] Mary Tansder skiing in the river.

[00:04:32] And then in the previous August, we had done Cope Fever in five

[00:04:37] days and 50,000 people showed up.

[00:04:39] There were 100,000 at the River Day celebration.

[00:04:42] So, and I had some knowledge about how to put some things together.

[00:04:48] Now what you're saying is absolutely the day of truth.

[00:04:51] I know, I know when they were closing the ferry and we built a stage right

[00:05:00] there at the ferry slip, so we had to close the ferry and that is a

[00:05:04] state highway basically.

[00:05:06] And I know that I remember Mayor Godbow's chief administrative officer,

[00:05:10] Don McClure said, they never going to let you close that ferry.

[00:05:15] Well, Governor Graham's top assistant at that time was a guy named Dick Burrs,

[00:05:21] who had been a county commissioner in Jacksonville.

[00:05:24] And so I reached and he was a good friend with Mayor Godbow.

[00:05:29] So I reached out to him and the next thing you know, they're

[00:05:32] going to close that ferry for us.

[00:05:34] So when that happened, Phil Clure was the music editor of the

[00:05:39] Times Union.

[00:05:40] And I remember Phil was telling me, because we said, I said, we're going

[00:05:44] to do 13 acts in 13 hours.

[00:05:48] We're going to do a different 50 minute act and we're going to have

[00:05:51] 10 minutes to reset the stage.

[00:05:54] And we're going to do that.

[00:05:55] And Phil said, have that anymore happened?

[00:05:58] You're being crazy.

[00:06:01] And I will never forget that day walking through the crowd about four

[00:06:07] o'clock in the afternoon after several hours of this festival going on and

[00:06:12] seeing, seeing Clure sitting there in a lounge chair, a beach chair.

[00:06:18] And he stopped me as I was by, he stopped me and he said, I can't

[00:06:21] believe you're doing this.

[00:06:22] I can't believe this is happening.

[00:06:24] But we do it when we ran, I did five festivals and the only time

[00:06:29] that we were not on time, the only one that was late was Spiral

[00:06:33] Blower and the very last festival I did in the very last act.

[00:06:37] And I'll tell you more about that in a little bit.

[00:06:39] Well, how did the people at Mayport react to this?

[00:06:41] Were they excited about the idea of it or did they feel that their

[00:06:45] community was going to be paralyzed for that weekend and they wouldn't

[00:06:47] be able to do anything?

[00:06:49] They liked it.

[00:06:50] I mean, first of all, we wanted to include them.

[00:06:53] They were very improvement that this does not happen around them, but

[00:06:59] it happened through them, in them.

[00:07:01] And so we, we involved them from the get-go, especially when it came

[00:07:06] time to participate in the concession booths, the food.

[00:07:13] I think maybe we charged, we had 20 concession food concessionaires

[00:07:17] and I think we may have charged $20 to set up a booth.

[00:07:22] It was 20, so we didn't charge them anything.

[00:07:26] And the restaurants in, there was a black church out there that had a booth.

[00:07:32] And after the second jazz, they had been trying for years to

[00:07:36] bring up a church sanctuary and because they couldn't raise the

[00:07:39] money every Sunday, they had been meeting in somebody else's church.

[00:07:44] And after the second year, they had raised the money to

[00:07:48] bring up their sanctuary.

[00:07:50] Strickland's restaurant there, if you recall, Strickland's restaurant

[00:07:55] was right there at the fairy slip.

[00:07:58] And in Strickland, they were very, very thoughtful to us and

[00:08:01] very kind in the beginning.

[00:08:03] They let us use their parking lot across the street for our

[00:08:06] jewelry and art show.

[00:08:07] They made us use property behind them and around them with

[00:08:12] these concession stands to go.

[00:08:14] And it turns out Strickland told me afterwards, we made more money

[00:08:18] that one day than we made in six months.

[00:08:21] So it benefited a lot of different kinds of folks out there.

[00:08:26] But we involved them from a very good go.

[00:08:28] Great.

[00:08:29] Well, Mike, you made the comment when you first started, when you went out

[00:08:32] there, you said you didn't know anything about jazz, but you knew

[00:08:36] something about Western, you knew something about country music and

[00:08:40] something about rock and roll.

[00:08:41] All right.

[00:08:42] If you didn't know anything about jazz, who helped you?

[00:08:45] Because thinking back, the entertainers those first couple

[00:08:49] of years were off the charts.

[00:08:51] Spirogyra alone would have been a hell of a concert.

[00:08:54] Who and how did you come up with the entertainers, Mike?

[00:08:59] Well, first of all, I should have said this in the very beginning.

[00:09:05] We had incredible support, volunteer support.

[00:09:09] If you remember, we had one head of a political organization.

[00:09:15] And they were there to call on and they were anxious and willing

[00:09:18] to do whatever it was we asked.

[00:09:20] And that's when another network and through that network, I met a fellow

[00:09:25] up in front of me, a jazz official in Idaho, and so he would sit with me

[00:09:32] and he would play records and he would say, now this is somebody

[00:09:36] you might need to get, but I don't think you're going to do it

[00:09:39] with this one over here.

[00:09:40] And he would tell me who they were.

[00:09:42] And I did a little research.

[00:09:45] I met the guy who received jazz credit for New Orleans town speaking

[00:09:53] here, who then went into becoming an agent for jazz artists at New Orleans.

[00:09:58] And he was very helpful to me.

[00:10:00] And then I met another agent up in New York who was very helpful to me.

[00:10:05] And so I learned over a period of time, of course, you know,

[00:10:09] you begin to hear the names.

[00:10:11] Well, how can I get that person?

[00:10:12] And you also got to keep in mind back in those days, jazz always were cheap.

[00:10:19] They didn't cost like a rock and roll star or country western star.

[00:10:23] They were pretty damn cheap.

[00:10:25] So you could get a big name jazz person for $5,000.

[00:10:31] And I think we paid Dizzy Gillesi about $5,000 the first year he came.

[00:10:35] So I counted on those people.

[00:10:38] I'm sure Taylor Swift would come into an hour.

[00:10:44] I'm sorry, 50 minutes because we need 10 minutes to strike this up.

[00:10:48] How about the name All That Jazz?

[00:10:50] Mayport and All That Jazz.

[00:10:51] Is that the Bob Fosse reference?

[00:10:54] There was a play in a movie.

[00:10:56] And I think it was probably popular about that time.

[00:11:00] But I went to the Times Union, Mayday to take a look at it.

[00:11:05] To pedal this festival with the press.

[00:11:08] And Anne Hyman was a columnist for those folks, one of them were women.

[00:11:14] And so I'm walking through the newsroom and we start talking.

[00:11:17] And she said, What are you going to call it?

[00:11:19] And I said, I don't know you yet, Anne.

[00:11:21] I hadn't come to that yet.

[00:11:23] She said, How about Mayport and All That Jazz?

[00:11:26] I said, That's what we're going to call it.

[00:11:28] And that's what we call it.

[00:11:29] In fact, I happen to have a funny two year old T-shirt.

[00:11:34] I don't think so of us or not.

[00:11:39] By the way, it was from the Fosse film because the film came out in 1979.

[00:11:44] There you go. Roy Scheider was in that.

[00:11:46] It was just great.

[00:11:47] Yeah. All That Jazz.

[00:11:49] There's no question about it.

[00:11:50] All That Jazz.

[00:11:51] That was I mean, it only made sense for us to catch on the right star.

[00:11:55] You know, so we hit stone to right star.

[00:11:57] Well, Mike, it's very obvious you told us about the logistics.

[00:12:01] Now, those those first couple ones.

[00:12:03] Tell us about some of the memories.

[00:12:05] I mean, this is 40 some odd years ago.

[00:12:07] There's got to be a couple memories that just jump out

[00:12:11] that you will never, ever forget for that.

[00:12:14] For that first festival, it obviously starts with Duller and Reese.

[00:12:19] By the time Duller and Reese came in and ran eight o'clock or whatever.

[00:12:25] The crowd was as big as it was going to get.

[00:12:27] And then it was huge.

[00:12:29] And they knew that Duller and Reese was coming next.

[00:12:32] And they started chanting Duller, Duller, Duller, Duller.

[00:12:36] And I'm sure we could have heard it in Jacksonville Beach.

[00:12:38] It was so loud.

[00:12:40] So when she took it to the stage,

[00:12:43] she had the real thrill of the crowd.

[00:12:46] So you watch the crowd pour.

[00:12:49] You watch that crowd pour as she walked between them,

[00:12:53] yelling Duller, Duller, Duller.

[00:12:55] And then her performance was just out of sight.

[00:12:57] It was unremarkable.

[00:12:59] And I remember sitting there.

[00:13:02] I probably heard something of smoke, but I remember sitting with it.

[00:13:07] And the breeze was going on.

[00:13:09] You know, I watched the breeze and I watched some shrimp boats

[00:13:12] go up and down.

[00:13:13] And I'm thinking, this is as good as heaven right here.

[00:13:16] Man, you're going to get no better than this.

[00:13:19] About seven o'clock that night, we only had a few police officers there.

[00:13:23] We didn't know we were going to have that many people.

[00:13:25] I think they said 70,000 people showed up.

[00:13:28] And we didn't know we were going to have that.

[00:13:30] So we only had a few police officers.

[00:13:32] So about seven o'clock, the officer in charge came over to me

[00:13:37] and he said, my traffic is backed up on Atlantic Boulevard

[00:13:42] all the way to University Boulevard trying to get in here.

[00:13:47] What should we do?

[00:13:48] I said, tell them to turn around and go home.

[00:13:51] There's no way they're going to get in here.

[00:13:53] And he stood there.

[00:13:54] I swear, he looked at me and he said, that's your job.

[00:13:57] He turned around and walked off and went to a bar in Jacksonville Beach.

[00:14:02] That's the true story.

[00:14:04] Tell us about the seating situation.

[00:14:05] Was there like a VIP section like they used to do with starry nights?

[00:14:09] We weren't that sophisticated back then.

[00:14:12] We we ended up doing that.

[00:14:15] Or so was lawn chairs.

[00:14:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:14:17] In the street, in the trees, on the rooftops,

[00:14:19] everywhere, wherever they could get, they were.

[00:14:23] And so we were the first to eat later on.

[00:14:26] We later on, we developed a paint

[00:14:31] a group of patrons or whatever.

[00:14:33] I forget what we call them, people who played extra money.

[00:14:36] And we had a big party on Friday night just for them.

[00:14:40] Patrons party.

[00:14:41] But that happened, I think, in the third year.

[00:14:44] I think that's when they came about.

[00:14:46] But just getting them in and getting them out was a good deal.

[00:14:49] How long did it take to make a decision to have the second?

[00:14:52] They poured all that jazz festival.

[00:14:55] Actually, probably before the first one was over.

[00:14:59] Well, but there must have been some extraordinary

[00:15:03] comments and outpouring of just the wow factor.

[00:15:08] Do you remember that?

[00:15:09] Or do you remember some of it?

[00:15:10] Yeah, I do.

[00:15:11] I do. Like I tell her.

[00:15:13] And if you go back to what I said in the beginning,

[00:15:16] Jake was always looking for a way to promote the city

[00:15:20] and make the people who live here feel good about living in Jacksonville.

[00:15:24] And so the first thing I thought after it was over with

[00:15:28] in the next day or so was we started that process pretty well.

[00:15:34] This was a good step in that direction.

[00:15:36] And so we had done that.

[00:15:38] And I think if we had said we would do a second one,

[00:15:43] people might attack city hall or something.

[00:15:45] I don't know, because it really was.

[00:15:48] And to this day, I run into people

[00:15:51] they may have been to 20 jazz festivals

[00:15:54] that if they were there first one, that's when you will remember it

[00:15:57] and is their favorite.

[00:15:58] You talked about being at the beach with all that success at Mayport, though.

[00:16:04] You decide to move it to a new location away from small little

[00:16:09] Mayport, which is right on the river.

[00:16:11] And you pick Met Park.

[00:16:13] What what what caused that decision?

[00:16:17] Well, let me give you a little background before I tell you exactly that.

[00:16:20] The next year, the next year of the festival was at Mayport again.

[00:16:26] And that was the first year.

[00:16:29] And that was the first year we went to Gillespie.

[00:16:33] And by then, we got a little bit smarter

[00:16:36] on organization and transportation.

[00:16:39] So a couple of things happened to help us out.

[00:16:43] One was the Navy agreed to let us put our cars on their

[00:16:47] on their rimways out there, Jason Jason to make for it.

[00:16:51] You think that can happen today?

[00:16:54] The second the second thing was

[00:16:58] we work with the transportation authority, I think, in Steven

[00:17:01] Carver, J.E.A. Jackson Expressway authority back then.

[00:17:04] I'm not can't recall.

[00:17:06] And we had satellite buses.

[00:17:09] So we set up satellite

[00:17:10] buses and parking lots at the beach.

[00:17:13] And at certain times of day, those buses would carry people out to the

[00:17:16] out to Mayport and then make a return trip and bring people back

[00:17:20] that wanted to come back.

[00:17:22] So that helped a lot with logistics.

[00:17:25] Let me tell you a couple of things about that next festival.

[00:17:28] Actually, that was the first time we had we had Dizzy Gillespie.

[00:17:31] And he was in Amsterdam.

[00:17:33] Think about this.

[00:17:35] He was performing in Amsterdam.

[00:17:38] He flew from Amsterdam to J.I.A.

[00:17:41] We picked him up in a helicopter,

[00:17:43] going to Mayport and riding into the festival.

[00:17:48] He played.

[00:17:49] We had he had a band coming in.

[00:17:50] I think three guys coming in from New York City rather than have his group

[00:17:55] with these other men to them coming from New York City.

[00:17:59] And at the end of his we paid him a deposit.

[00:18:02] We paid everybody.

[00:18:03] We paid him only maybe half of what he had to pay.

[00:18:07] And we had a check with him after he got through that day, that afternoon.

[00:18:14] And I went to give him his check.

[00:18:16] And he said, I need cash.

[00:18:19] And I said, what do you mean you need cash?

[00:18:22] He said, well, I got to pay my guys because they're going back

[00:18:24] to New York City and I need cash.

[00:18:29] Thank God it was the second year, not the first,

[00:18:31] because people trusted us out there.

[00:18:34] So I had somebody going around to all the vendors,

[00:18:37] signing the hiring dues until we got enough cash together

[00:18:43] to pay these guys.

[00:18:44] And somewhere there was a photograph of us paying the rest of the money.

[00:18:50] Rather at night.

[00:18:51] And I'll tell you another thing about that second one.

[00:18:54] It was important to me.

[00:18:56] That was the first year that we had Marcus Roberts.

[00:19:00] Marcus was a young blind

[00:19:02] student, a pianist and down to

[00:19:06] blind school in St. Augustine.

[00:19:08] And it was from Jacksonville.

[00:19:10] And I always wanted to have a Jacksonville component.

[00:19:12] Now, I heard about this kid who everybody said was great.

[00:19:17] He was given a recital or a concert at down at the school on a Sunday

[00:19:21] afternoon in order to raise money to try to help fund his

[00:19:26] trip to Europe to play in a jazz youth band.

[00:19:30] And I went and listened to him and I thought, my goodness gracious,

[00:19:34] this 17 year old kid is absolutely amazing.

[00:19:37] And so after he was over, I went up to him and introduced myself

[00:19:42] and I told him, I said, Marcus, I'll give you three hundred dollars right now

[00:19:46] if you will agree to come to the BMX Jazz Festival.

[00:19:50] And of course, he did.

[00:19:52] He agreed to that.

[00:19:53] Well, by the time it came around,

[00:19:56] we had signed a deal with Chairman Seven and PBS

[00:19:59] to do an hour long special film with the Jazz Festival.

[00:20:04] And so I had Dizzy Gillespie,

[00:20:07] film director, saxophone player.

[00:20:10] And I said, I want Marcus Roberts to be in there.

[00:20:13] And so we got Marcus another five hundred dollars.

[00:20:16] Then we fast forward the next year.

[00:20:19] I told Marcus, I said, you can't.

[00:20:21] I'm not going to.

[00:20:22] You've got to win the piano competition.

[00:20:25] I created the Great American Jazz Piano Competition

[00:20:28] that first year.

[00:20:29] And I said, Marcus, you got to win

[00:20:31] that contest to be in the festival this year.

[00:20:34] I'm not going to put you back on it again unless you win that festival.

[00:20:37] And it was we had a blind audition, people, sweaty tapes.

[00:20:41] I had a group of judges.

[00:20:44] I didn't get that was not even that.

[00:20:46] But anyhow, they picked Marcus,

[00:20:50] Harry Connick Jr.

[00:20:52] and three other guys, five finalists.

[00:20:54] And we had the first piano competition over to Sheridan Hotel.

[00:20:59] We met lounge or bar.

[00:21:02] I had Dr. Billy told us, Williams Ledge.

[00:21:04] I had the jazz critic from the time

[00:21:06] we were speaking as a judge and the jazz critic

[00:21:09] for the New York Times as a judge.

[00:21:12] Marcus won the competition.

[00:21:15] Harry Connick Jr., who was 16, came in second.

[00:21:19] That's a pretty good beginning.

[00:21:21] This year, the corporate sponsors for this year's Jazz Festival

[00:21:24] are Publix and JAA, the aviation authority.

[00:21:27] Did you have corporate sponsors back at the first and second

[00:21:31] and third years of this to help defray those costs?

[00:21:35] And who were they?

[00:21:36] Well, I had some.

[00:21:39] I didn't have a lot.

[00:21:41] I'll tell you that the foundation of it all was Channel 12, W2LB.

[00:21:48] Channel 12 came in as I got them to come in as a sponsor early on.

[00:21:53] And they promoted the loving hell out of this thing.

[00:21:56] So that helped a great deal.

[00:21:57] We didn't keep other stations from also helping us and promoting us.

[00:22:01] But Channel 12 was a great partner.

[00:22:04] I think that we had a good distributorship as a partner.

[00:22:09] But we didn't have many.

[00:22:10] We didn't have many.

[00:22:13] But it didn't cost us a lot back then.

[00:22:15] What was the decision to move it to Met Park?

[00:22:18] A couple of things happened.

[00:22:19] One was the neighbors decided they didn't want to move this park there anymore.

[00:22:23] So that created a problem.

[00:22:27] And the second was that we just knew it was too small.

[00:22:32] We had filled every inch that we could fill and it was just getting complicated.

[00:22:38] Third was that the people of Naples,

[00:22:41] some of the people at Naples had started getting greedy.

[00:22:47] They had done really well.

[00:22:48] I can tell you the second year.

[00:22:52] I took a I had a blueprint, a diagram of where all of the beers were going to go for the for the festival.

[00:23:00] And I went out to Strickland's to meet Mr. Strickland.

[00:23:03] It was going to be important that he knew of this because it's usually out of his property like we did the first year.

[00:23:10] And I got there and he said, you know, what am I going to do?

[00:23:13] What am I going to do like that this year?

[00:23:15] We won't put dollars in our property around.

[00:23:18] And nobody else can can use our property this time.

[00:23:23] And I told him, I said, if you do that, we can't have the festival.

[00:23:27] Well, it doesn't make every defeat the purpose of having this event.

[00:23:31] And he said, rest just the way it is going to be.

[00:23:34] So on the way back to City Hall, I made a point to stop every vendor,

[00:23:40] every little group that had a concession and say, I'm sorry,

[00:23:45] we're not going to do the festival this year because Mr. Strickland may have to use his property.

[00:23:51] Well, by the time I got back to my office in City Hall, he was calling me.

[00:23:56] We're going to talk again because they would come down on him like a bunch of pigs.

[00:24:00] But then they got a little greedy out there.

[00:24:03] Not everybody, but it just became it became too much for that limited area, for sure.

[00:24:10] And to answer your question, I picked Mets off the park.

[00:24:15] Everybody ran at the festival.

[00:24:17] If you're on Springfield, you're going to festival.

[00:24:19] If you're in Riverside, you ran the festival wherever you were.

[00:24:22] The beaches.

[00:24:25] So making a decision is difficult.

[00:24:27] Back then, Metropolitan Park was a parking lot, a dirt ready.

[00:24:32] Sometimes we would rain parking lot on the river that was used twice a year.

[00:24:38] But basically when the Gator Road game and the Georgia Florida game were playing,

[00:24:42] that was about it.

[00:24:44] Maybe sometimes during the fair, I don't know.

[00:24:47] But I went over there and started to wrecking that property and looking at that

[00:24:50] property and it was so beautiful over there.

[00:24:52] We run the river.

[00:24:53] A year we run the river with water.

[00:24:56] And I went back and I told the mayor, I said, we need to move this

[00:25:00] festival to Metropolitan Park.

[00:25:02] He agreed with it.

[00:25:03] And so we moved it there.

[00:25:05] The first year we just set everything up kind of like we had in April.

[00:25:08] We learned a lot.

[00:25:09] Our stages were a lot better.

[00:25:12] A lot of things, but we set the concession stand for the women.

[00:25:17] And it turned out that that was exactly what happened the next year when

[00:25:22] Metropolitan Park opened officially.

[00:25:24] I worked with the architect, I worked with the design of that park and he

[00:25:30] put the stage pretty much where we had the stage and he put concession

[00:25:33] gators around this level pretty much had it.

[00:25:36] But that's how we chose Metropolitan Park.

[00:25:38] Jake never lost that passion or that vision of what he wanted for the

[00:25:44] everyday guy in Jacksonville and woman for Jacksonville.

[00:25:47] That's what comes through this.

[00:25:50] And don't forget, he also had his, he did get his fishing tournament.

[00:25:53] Yeah, he got his fishing tournament.

[00:25:54] But he got his fishing tournament, the kingfish.

[00:25:58] Exactly.

[00:25:58] But that's, but you think about that.

[00:26:01] He knew how to leverage people in Washington or Dallahassee, do they?

[00:26:06] But he always did it and had people like you, but he never forgot

[00:26:11] just the everyday guy.

[00:26:13] And I think that he never lost that.

[00:26:15] He never lost that passion for the everyday guy in Jacksonville.

[00:26:19] No.

[00:26:19] And I go back, Mike, I want to go back to what I said earlier.

[00:26:25] He had people working for him, volunteering for him since I knew him

[00:26:30] from the South Flaps Met when he was a New York City Councilman.

[00:26:33] He had this organization that only grew him and these people were

[00:26:37] predicated and all I had to do was say, this is a task over here.

[00:26:43] And here's what we need to be doing.

[00:26:45] Help me out.

[00:26:46] They'll do it.

[00:26:47] And they did do it.

[00:26:49] And then, and so I had that to rely on.

[00:26:52] I didn't have to go look for people to help.

[00:26:54] They were already there.

[00:26:56] And that was a big deal for me.

[00:26:58] That was a really big deal.

[00:26:59] My understanding that 1983, that was the second year at Mayport.

[00:27:07] My understanding is that you sort of view that as just the

[00:27:14] cherry on top of the cake.

[00:27:16] Why?

[00:27:17] Well, first of all, we had that new park and the Jazz Festival

[00:27:22] opened up that new park.

[00:27:24] I remember that I brought in a jazz release for a funeral

[00:27:28] then and some rulings.

[00:27:30] And that's how we opened the park.

[00:27:32] The funeral band came in and played and everybody.

[00:27:35] In fact, we put the guy with the umbrella in the back of

[00:27:38] a Hirsch in a casket.

[00:27:43] And we brought it in and they'll get the casket out.

[00:27:47] I mean, it's all this music, you know, funeral music.

[00:27:50] They get the casket out and they open up the casket and the

[00:27:53] guy with the umbrella pops out.

[00:27:55] And now in this piece, then it's going, you know.

[00:27:58] But then we open that up.

[00:27:59] But what's really significant is, remember now, in the second

[00:28:04] Jazz Festival, PBS did a one hour show.

[00:28:07] It was taped and they played in about 200 new record cities.

[00:28:12] They opened, the PBS came back and opened up their fall

[00:28:15] season that year, the next year, with an eight hour live

[00:28:21] telecast from Mayport.

[00:28:24] Well, I think we still call it Mayport and all that jazz,

[00:28:26] but the Jazz Festival at the New Metropolitan Park, eight

[00:28:31] stinking hours live.

[00:28:33] And Steve Allen, the great Steve Allen and Dr.

[00:28:37] Willie Tolley with Kool Hoax.

[00:28:40] We had our guests that year were just absolutely amazing.

[00:28:45] I remember, I always liked to do a jam session at the end

[00:28:48] with some of the big name entertainers.

[00:28:51] And I remember we had Buddy Rich, the drummer, and we had

[00:28:55] Heartbreak, the drummer.

[00:28:58] And they were supposed to play at the same time.

[00:29:01] We were going to have some great drums, you know.

[00:29:04] And Buddy Rich was really temperamental and Rich decided

[00:29:07] that the last minute he didn't want to do it.

[00:29:09] He wasn't going to do it.

[00:29:11] Sarah Vaughn was obviously supposed to be in the jam.

[00:29:14] And she decided that the last minute she didn't want to do it.

[00:29:19] So I had Woody Herman and Gillespie and three or four other guys doing it.

[00:29:23] Rich is standing off of him in the side of the stage and he's

[00:29:27] seeing everybody have such a good time that he's trying to get

[00:29:31] somebody to get his dreams out there.

[00:29:34] So we moved his drums out there.

[00:29:36] Next thing I know, Sarah Vaughn was saying, I want to go out there.

[00:29:40] Woody Herman and Woody Herman was playing, they were part of the group.

[00:29:44] Woody Herman was.

[00:29:46] So she wouldn't go out there and be with Woody.

[00:29:48] So she went out there for them.

[00:29:50] And that's how we closed out that eight hour television show.

[00:29:54] But it was amazing.

[00:29:56] No wonder that's, I mean, how do you beat that?

[00:29:59] You can't.

[00:30:00] And it's spontaneous of watching that many, the egos, but having it at

[00:30:05] the end of the day, everybody wanted to be part of something bigger than they were.

[00:30:09] Well, I still can't get over $5,000 for each before.

[00:30:13] Can you imagine?

[00:30:14] Let me freelance for a minute and just share some memories with you

[00:30:17] that I think you would find interesting without him out any more.

[00:30:21] And with the first year, on that Friday before the festival in San

[00:30:25] David, we were setting up and we went to building the concession stands,

[00:30:29] building the stage and getting all that ready.

[00:30:31] And there's two young ladies from the health department came up to me

[00:30:34] and they said, Mr.

[00:30:35] Tolbert, we hate to tell you this, but you might not be able

[00:30:38] to have any concessions tomorrow.

[00:30:41] And I said, what do you mean?

[00:30:42] We're not going to have any concessions tomorrow.

[00:30:44] And one of them said, well, you forgot to get the permits.

[00:30:47] And I said, you know, I mean, why haven't got to get the permits?

[00:30:51] I'm so sorry.

[00:30:52] I said, would you all come with me?

[00:30:54] And so they funded me in the Strickland's restaurant and I went to the farm

[00:30:59] and they called Pat Calvary with it.

[00:31:02] I called, no, I called the director of the health department,

[00:31:05] the head of the health department, Dr. Pat Calvary.

[00:31:08] And I said, Pat, I'm here with two of your very nice people.

[00:31:12] And they're telling me that Mayor Godfrey can't have his

[00:31:15] concessions tomorrow.

[00:31:16] Would you not explain to them how they can help us get those permits?

[00:31:20] And I handed the phone to them and said, Lewis,

[00:31:24] we got our permits and they became permanent health

[00:31:26] department volunteers for us to work them as we went after them.

[00:31:32] Then in the

[00:31:35] in the first year at Metropolitan Park,

[00:31:39] one of the things I did was I had a piano.

[00:31:44] I forgive what we call it, but there were three

[00:31:46] world famous pianists playing three pianos.

[00:31:52] And one of them was George Shearing, the great George Shearing.

[00:31:56] And before he went on to start,

[00:31:59] he would then play an individual in the committee and played all three together.

[00:32:02] But before he went on to play, he told me, he said, look,

[00:32:06] I don't play when there's noise.

[00:32:08] Now, you can imagine we're on the stage.

[00:32:11] There are thousands of people out there.

[00:32:14] Well, so I run out and I said, I want to ask a favor of everybody.

[00:32:19] Mr. Shearing has said it's difficult for him to perform.

[00:32:23] There was a lot of noise.

[00:32:25] So I would ask you not to make no noise until he finishes

[00:32:29] and then they play like if you want to.

[00:32:32] And I don't know if that was going to work.

[00:32:34] I have this vision of George Shearing

[00:32:36] but I'm rocking off the stage because somebody was talking loud.

[00:32:39] And so I well, I introduced him.

[00:32:42] He came out.

[00:32:43] He played the first member.

[00:32:45] And I'll never forget this.

[00:32:47] There was a young black man sitting in the front row.

[00:32:50] He had his shirt off.

[00:32:51] It was a warm October day.

[00:32:53] He had his shirt off.

[00:32:54] And when Shearing got done playing that first song,

[00:32:57] this guy stood up and started yelling and waving his shirt and clapping.

[00:33:01] And everybody clapped, but they all cooperated.

[00:33:04] We had to get three grand pianos on that stage.

[00:33:08] We had one and only one in Jackson we could find.

[00:33:11] But they had to be, I think I forget what they were meant to be.

[00:33:13] But what if I win?

[00:33:15] They had two grand pianos in Tampa.

[00:33:17] But that memory of that guy waving that shirt,

[00:33:21] it was just an incredible memory.

[00:33:24] I've got a bunch of those.

[00:33:25] Your last festival was the fifth one in 1984.

[00:33:30] Why was it your last, Mike?

[00:33:32] Politics.

[00:33:35] Pretty much politics.

[00:33:38] Mayor Guy, by the way, and Fred Rebman,

[00:33:40] who was the head of the channel seven, didn't get around real well.

[00:33:45] Frankly, I didn't get along with Fred very well either.

[00:33:48] That last festival, I ended up liking the check for $10,000

[00:33:51] because Jake would not release the TDC funds for the festival

[00:33:55] because he was mad at Rebman and Rebman wouldn't help us raise anybody

[00:33:59] because he was mad at Jake.

[00:34:01] And so and then that fifth festival, it was absolutely outstanding.

[00:34:07] Again, once in a lifetime.

[00:34:08] And I thought, you know what?

[00:34:11] It ain't going to get any better than this for me.

[00:34:13] And so I said, I'm going to quit.

[00:34:19] And I did.

[00:34:20] And I walked away from it.

[00:34:23] And I don't regret that.

[00:34:24] I don't regret that.

[00:34:25] I will tell you, one thing I do all the time,

[00:34:29] especially by this time of the year, is I salute those people

[00:34:34] like Teresa Price O'Donnell,

[00:34:36] who came after me and Dan Dunnsoff and those people

[00:34:40] who kept it going all these years.

[00:34:43] Because every year when the festival comes around,

[00:34:46] as long as I'm alive, I salute somebody who will remember, you know?

[00:34:49] Right.

[00:34:50] Well, this has been an incredible, incredible program.

[00:34:53] Thank you, Mike, so much for the memories.

[00:34:55] Let me do a little bit of housekeeping here.

[00:34:56] You guys can let me share.

[00:34:58] No, thank you.

[00:34:59] Here's some housekeeping stuff that I put together.

[00:35:02] And you will see there will be a graphic coming up on the show

[00:35:05] if you're watching this, where you can click onto it

[00:35:08] and go to the Jacksonville Jazz Festival homepage

[00:35:11] where you can get all of this information.

[00:35:13] But this year's jazz festival will be held May 23rd through May 26th.

[00:35:20] It'll be at the Florida Theater on Thursday the 23rd.

[00:35:22] That's where they traditionally hold the piano competition.

[00:35:25] And then two different venues for the rest of the weekend.

[00:35:28] One will be at Met Park, so they're still there.

[00:35:31] And the other will be at Daly's Place on Friday.

[00:35:34] Entertainment begins at four o'clock, goes to 11 o'clock.

[00:35:37] Saturday and Sunday begins at three o'clock and goes to 11 o'clock.

[00:35:40] And I would tell you all of the names of the performers

[00:35:43] who are going to be there this year, but that would take us another 45 minutes.

[00:35:47] So I'm just going to say go to the website, take a look.

[00:35:50] I will tell you this.

[00:35:51] Joss Stone is coming in for Sunday, and I can't wait for that.

[00:35:55] She's phenomenal.

[00:35:56] But anyhow, it's been a great show.

[00:35:58] Mike Tolbert, thank you very, very much.

[00:36:00] Mike Hightower, always a pleasure.

[00:36:02] Good to have you.

[00:36:03] Thank you.

[00:36:04] Mike, thank you.

[00:36:05] I'm just thinking what you just said, all this going on.

[00:36:08] Mike Tolbert, the little town, tiny town of Mayport, one road in, one road out.

[00:36:15] And now it's a three day unbelievable world known celebration of Jacksonville.

[00:36:21] Mike Tolbert, you done good, my friend.

[00:36:22] Thank you.

[00:36:23] God bless you.

[00:36:24] Starting next week, we're going to start delving into the stadium renovation issue.

[00:36:28] The city council now has its copy of it.

[00:36:31] The meetings have been held around town.

[00:36:33] They held five of them during the month of May.

[00:36:36] So in June, we're going to be focusing on this and talking about it over the extent

[00:36:40] of about two or three different shows because it's that important.

[00:36:44] This is the biggest ticket item that has ever been faced in Jacksonville for the

[00:36:49] taxpayers, relaying to the Jaguars.

[00:36:51] So we hope you'll tune in.

[00:36:53] I just love it when it's just the three of us jabbering.

[00:36:56] I really, I love the guests that we've had on.

[00:36:58] They've added so much to this program.

[00:37:01] But when the three of us get together, you just don't know what direction it's going

[00:37:04] to go and that to me is more fun than most anything else I can think of indoors.

[00:37:09] I've decided it needs to be changed for Mike's and Mike's into three curmudgeons.

[00:37:15] And Mr. Tolbert being the senior and most quoted curmudgeon, maybe that's what

[00:37:20] we'd start with Tolbert, the senior curmudgeon.

[00:37:23] There you go.

[00:37:24] Mike, thanks a lot.

[00:37:25] Thank you everybody.

[00:37:26] And thank you once again to the Jacksonville Historical Society.

[00:37:29] We'll see you again next week.

[00:37:30] Bye bye.

[00:37:32] Mike's on Mike with Mike Tolbert, Mike Hightower and Mike Miller can be found

[00:37:36] on your favorite podcasting platform, Facebook and YouTube.

[00:37:40] Visit the website at Mike's on Mike.com.

[00:37:44] Join us next time for more conversation with Mike's on Mike.