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Fifth Annual Silver Spring Jazz Festival

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If you play it, they will come.

That's thing about good jazz. It doesn't need any crazy cornstalk field of dreams to make people decide to put their Saturday business on hold and come out with a beach chair and a blanket and a basket of supper. Good jazz - and that is what has been at the heart of the Silver Spring Jazz Festival since it began in 2003 - is enough to attract crowds that number into the tens of thousands to come to a parking lot behind an office building in a suburban city and listen to the music.

“It's the glue to the community," says Marcus Johnson, the Silver Spring musician-producer-entrepreneur who has been involved with the festival from day one - before day one, actually.

“The idea was to have a jazz festival with national and local artists," he remembers, “and to have it in the streets.

“We had such success the first year," he adds. “20, 25 thousand people coming out to see the event."

The event has many facets, he adds, but at its heart, it celebrates what it means to be a community that appreciates and values the arts.

“The Silver Spring Jazz Festival means more great, affordable - as in free! - music for the community," Johnson says. “We're keeping the vibe going so people can come out and enjoy affordable quality music."

Downtown Silver Spring is no stranger to the occasional traffic jam - but on the afternoon of the Silver Spring Jazz Festival, traffic takes on a whole new look. Colorful floats festooned with streamers bear the county's top teenage jazz musicians in a parade that's part Main Street and part Bourbon Street.

“It's a great way to showcase the talent that's right here in the southern part of the county," says Johnson. “We give back to the community through the kids."

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