Music Festival to Jazz up Hope

HOPE, Maine - Four men with ties to the community hope to bring back the jazz era, at least to the local arena.

Andy Stewart, owner of Hope General Store, Chris Rogers, Andy Swift and Bill Jones are staging the second annual Hope Jazz Festival Saturday, Aug. 16, in True Park, behind the General Store.

The four men founded the festival last year and established a nonprofit organization called “Hope 4 Jazz" to build the festival slowly to a point of attracting national jazz talent.

Stewart said Rogers, a jazz drummer living in Hope, was the instigator behind the festival.

“He played his first gig when he was 12, and he's been playing ever since," Stewart said of Rogers' 40-year career. “Chris's idea for the jazz festival was to have the event and kick-start an interest in jazz."

Jones used to work for the World Bank and was a professor at Oberlin College before he came to Hope, where he now owns and operates a Christmas tree farm, Stewart said.

“Andy Swift is one of the foremost antique fire engine restorers living in the country," Stewart said of the fourth founder of the festival. “He once managed bands on the road and brings his knowledge to the festival."