The 28th annual Rehoboth Beach Jazz Festival is bringing great live music to Delaware's Cape Region this weekend. This granddaddy of the region's fall festival season helps showcase the rich musical scene that has become a hallmark of the resort experience.
The festival started nearly three decades ago, not only to celebrate the uniquely American jazz tradition and its passionate musicians, but also to carry the economic strength of the summer season into the fall.
Then as now, the jazz festival and the equally powerful Sea Witch and Rehoboth Beach Film festivals coming in the weeks ahead take advantage of this area's tourism infrastructure, which is tailor-made for hosting such events.
Our sparkling restaurant scene and many hotels, motels and B&Bs are well prepared to feed and bed festival goers. Our schools, Boardwalk, event venues, restaurants, and even churches and libraries offer excellent facilities to showcase music, films, parades and related activities. All combine to create an energetic synergy that boosts our economy while offering a variety of well-appreciated entertainment for residents and visitors.
That synergy also works closer in. The Rehoboth Beach Jazz Festival has cemented this area's reputation as a great fall jazz venue with one sold-out show after another, and in recent years, Eddie Sherman and Peggy Raley's straight-ahead True Blue Jazz Festival has piggybacked on that success to further build the audience coming to town.
Altogether, the jazz festivals mean continued growth for the weekend, which is good news for the entire resort economy.
Our chambers of commerce maintain a steady drumbeat to stimulate the resort economy, and the festivals give them plenty of fodder for their marketing apparatus.
The festivals also remind us how important it is that we consistently improve our road and public transportation systems, sanitation, health services and natural area offerings so people will continue to be attracted and have a good time when they get here.
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Editorials are considered and written by Cape Gazette Editorial Board members, including Publisher Chris Rausch, Editor Jen Ellingsworth, News Editor Nick Roth and reporters Ron MacArthur and Chris Flood.
