BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — This weekend, the 20th annual Taste of 4th Avenue Jazz Festival is bringing music and community to the city with a two-day event. 

The free festival will take place on 4th Avenue North between 18th and 16th Street. On Saturday, the festival will run from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.; On Sunday, it will run from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“It brings people to the district who don’t normally visit in that area,” said Carla Youngblood, the operations director at Urban Impact, Inc. “It introduces people to that district. and once they do, they find restaurants, they find businesses that they can now patronize continually, and that is the goal of the festival.

Saxophonist David Sanchez will headline Saturday’s event, accompanied by trumpet player Jose Carr, flutist Sherry Reeves,  guitarist Cashmere Williams, The Nashville Soul Experience band and more.

On Sunday, the all-girl band “Jazz in Pink” will play as the headliners, alongside other jazz talents. 

“(People) come and discover the district and find out that there’s a lot of history there,” Youngblood said. “It has a lot of that rich history and at one time this was the only place that Blacks could go and shop. So that’s where we did everything, within that district.  

“That’s where we went and had the different social clubs, where we had the jazz clubs as a whole.  So that’s where we celebrated. So we want to take it to the streets and invite everybody else to come down and see how we do it.”

Anyone who attends is encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs. For more information visit www.4thavenuejazz.org.