Leimert Park Jazz Festival - Sunday Jazz at the World Stage (August 2026)

The drum circle forms on the sidewalk before anyone plays a note inside -- the neighborhood arrives before the audience does, and that order tells you everything about this room. Billy Higgins opened The World Stage in 1989, and it has anchored the Leimert Park jazz community ever since: fourth Sunday of every month, free or pay-what-you-can, the living room the whole neighborhood is welcome in. August 23 is the last Sunday session before the main Leimert Park Jazz Festival on the 29th -- 3 to 5pm, emerging artists and working musicians cycling through the stage that's hosted everyone serious in LA jazz for three decades. Bring the friend who assumes the good stuff is somewhere else. It's a warm-up for the main festival but it is not a preview -- it's the real thing, every fourth Sunday, whether the cameras show up or not. The World Stage, Leimert Park Village.