Columbia Park sits in a shallow bowl between Creswell and Line Avenue, shaded enough that even a September afternoon in Shreveport feels survivable under the tree line. On September 19, that bowl fills with three stages, more than 70 food and artisan vendors, and the 22nd running of the Highland Jazz and Blues Festival. If you live in Highland, you already know the drill: park somewhere else, walk in, spend more money on a plate of food than you meant to, and stay longer than you planned.
What you might not know is that this year the park itself looks different than it did twelve months ago, and the festival's opening set has no headliner in the traditional sense, because the man who filled that slot for twenty of the last twenty-one years is gone.
A Park That Just Turned 100
Columbia Park hit its hundredth birthday this year, and the Highland Neighborhood Association marked it in June with a rededication ceremony, an American flag giveaway, and a round of improvements that included more than 200 new native trees and plants and a freshly paved walkway. Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux spoke at the celebration and noted that his wife grew up playing in the park, which is the kind of detail that only means something if you already understand how many Highland families measure their own history against this particular patch of ground.
That context matters for festival weekend because the park you're walking into on the 19th is not simply hosting its 22nd jazz festival. It's doing it in a slightly rebuilt version of itself, with new plantings still establishing root systems along paths that didn't exist the last time Dumpstaphunk or anyone else played here. If you've lived in Highland long enough to remember the park before this spring, the walk from the gazebo to the pavilion will feel a little different underfoot.
The Opening Slot Nobody Wanted to Fill
Buddy Flett died in May at 73. If you've spent any real time in Highland, that name needs no introduction, but for anyone newer to the neighborhood: Flett was a Shreveport blues guitarist who co-wrote on Percy Sledge's Grammy-nominated catalog, collaborated for years with Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and held a standing Tuesday night slot at Twisted Root Burger Co. for nearly a decade before it closed. He played the Highland Jazz and Blues Festival in 20 of its first 21 years, missing only one.
Festival executive director Emerie Eck Holtzclaw put it plainly when the 2026 lineup was announced: he was a dear friend who never missed a chance to play the festival, and he cannot be replaced. Rather than book someone into his old slot, the festival renamed its main stage the Buddy Flett Pavilion Stage and built the 10 a.m. opening set into a tribute, with surprise guests performing in his honor before the day moves into its regular lineup.
That decision tells you something about how this neighborhood handles loss that a lineup announcement alone wouldn't. Most festivals replace a headliner with another headliner. Highland renamed a stage and left the opening slot as an open wound turned into a tribute, which is a harder thing to program and a more honest one to sit through.
What's Actually Playing, and Who's New to the Stage
After the tribute, the Buddy Flett Pavilion Stage runs through the Shreveport Regional Jazz Ensemble, Shades of Green, and The Good Dudes before Dumpstaphunk closes the day at 4:30 p.m. Dumpstaphunk has spent nearly two decades building a reputation as a next-generation funk act rooted in the legacy of the Neville family and The Meters, and this is their first time headlining in Highland.
Across the park at the Miller Lite Stage at the Gazebo, the bill runs The Bossier Big Band, The Eric Craig Band, Snake Doctors, Loose Association 318, and River City Groove. A third stage, the Inspiration Stage, is where the festival's newer instinct shows up most clearly: Carla Heard, Caddo Parish's 2026 Rising Star, performs alongside the North DeSoto Middle School Jazz Band and student musicians from both Bossier and Caddo parish schools. The festival's official poster this year was designed by Sara Villarrial, a Haughton High School graphic arts student in the Bossier Parish School for Technology and Innovative Learning program, chosen from 26 student submissions across three parishes.
None of that is filler. A festival that spends real stage time on middle schoolers and a student-designed poster is telling you what it thinks its job is, which is less about importing name-brand talent and more about giving the region's next generation of musicians a real audience before they've had reason to expect one.
How the Day Actually Works
Parking at Columbia Park itself is extremely limited, which is the kind of detail that only matters once you've tried to find a spot there on a festival Saturday. The workaround, and the one the festival has used for years, is a free shuttle running continuously from the north parking lot of Mall St. Vincent near Dillard's, about every 30 minutes starting at 10 a.m. and continuing until the last people leave. If you've never taken it, it's a low-effort way to skip the worst of the traffic funnel around Creswell and Line.
A few other logistics worth knowing before you go:
- Admission is free, and the festival runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Outside food, drinks, grills, and coolers are not permitted, but ATMs and restrooms are on site.
- Pets are welcome on leash, and there's a dedicated Pet Park area.
- Chairs and blankets are allowed, and past crowds have run into the thousands, so arriving early gets you real shade and real sightlines.
The Neighborhood Around the Festival Doesn't Need the Occasion
Highland's daily rhythm doesn't pause for festival weekend so much as it gets busier along the same streets that already carry it. Fat Calf Brasserie, which started as a food trailer parked outside Red River Brewing Company before moving into its current Creswell Avenue address, still runs the kind of small, French-Southern menu that rewards a slow dinner rather than a quick stop. Bear's, tucked into the historic Alvin Building at Fairfield and Southern, has been a Highland late-night fixture since the late 1990s. Sipp House, a newer addition on Texas Avenue just outside downtown, has built a following on drinks like its lavender latte and banana pudding iced latte, and its owner also runs Neef's Coffee Corner in the historic Allendale neighborhood. Rhino Coffee's flagship sits in South Highland near the R.W. Norton Art Gallery, an easy stop if you're combining festival day with an actual walk through the neighborhood's older blocks.
None of these places changed anything about their weekend because of the festival. They're simply where Highland already goes, and the festival crowd folds into that same rotation rather than replacing it. That's the real texture of a neighborhood that hosts something this size without becoming defined by it for the other 364 days of the year.
What This Year Actually Says About Highland
Put the centennial and the tribute stage next to each other and a pattern shows up that a single news story about either one would miss. Highland renovated its oldest shared space this year and also lost the musician most identified with its signature event, and its response to both was continuity rather than reinvention. New trees along an old walkway. A tribute set instead of a replacement headliner. Middle schoolers on a real stage instead of another touring act filling every slot.
That's not a coincidence so much as it's how this neighborhood tends to handle change, by absorbing it into what already exists rather than announcing something new. If you've lived here a while, you already knew that about Highland. This year the park and the festival just happened to prove it in the same season.
If you're already part of this neighborhood and thinking ahead to a move within it, or you know someone weighing Highland against another part of Shreveport-Bossier, I'm always glad to talk through what a specific block or price range actually looks like right now. Reach out to Sage Easter and let's connect.
