Jackie Harris has spent the past 28 years providing convention planning, festival/music production, program administration/coordination, and event management services to a variety of clients in Haiti, Aruba, Germany, France, Jamaica, and many cities throughout the United States.

After spending the start of her professional career at a major oil company, Harris began pursuing creative opportunities in the areas of culture, tourism, music, entertainment and the arts.  She spent nearly 10 years at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the worlds largest out-door event of its type, as Assistant Fair Director and Night Concerts Producer.  She then led the City’s Music and Entertainment Commission for eight years marked by tremendous success in re-positioning New Orleans as an entertainment mecca and marketing its rich cultural legacy as the “Birthplace of Jazz.”  She also served as the first chair of the New Orleans Jazz Commission. 

Harris led the charge that resulted in the first airport in the United States to be named for a jazz artist – Louis Armstrong International Airport -- employed jazz artists as “ambassadors” to represent the City of New Orleans at national and international cultural exchange programs; advocated for and co-produced the firsts United States Conference of Mayors Winter Arts Program that showcased jazz artists; wrote proposals and developed strategies that resulted in attracting and retaining major conventions and events to New Orleans including the Essence Music Festival, NAACP Convention, Rainbow Push Coalition, TD Jakes “Woman Thou Art Loosed” Convention and the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference.

As a free lance professional, Harris provides services to a number of non-profit organizations – Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation (of New York) and the New Orleans Arts and Cultural Host Committee – providing program development, tour management, marketing, artists management and bookings, in addition to cultural exchange initiatives.  Since her relocation to New York City following Hurricane Katrina, Harris has been able to share her skills and experience with the US State Department, Jazzmobile,Inc., Columbia University and native New Orleanian, Wynton Marsalis and Jazz At Lincoln Center – developing tours, cultural exchange programs and producing festivals. 

She also serves as executive director of the fourteen year old, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp which was created by Harris that has provided jazz music education to more than 1300 young music students.  Jazz Camp students have and are now attending The University of New Orleans, Berkley, Oberlin, Juilliard, Columbia and Stanford University.  Camp alumni are also managing professional careers as local, national and international artists, educators and business executives.  The camp has gained an international reputation for excellence. 

Having spent the last decade producing festivals, developing and marketing programs, working with local and national musicians all over the world, Harris is dedicated to perpetuating, preserving and exposing the world to the art form that was created in her home town – New Orleans.