Hundreds of performers from around the East Coast came together on three stages last weekend for the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival at the Hilton Washington DC/Rockville Executive Meeting Center.

Produced by the Jazz Academy of Music, the goal of the three-day showcase is to keep jazz alive, both by promoting jazz education in public schools and by offering emerging local artists a chance to showcase their talents.

The showcase included performances by groups from John T. Baker and Robert Frost middle schools and Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Montgomery Blair, James Hubert Blake, Albert Einstein, Walter Johnson and Walt Whitman high schools.

Formerly known as the East Coast Jazz Festival, the mid-winter tradition was reborn as the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival last year after a brief hiatus following the death of Ronnie Wells, a vocalist and teacher who founded the original festival in 1992.