King, Isaac Hayes, Chaka Khan, Sonny Rollins, Los Lobos, Robert Cray, Branford Marsalis, George Benson, Chris Isaak and Freddie Hubbard.
A spotlight on local jazz legends was called Indiana Avenue Revisited, including Slide Hampton, David Baker, Buddy Montgomery and Jimmy Coe.
The festival did have to cancel the first night due to an unseasonable downpour, and heavy rains off and on throughout the weekend caused a $750,000 budget shortfall and the organization accumulated a large amount of debt as a result.
At that time the American Piano Awards stopped running the festival and the naming rights were bought by J. Allan Hall and Rob Dixon (who are also both involved in the Indianapolis record label Owl Studios) and David Allee, owner of the Jazz Kitchen.
[2] The new ownership decided to reinvent the Indy Jazz Fest as a non-profit organization and began formulating and implementing educational outreach initiatives throughout Indianapolis Public Schools.