Jazz fans get ready. The 50th Annual JVC Newport Jazz Festival
is sailing smooth rhythms into town this summer.
“What we are doing this year is absolutely amazing, ”said
George Wein, founder and producer of the world’s most renown jazz
festival, “we are concerned with creating a festival that is unique.
There will be 50 artists on three stages.”
Wein continued to explain that performers representing the past five decades of jazz will be celebrating the grandfather of all jazz festivals. In addition to a black tie gala at the Breakers mansion on August 12, this summer’s happy birthday celebration is longer than usual — five days worth. Wein says there won’t be the glossy kinds of jazz that have marked recent festivals. The impresario said the idea this year is more of a direct tribute to jazz.
Nevertheless, there still will be plenty of headliners, including Harry Connick, Jr., Dianne Reeves. Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Dave Brubeck.
Indeed the festival nearly didn’t make it to its golden jubilee.
The first festival played at the Newport Casino in 1954. The music set the standard for the subsequent al fresco presentations of the uniquely American art form. The first few years attracted the top names in jazz including Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis.
Riots in 1960 caused the festival to be cancelled in 1961. During the unrest, Newport police arrested 170 revelers. Most were set free with the promise that they would never agitate in Newport again.
Returning in 1962, and for the remainder of the 60’s, attendance at the festivals grew. Virtually every major jazz performer played in the City-by-the-Sea while many live albums were cut. Up to 16,500 music lovers daily crowded into Freebody Park, now Toppa field. Eventually the festival again moved this time to Festival Field, off of Connell highway.
As the hipsters turned into hippies, during these years, locals remember when annually, in the height of summer, thousands of young concert-goers flocked to the island. Many slept on the beaches while traffic down Memorial Boulevard gaped as hundreds of festival-goers camped-out on the grassy median strips of the Boulevard. Even in this writer’s backyard, one jazz festival morning my family was surprised to find a half-dozen “hippies” sleeping in our lawn. My mother fed the colorful tie-dyed group scrambled eggs, toast and bacon before they trooped off to listen to the music.
By 1971 however, events again came to a crescendo. During the middle of a Dionne Warwick performance more violence broke out. Ironically, during the middle of her song “What the World Needs Now is Love,” fences and barriers were torn down and the stage was stormed and destroyed. As a result of the mayhem, the town council closed down the festival, this time permanently. A distraught Wein moved the music to New York City for the next decade.
Eventually, in 1981, the jazz returned to its home turf, although in a modified version. This time it was a more sedated affair with a daytime-only venue at Fort Adams State Park. It has played there ever since.
Now mellow crowds with lawn chairs listen to the jazz. The intervening 23-years have produced audiences that average 5-6,000 jazz aficionados daily. Of the hundreds of performers who have played here, such notables as Aretha Franklin, David Sanborn, Chuck Mangione, Spyro Gyra, B.B.King, and Tito Puente have graced Newport with their music.
To round out the weekend performances, in 1988, Friday nights were added
to the bill. Held at either the Viking or at the Casino, recent headliners
at the intimate evenings have included K.D. Lang last year and Tony Bennett
the year before that.
Back at the Fort, despite missing Hurricane Bob by one day in 1991, the
jazz festival has generally enjoyed the seasonable weather.
Along with its younger cousin, the Apple and Eve Folk Festival, first
performed in 1959, the festivals are held two consecutive weekends in
August. During these summer days a southwest breeze generally builds-up
in the afternoon. When these winds waft in, musical notes from the Fort
Adams stage can be heard clearly from downtown Newport and even from as
far away as Rose Island.
A unique feature of these festivals is the large flotilla that anchors
up in the waters surrounding the Fort to listen to the music. The fleet
ranges in size from the luxury-liner Queen Elizabeth II down to the smallest
dinghy.
It’s the most beautiful festival in the world, said Wein. "No fencing, the water, the boats, the bridge. It’s just beautiful when the sun’s out and all the sailboats are sailing. I’m happy that they’re listing to the music for free.
When asked whether Wein himself would perform, the impresario said, ”Although this festival will be very closely produced, if no one is sitting at the piano chair, I'll probably take a seat at the piano.” Wein, along with his combo, the Jazz All-Stars has performed at a number of previous festivals.
Until then, he is going to have his hands occupied assembling what may
be the finest assemblages of jazz musicians ever to be brought together.
Happy Birthday baby!
- by Charles Avenengo
© 2004 Newport Harbor Guide. All rights reserved.