Newport Jazz Festival: A precedent of the modern music event
This article first appeared on penfield.com
A grassy seaside utopia, Newport was nothing but a haven of unspoiled coastline, Gilded Age mansions and quaint pastimes, with the only large-scale events being the local golf tournament and occasional tennis open. For local socialite and tobacco heiress, however, Elaine Lorillard, this was all, in her words, “terribly boring” and in the year of 1952, she started to hatch a plan: to put Rhode Island on the map as a destination of creativity and culture.
Meanwhile, whispers of George Wein, a war veteran turned jazz pianist, and his raucous Storyville Jazz Club had already begun to circulate. Reaching ears up and down the social ladder, Mrs Lorillard approached Wein with an incentive of $20,000 (around $230,000 by today’s standards) to helm a vibrant new outdoor music event for the city of Newport. Wein duly agreed, sparking the kindling of what was to become known as Newport Jazz Festival for the next seven decades.
Paving the way
Wein was a visionary. The 25-year-old club owner was ambitious to create something unparalleled, an experience no jazz aficionado had ever encountered. His approach was to combine the raw energy of Harlem’s underground music scene with the sophisticated air of Tanglewood’s classical music events; authentic music from New York’s inner cities repackaged for New England’s refined tastes.
Debuting in July 1954, the three-day festival drew a healthy 13,000-strong turnout to Freebody Park. The event was a washout. Day 1 opened with a biblical downpour, but audiences were undeterred from catching a glimpse of their favourite acts as part of a never-seen-before roster of jazz legends. Household names such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Lester Young were amongst the stellar lineup, with emcee Stan Kenton keeping damp spirits high all the while. Long after the crowds departed, the inaugural event wrapped with a party at the Lorillard’s 9,800 sq ft estate on Bellevue Avenue, which saw young jazz innovators rub shoulders with Newport’s high society in a jubilant coming together of drastically-opposed worlds.
An experiment gone awry
As Newport Jazz Festival organically grew through the 60s, an entrepreneurial Wein started to explore the idea of introducing mainstream musicians to the bill, broadening the festival’s net to include blues, rock ‘n’ roll and fusion artists to get the coastal town and its musical offering in front of more eyes.
1969 saw The Jeff Beck Group, Frank Zappa, James Brown and B.B. King grace the stage, with Sunday’s headline slot being reserved for hard-rock outfit, Led Zeppelin. Though jazz still remained at the its core, this cross-pollination of genres saw the festival’s popularity boom, much to the delight of its organisers (and the distress of Rhode Island’s landed gentry). Out-of-towners now resorted to sleeping en plein air due to insufficient lodging, while others caused traffic congestion and logistical headaches up and down the peninsula. With thousands of non-ticket holders spectating from hillside vantage points, Wein was forced to take action. As part of an elaborate ruse, he announced Zeppelin’s cancellation—only to have the band perform as planned once numbers had diminished.
1969 proved to be a cautionary tale, but it was 1971 which confirmed that experimentation really ought to have been left to the jazz experts. That year, no dedicated rock festival was to take place in the US, leading to 20,000 of the genre’s devotees flocking across the country to see The Allman Brothers Band in concert. It was to Dionne Warwick’s ‘What the World Needs Now is Love’ that droves of hardcore fans stormed the perimeter fence, resorting in a full-scale riot and intervention from the National Guard. Wein later, and rather coyly, admitted, "maybe too much rock."
Home and away
After the 1971 chaos, the festival would move out of its hometown while plans were devised for a relocation within Rhode Island. With a swift return to the festival’s jazz and R&B roots, the Newport Jazz Festival operated from New York City for almost a decade, occupying venues such as Radio City Music Hall, Yankee Stadium, Philharmonic Hall and Carnegie Hall. Despite the upheaval, Wein and co. still continued to book the best, with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross making coveted appearances during this time.
The Newport Jazz Festival made its long-awaited return in the 1980s, finding its permanent spot at Fort Adams State Park where it remains today. Reportedly the first instance of festival sponsorship as we know it, JVC became the event’s main backer, the Japanese electronics giant playing an integral role in recording the festival’s signature ‘Live at Newport’ album series. In the runup to the Millenium, the newly instated Newport Jazz Festival platformed a mixture of traditional jazz acts, soul singers and blues-rock groups, including emerging artists such as smooth jazz musician Wynton Marsalis and blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan.
The enduring legacy
For the festival’s 60th anniversary in 2014, George Wein, then 89, announced a leadership transition: Jay Sweet, former Paste Magazine editor, would serve as executive producer, with Danny Melnick overseeing production and bassist-cum-booker, Christian McBride, managing the lineup. The organisational shift came into effect upon Wein’s death in September, 2021.
From its humble beginnings as a bored housewife’s business venture to its current standing as a global music institution, the Newport Jazz Festival still stands as a powerful testament to community, innovation and the transformative impact of jazz. The 2024 edition showcased performances by Andre 3000, Nile Rodgers, Joni Mitchell and Khruangbin, further cementing its legacy as a cultural cornerstone. Proudly donning the "grandfather of the modern music festival" badge, Newport Jazz Festival continues to shape the future of music events for a whole new generation.
