If George Wein had been a better pianist, there might never have been a Newport Jazz Festival.
Fortunately, Wein realized his true calling as a concert impresario. His groundbreaking open-air festival, which created a new respect for jazz as it dragged the art form out of small, smoke-filled clubs, celebrates its 50th anniversary this summer from Aug. 11 to 15.
“I like to use the expression that ‘jazz’ is no longer a dirty word,” Wein said.
In the unlikely setting of a Rhode Island resort known for high society airs and lavish Gilded Age mansions, Wein made jazz accessible to audiences in the thousands, creating a model that would be imitated worldwide. Today, Wein estimates there are more than a thousand jazz festivals around the world.
As CEO of Festival Productions Inc., Wein, 78, is producing more than 20 festivals this year, including the flagship JVC Jazz Festival in New York, the New Orleans Jazz &Heritage Festival, and a new JVC festival in Seoul, South Korea.
Prominently displayed in Wein’s office is a photo of Art Tatum, the jazz piano virtuoso known for his rapid-fire runs. It was after hearing Tatum that Wein, an aspiring Boston-area pianist, decided to focus on producing and opened his own club, Storyville.
“That’s why I’m a promoter,” Wein said. “I heard Art Tatum at a young age and said, ‘Nobody could play piano like that.’”
Wein didn’t abandon the piano. But his natural talent is as a producer, and it’s taken all his skills to enable Newport to survive a half-century and overcome such obstacles as racism, hostility from some townspeople, changing musical tastes, riots that shut the festival down and a decade of exile in New York.
“George Wein has enabled Newport to survive with just hard work and not giving up,” said 83-year-old pianist-composer Dave Brubeck, who has appeared at Newport more times than any other artist, starting in 1955. “The Newport festival was the beginning of a new way to present jazz.”
Newport never would have happened if Wein hadn’t been a risk-taker. One wintry night in 1953 at Storyville, a Newport socialite, Elaine Lorillard, complained to Wein that the summer scene was “terribly boring” and thought some jazz might liven things up. After her husband, tobacco heir Louis Lorillard, provided a $20,000 line of credit, Wein seized the opportunity to create the first U.S. jazz festival.
On July 17-18, 1954, the First Annual American Jazz Festival drew 11,000 fans to the Newport Tennis Casino. The bandstand at center court was filled with jazz giants, including Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and Billie Holiday.
For the performers, there was as much excitement backstage as onstage.
“Newport was a highlight of my career,” said 76-year-old saxophonist Lee Konitz, whose quartet performed on opening night. “It was really a big party. … People were letting their guards down and just enjoying being around each other.”
But what drew widespread media attention was the incongruity of jazz, with its humble African-American roots, being accepted in a bastion of American wealth and privilege.
“It was rewarding to be in a different situation than a smoky nightclub,” said Percy Heath, 81, the bassist of the Modern Jazz Quartet, who performed at the first two festivals. “The fact that it was in a snobbish area with those wealthy people and those homes gave that feeling of breaking new ground.”
Newport’s impact was soon felt beyond the United States. Starting in 1955, the Voice of American began taping festival concerts for broadcast. Soon festivals began to spring up throughout Europe.
“George Wein has been a mentor for all of us,” said Carlo Pagnotta, founder and artistic director of the Umbria Jazz Festival, Italy’s biggest. “Newport opened the highway for jazz festivals all over the world.”
As Newport producer, Wein learned to balance “commercialism and credibility” to help the festival survive. That meant booking the occasional non-jazz act, and as a result Newport’s influence spread throughout American popular music.
Newport helped cast a national spotlight on Ray Charles (1958) and Aretha Franklin (1962) early in their careers. Bluesman Muddy Waters created a major buzz when he appeared at the 1960 festival with his electrifying band from Chicago’s South Side.
Gospel queen Mahalia Jackson, who once considered jazz “devil music” and refused to perform at nightclubs, reached a new audience at Newport. Her stirring rendition of “Didn’t It Rain,” during which the rain stopped falling as she ushered in Sunday morning, provided the coda to the acclaimed documentary “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” filmed at the 1958 festival.
Wein also played a major role in the folk revival when he created a spinoff Newport Folk Festival in 1959 that included performances by Pete Seeger, the Kingston Trio, Earl Scruggs, and an 18-year-old Joan Baez. The 1965 festival made history when Bob Dylan plugged in his electric guitar and was booed off the stage.
As for the upcoming festival, Wein is determined to restore Newport to its past grandeur. More than 125 jazz musicians will be performing in August. Most have been asked not to bring their own groups so they can be mixed in all-star combos as in the past.
Associated Press
George Wein is the founder of The Newport Jazz Festival, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Dave Brubeck performs during the Newport Jazz Festival on Aug. 11, 2001.
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