The Newport Jazz Millennium Celebration Comes to the Soaring Eagle Casino

March 16 th -

An Interview with Newport’s founder, George Wein

By Robert E. Martin

Before the Rock ‘n Roll crowd developed Monterey and Woodstock, there was the Newport Jazz Festival. When the first original Newport Jazz Festival was held in 1954, producer and festival organizer George Wein had little idea it would be copied and used as a ‘blueprint’ for bringing divergent forms of music together.

Now, on Thursday, March 16^th at The Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Mt. Pleasant, The Newport Jazz Millennium Celebration will be honoring the 50-year legacy of the Masters of Jazz with a generational mix of established and rising stars, featuring Grammy Award winners Nicholas Payton and Randy Brecker on trumpets, pianist/composer Cedar Walton, six time Grammy nominee Lew Tabackin on sax & flute, trombonist Joel Helleney, and one of the most critically acclaimed jazz guitarists today, Howard Alden.

Performing solo and in combos, these artists will take jazz -

America’s greatest musical creation - from its Afro-European roots into the new century, honoring such musical masters as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker, among many more. Recently The Review spoke with the creator of the Newport Jazz Festival, George Wein about the legacy of jazz in America and the genesis of his remarkable Festival throughout the decades.

Review: Can you discuss the origins of the original Newport Jazz Festival back in 1954? How did you get the idea for it?

Wein: The summers were always fairly dead in the cities. I owned a club in Boston that would close in the summers, and we would open up these little clubs in resort areas and play jazz in places like Cape Cod, but apart from that nothing existed. You had these classical music festivals, but nothing else.

Some people from Newport came to see me and said they’d like to put together a jazz festival. I’d heard of Newport but never been there, only it had this famous Casino & Tennis Hall of Fame that went back to the 19^th Century. Anyway, I came up with the idea of doing a two day jazz festival. We had 5,000 people each night and nobody believed it, but I knew it could happen because I knew every jazz fan in New England from my club. Knowing the type of program we were assembling and the fact people would get in their cars and travel, I knew we’d do reasonably well.

Review: Was it difficult assembling the artists?

Wein: Not at all because they played in my club. The unique thing about the first festival is that there was this big schism between Bee-bop and Traditional Jazz, and I put them all on the same stage - Dizzy Gillespie and Miles - and the audience accepted them all.

Review: The face of modern jazz has evolved and changed so much since 1954.

What are your impressions about the current state of Jazz in America?

Wein: I think there are two major directions in jazz right now - the concern for the traditions of the music and the other with the avant garde, which is growing all the time but hasn’t reached out to large audiences. Count Basie is influencing a lot of young musicians, so now this dichotomy is happening again. And then a third element comes in, which is the use of World Music and the changing colors of jazz. Jazz is a rather indefinable term, but at least I don’t hear the word ‘Classic Jazz’. I hate that expression.

Review: What can people expect from the Millennium Jazz Celebration?

Wein: This particular tour was put together with the idea of selling to community concert organizations, and not necessarily a purist jazz audience, so the program reflects what’s happening with jazz in the 20^th Century.

It is an interesting program because there is no real ‘program’. The musicians will choose the song selections they will perform, which will change every night. We might have Nicholas Payton doing a Louis Armstrong song, only it could be one of any 10 Armstrong tunes that will change nightly. Then Randy might come up and play a Basie tune with Cedar Walton, followed by some Coltrane.

All of these musicians will pay homage to a particular artist, and the only direction is where each musician will introduce their own number and say a few words about the musician they are paying tribute to, but they won’t be ‘copying’ anything. Each will be performing in their own unique style and we will feature a real broad scope of music.

Review: What do you think about the receptivity of jazz to younger audiences? Jazz is often labeled as being ‘difficult’ music, but do you see it appealing to a broad spectrum of ages?

Wein: That is a question that is easily answered and very difficult to answer. When we book shows from a different era, like say a Tribute to Armstrong at the Lincoln Center, we rewrite the arrangements. Our audience is getting younger, but that generally means 30-50 years old, because most kids can’t afford the Lincoln Center. They go to a place like The Knitting Factory, where it makes no difference who is playing - it’s the social situation that counts.

Even when kids go to rock festivals, they will stay for 40 hours regardless of who’s performing. At these avant garde clubs, the average age might be 25, but they go to hangout for the atmosphere and to interact, not just because of the music.

At the Newport Festivals, the average age is around 30, but that’s because the program is so varied. Jazz has always from the beginning been, even at its height of popularity, a minority music; not racially, but of the population. It’s never been a ‘major’ music and still isn’t. The problem is that we’re living in an age inundated by rock ‘n roll. We didn’t have that back in 1954. Back then we had Patti Page singing about that doggie in the window.

Right now jazz recordings are at their lowest ebb in history, and record companies are upset about it. There aren’t really any ‘star’s the public can name, and in the old day everybody knew Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn. Today you don’t have names like that. Right now there is a young girl named Diana Crowe who sells out Carnegie Hall and has become a star, but the public still doesn’t know her. In spite of that, though, with all this youth movement in music, many organizations and clubs are hiring jazz musicians for concerts. There is good money and a strong resurgence out there.

The Newport Jazz Millennium Celebration at Soaring Eagle Casino takes place on Thursday, March 16^th. Beginning at 7:00 PM, tickets for the Newport Jazz Millennium celebration are available at TicketsPlus by phoning 1-800-585-3737.