Looks like I'll miss the Newport Jazz Festival for the 52nd year in a row. Too bad.
This year's edition, in Newport, Rhode Island August 7-8, will have folks like Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck, Ahmad Jamal and the Chick Corea Freedom Band with Roy Haynes. Great lineup.
Jazz impresario George Wein started the festival in 1954, Wein is still around and promoting though he's about 900 years old.
But the Festival is probably the largest jazz gathering in the United States. Just check out the honor roll of folks who released albums from their live Newport sets:
- Duke Ellington
- John Coltrane
- Count Basie
- David Brubeck
- Ray Charles
- Muddy Waters
- Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Carmen McRae
- Nina Simone
Half of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Volunteered Slavery album was from a live Newport set and ... well, you get the idea. Too numerous to mention. If your favorite jazz musician is of any significance, he's played Newport.
Back in the earlier days of the festival, the Voice of America carried Newport live, giving households their annual jazz fix.
It was in 1956 that a tired-sounding Duke Ellington and his band lit the stage up. An oldie from their songbook, Diminuendo and Crescendo In Blue, featured Paul Gonsalves on tenor sax, and before his 27-chorus, six-and-a-half minute solo was over the audience got crazy. If you listen to the live portions of that album you can hear Duke trying to quell the audience before a riot broke out.
Here's what I wrote a year ago about that solo:
"It's one of those moments that every human being should experience. It's crunch time, and you're called to perform at something -- a job, dealing with family, facing the outside world. And you're performing at a level that you didn't know you had and you don't remember how you did it. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar described one of those moments during the closing seconds of a playoff game when he was at the baseline, in the corner, those seconds ticking away. Abdul-Jabbar said time just slowed down for him, kind of like you're watching the world in slow motion. A teammate got him the ball, Kareem put up the hook shot, it went right in, and immediately the world went back to real time. I'm sure it was that kind of moment for Duke Ellington and his band."
Enough history. But here's the good news. If you can't make it to Newport, check out the NPR site this year. They plan a live Internet feed so you can listen to at least some of the music, real-time.
I know where I'm going to be this weekend: In front of the computer, speakers blaring, listening to some great jazz.
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