The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island . Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hired George Wein to organize the first festival and bring jazz to Rhode Island.
105-457: Eddie Harris (October 20, 1934 – November 5, 1996) was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ. His best-known compositions are "Freedom Jazz Dance", popularized by Miles Davis in 1966, and "Listen Here". Harris was born and grew up in Chicago . His father
210-626: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz
315-473: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when
420-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal
525-649: A jazz jam session hosted by organist Jimmy Smith and featuring, among others, Art Blakey , Hampton Hawes , Sonny Stitt , and Howard McGhee . Friday afternoon featured a rock-oriented bill featuring the jazz-fusion group Blood, Sweat & Tears , eclectic jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk , and the rock acts The Jeff Beck Group , Ten Years After , and Jethro Tull . Saturday's schedule mixed jazz acts, such as Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis , with rock, blues and R&B artists such as John Mayall , Sly & The Family Stone , Frank Zappa and his band The Mothers of Invention , and O. C. Smith . Sunday's bill featured
630-403: A lawn. These performances were given by a number of notable jazz musicians, including Billie Holiday , and were emceed by Stan Kenton . The festival was hailed by major magazines and newspapers, and some 13,000 people attended between the two days. In general, the festival was regarded as a major success. In 1955, organizers were planning a second year for the festival but needed to find
735-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in
840-667: A lineup entirely of jazz performers, including McCoy Tyner , Dexter Gordon , Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Blakey. The festival was immediately successful upon returning to Newport, although no longer quite the draw it had been in its first years, owing to shifting interests and to the proliferation of competing festivals. Future installments in the 1980s and 1990s also predominantly featured jazz performers, although acts in other genres continued to appear sporadically, including return performances by B.B. King and Ray Charles in 1984, and blues rock guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble in 1985. In 1988,
945-540: A morning performance of Brubeck's oratio The Light in the Wilderness , an afternoon set by James Brown , and an evening finale headlined by the British rock band Led Zeppelin , jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock , blues guitarists B. B. King and Johnny Winter , and jazz drummer Buddy Rich and his orchestra. Davis remarked that the various artists involved were highly encouraging to each other and that he enjoyed
1050-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,
1155-415: A new venue. The Newport Casino would not again host the festival since its lawn and other facilities did not stand up well to such a large event. Festival backer Elaine Lorillard , with her husband, purchased " Belcourt ", a large estate which was available locally, in hopes of hosting the festival there. However, the neighborhood disallowed that plan, citing concerns about potential disturbance. Consequently,
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#17327978051521260-484: A number of jazz musicians but was financially unsuccessful. Bernstein announced that he would not seek to return to Newport in 1962. In 1962, the Newport Jazz Festival resumed at Freebody Park. Wein did not resurrect the extinct not-for-profit organization which had run the Newport Jazz Festival through 1960; instead, he freshly incorporated the festival as an independent business venture of his own. He
1365-518: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of
1470-660: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key
1575-460: A riot, to announce that the Sunday evening Led Zeppelin appearance was cancelled. That show was allowed to go forward as initially scheduled after much of the overflow crowd had left the city, following the cancellation announcement. The 1970 festival was three days instead of the usual four with an estimated attendance of 40,400. Promoter George Wein reverted to an all-jazz policy after he stated
1680-563: A trend of using the "Newport Jazz Festival" name outside of Newport, as in the Newport Jazz Festival in Madarao , Japan, from 1982 to 2004. During the 1970s, the Newport Jazz Festival pioneered corporate sponsorship of music festivals. Working with Schlitz and KOOL , the festival changed its name based on what company was sponsoring. In 1981, George Wein brought the Newport Jazz Festival back to Newport, partly to preserve
1785-516: Is Why You're Overweight" and "Eddie Who?". In 1975, however, he alienated some of his audience with his album The Reason Why I'm Talking S--t , which consisted mainly of comedy. After recording for Atlantic for over 12 years, Harris left the record company after completing his final album for the label in 1977. He then signed with RCA Records and recorded two albums. Harris died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles on November 5, 1996, at
1890-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,
1995-693: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo
2100-558: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were
2205-493: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In
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#17327978051522310-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,
2415-625: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and
2520-617: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz
2625-575: The Duke Ellington Orchestra's lengthy 1956 performance of " Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue ", featuring a 27-chorus saxophone solo by Paul Gonsalves . A reconstructed Ellington at Newport , from his 1956 performance, was re-issued in 1999. Aside from the actual festival performance of " Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue ", including the distant-sounding Gonsalves solo, the original album used re-creations, note for note, of some of
2730-628: The Gigi Gryce - Donald Byrd Jazz Laboratory and the Cecil Taylor Quartet featuring Steve Lacy were released on At Newport (1958). The performance of Count Basie was issued as Count Basie at Newport in 1958. The notable film Jazz on a Summer's Day was made from footage of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival featuring such performers as Louis Armstrong, Anita O'Day and Mahilia Jackson. The film and its soundtrack have been widely released on VHS, DVD, Vinyl and CD. Performances at
2835-654: The VHS video cassette, offered a sponsorship package, and Kool agreed to withdraw its sponsorship for financial reasons. That year the event was renamed the JVC Jazz Festival. That year's lineup reflected a shift away from an almost exclusive focus on mainstream jazz, and introcuded blues, soul, and experimental jazz performers. Performers included Charles, Gillespie, Davis, Ron Carter, and Flora Purim. Coverage in The Providence Journal characterized
2940-411: The 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in
3045-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from
3150-541: The 1960 festival by Muddy Waters and Nina Simone were released as the albums At Newport 1960 and Nina Simone at Newport (1960). The 1962 Festival is documented in a film released by Storyville Records . Among the performers are Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan , the Oscar Peterson Trio, Roland Kirk , Duke Ellington , and the Count Basie Orchestra featuring Jimmy Rushing , at
3255-501: The 1970s. From 1970 to 1975, he experimented with new instruments of his own invention (the reed trumpet was a trumpet with a saxophone mouthpiece, the saxobone was a saxophone with a trombone mouthpiece, and the guitorgan was a combination of guitar and organ), with singing the blues , with jazz-rock (he recorded an album with Steve Winwood , Jeff Beck , Albert Lee , Ric Grech , Zoot Money , Ian Paice and other rockers). He also started singing comic R&B/blues songs, such as "That
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3360-476: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described
3465-687: The Atlantic hit single and edited into two parts. For the 11th Annual Grammy Awards in 1968, Harris was nominated for the Best Instrumental Jazz Performance for Small Group or Soloist with Small Group for the Album – The Electrifying Eddie Harris . In 1969, he performed with pianist and vocalist Les McCann at the Montreux Jazz Festival . Although the musicians had been unable to rehearse, their session
3570-638: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to
3675-464: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo
3780-562: The Festival would be cancelled. Poet Langston Hughes , on the grounds, wrote an impromptu lyric called "Goodbye Newport Blues" and brought it to Muddy Waters , who was headlining the Sunday blues presentation. They announced a spontaneous performance of the piece with pianist Otis Spann leading the band. Likewise the Nashville All-Stars retreated to their rented mansion and recorded a live album on its porch, called After
3885-482: The Jazz Futures ensemble of young jazz musicians that also featured Roy Hargrove and Antonio Hart . In 2016, McBride was selected as the festival's artistic director and lineup curator. In early 2007, Newport Jazz Festival producer George Wein sold his Festival Productions company to Festival Network, a company operated by former Shoreline Media executive Chris Shields. Festival Networked owned and operated
3990-537: The Newport Jazz Festival legacy and to protect his interest in the Newport Jazz Festival name. Arrangements with the title sponsor of the Newport Jazz Festival-New York had seen that festival promoted as the "Kool Jazz Festival". The revived festival took place at Fort Adams State Park, where it has remained since. Newport, now quite keen to tourism, was extremely receptive to the resumption of its Newport Jazz Festival. The 1981 bill featured
4095-476: The Newport Jazz Festival with Wein in a senior position. Starting in 2007, the Newport festival began serving beer and wine at Fort Adams State Park. Wein began running the festival again in 2009 after the company that owned the event experienced financial difficulty. In 2011, Wein established the non-profit Newport Festivals Foundation, which has operated the jazz and folk festivals since. The 2020 festival
4200-660: The R&;B chart. The album's second track, "Listen Here", was issued as a single climbing to No. 11 R&B and No. 45 on the Hot 100. Harris released several different versions of his composition over the years, including both studio and live concert recordings. The first appeared on an early Atlantic album, Mean Greens , featuring him on electric piano. He was to re-work the track two years later, stretching it out to over seven minutes in length, for his hit version on which he played saxophone. The entire track appeared on both sides of
4305-540: The Riot at Newport . On Monday the 4th the last two days of the festival were indeed cancelled. The 1960 event was also notable for the presence of a rival jazz festival that took place at the Cliff Walk Manor Hotel, just a few blocks away. This was organized by musicians Charles Mingus and Max Roach in protest against the festival paying less to jazz innovators, compared to more mainstream performers;
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4410-665: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and
4515-589: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in
4620-531: The age of 62. With Buddy Montgomery With Bernard Purdie With Cedar Walton With Ellis Marsalis, Jr. With Horace Parlan With Horace Silver With John Scofield Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since
4725-423: The band's. Gonsalves' performance so excited the audience that the festival sponsors feared that the crowd was on the verge of rioting. The 1957 festival was well documented by Verve Records , which released 12 albums of recorded performances. The 1957 performances of Ella Fitzgerald , Billie Holiday , and Carmen McRae were released on the album Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday at Newport (1958). Those by
4830-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized
4935-422: The closing. Part of the appearances by John Coltrane and Archie Shepp from the 1965 Festival appeared on the album New Thing at Newport . A set by Herbie Mann featuring Chick Corea , at that same year's festival, was released on the album Standing Ovation at Newport . Mann also released an album, mostly recorded at that performance, titled New Mann at Newport (1967). Albert Ayler 's performance at
5040-555: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within
5145-430: The documentary film Jazz on a Summer's Day the following year. In 1960, local papers on July 1 noted a string of violent, but minor, incidents in town on the opening Friday. Saturday was much worse, with thousands of people unable to enter the sold-out shows roaming the city streets and battling police. Some 200 people were arrested, a town record. The National Guard was called in. By Sunday word circulated that
5250-434: The early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were
5355-509: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in
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#17327978051525460-540: The early festivals were broadcast on Voice of America radio, and many performances were recorded and released as albums. In 1972, the Newport Jazz Festival was moved to New York City. In 1981, it became a two-site festival when it was returned to Newport while continuing in New York. From 1984 to 2008, the festival was known as the JVC Jazz Festival; in the economic downturn of 2009, JVC ceased its support of
5565-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as
5670-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",
5775-443: The fact that the innovators were mostly black and the mainstream performers mostly white was also an aggravating factor. In 1961, presentation of the official Newport Jazz Festival was disallowed, due to the difficulties associated with the previous year's festival. In its place, another festival, billed as "Music at Newport", was produced by Sid Bernstein in cooperation with a group of Newport businessmen. That festival included
5880-665: The festival and was replaced by CareFusion . The festival is hosted in Newport at Fort Adams State Park . It is often held in the same month as the Newport Folk Festival . In 1954, the first Newport Jazz Festival (billed as the "First Annual American Jazz Festival") was held at Newport Casino , in the Bellevue Avenue Historic District of Newport, Rhode Island . It incorporated academic panel discussions and featured live musical performances. The live performances were set outdoors, on
5985-479: The festival began also hosting annual concerts at the Newport Casino , where the first festival was held in 1954, with performers such as Tony Bennett , Mel Tormé , Illinois Jacquet , k.d. lang , Diana Krall , Ray Charles, Harry Connick Jr. , and Wynton Marsalis . JVC became the primary sponsor of the festival in 1984; Wein stated that the audio-visual equipment company, which had recently developed
6090-478: The festival more than ever before. He also noticed and appreciated the spirited nature of the younger audience. But some clashes did occur. Excess crowds, estimated at 50,000, who had been unable to obtain tickets filled an adjacent hillside, and the weekend was marred by disturbances, including fence crashing and crowd surging, during the most popular performances. Saturday evening's disturbances were particularly significant, prompting producer George Wein, who feared
6195-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in
6300-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired
6405-442: The following year where he re-established himself. In 1965, Atlantic released The In Sound , a bop album which won back many of his detractors. During the next few years, he began to perform on electric piano and the electric Varitone saxophone, and to perform a mixture of jazz and funk that sold well in both the jazz and rhythm and blues markets. In 1967, his album The Electrifying Eddie Harris reached second place on
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#17327978051526510-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In
6615-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,
6720-460: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in
6825-508: The jazz-fusion groups Chase , Soft Machine , and Weather Report . Many more fans were drawn than Festival Field could accommodate. On the second night, after the recording of what would become The Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Gerry Mulligan – The Last Set at Newport , over 12,000 people on the adjacent hillside crashed the fence during Dionne Warwick 's performance of " What the World Needs Now Is Love ". The festival
6930-578: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to
7035-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in
7140-780: The lineup as "the most exciting in at least five years." The festival drew a varied crowd of 7,000 that year. The festival continued to take place annually at Fort Adams through the 1990s and 2000s. Along with established jazz performers such as Wynton Marsalis and George Benson, the festival also featured contemporary jazz musicians, as well as appearances from artists who performed other, related genres. These included: Tito Puente and Celia Cruz (1990), Tower of Power (1992), Thomas Chapin (1995), Medeski Martin & Wood (1997), Femi Kuti , Cassandra Wilson , John Zorn , and Maceo Parker (2000), Isaac Hayes (2002), Pat Metheny (2003), and Dr. John (2006). Bassist Christian McBride made his Jazz Festival debut in 1991 as part of
7245-955: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville
7350-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement
7455-474: The movie Exodus . A shortened version of the track, which featured his playing in the upper register of the tenor saxophone, was heavily played on radio and became the first jazz record ever to be certified gold. The single, "Exodus", climbed into the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached No. 16 in the U.S. R&B chart . He moved to Columbia Records in 1964 and then to Atlantic Records
7560-697: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in
7665-583: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for
7770-693: The next years, but Wein missed the outdoors of Newport which the venues of New York City failed to duplicate. In 1977, Wein worked with the city of Saratoga Springs, New York , to move the festival to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center during the following year. He established the Newport Jazz Festival-Saratoga and remained in New York City, retaining the Newport Jazz Festival-New York in what amounted to an expansion. The Saratoga addition began
7875-508: The night. The festival concluded on Sunday with performances from Roberta Flack , Gene McDaniels , Buddy Rich and Ella Fitzgerald . For 1971, the festival booked the rock group The Allman Brothers Band alongside an otherwise predominantly jazz and soul-oriented bill that included performances by Aretha Franklin , Ray Charles , Duke Ellington , Roberta Flack, Charles Mingus , Ornette Coleman , Dionne Warwick , Dave Brubeck, King Curtis , Dizzy Gillespie , and Herbie Mann , as well as
7980-404: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides
8085-618: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of
8190-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which
8295-500: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of
8400-458: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has
8505-494: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman
8610-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed
8715-676: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became
8820-480: The previous year had "maybe too much rock." On the first day there was a tribute to Louis Armstrong featuring Dizzy Gillespie , Bobby Hackett , Joe Newman , Wild Bill Davison , Jimmy Owns , and Ray Nance . Mahalia Jackson made a rare festival appearance to pay respects to Armstrong. Saturdays performers included Nina Simone and the Herbie Mann Quintet with Ike & Tina Turner closing out
8925-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in
9030-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by
9135-573: The set's highlights, which were re-recorded in the studio. The new set restored the original festival performance after a recording from the Voice of America (which broadcast the performance) was discovered and, among other things, the odd timbre of the Gonsalves performance. Gonsalves, it turned out, stepped up to the wrong microphone to play his legendary solo; he stepped up to the VOA's microphone and not
9240-556: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from
9345-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding
9450-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were
9555-575: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing
9660-494: The workshops and receptions were held at Belcourt, while the music was presented at Freebody Park, an arena for sports located a block behind the casino. Some Newport residents were opposed to the festival. Jazz appreciation was not common within the established upper-class community, and the festival brought crowds of younger music fans to Newport. Many attendees were students who, in the absence of sufficient lodging, slept outdoors wherever they could, with or without tents. Newport
9765-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take
9870-500: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from
9975-551: Was drafted into the United States Army and while serving in Europe, he was accepted into the 7th Army Band which also included Don Ellis , Leo Wright , and Cedar Walton . Leaving military service, Harris worked in New York City before returning to Chicago where he signed a contract with Vee Jay Records . His first album for Vee Jay, Exodus to Jazz , included his own jazz arrangement of Ernest Gold 's theme from
10080-470: Was a music festival pioneer and would run many festivals besides the Newport Jazz Festival during his career. The 1964 festival was the last at Freebody Park, since the event had outgrown that venue also. Festival organizers saw a need to move the festival outside of the downtown area, since the festival-caused gridlock there was a contentious point in the community. A suitable site, actually a simple but ample field, which would become known as Festival Field ,
10185-463: Was at first not accustomed to this. Traffic gridlock and other contention near the downtown venue were legitimate concerns. Moreover, many of the musicians and their fans were African American. Racist attitudes were probably a factor in some residents' opposition to the festival too as it commonly was across the country at that time. Nonetheless, the festival continued annually and increased in popularity, aided in part by 1958 concert footage released as
10290-516: Was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Booked artists were invited to return in 2021. Citing his advancing age and the pandemic, founder George Wein was unable to attend the 2021 Newport Jazz Festival; it was only the third time he was not in attendance since the event's founding in 1954. Wein died on September 13, 2021. Two of the most famous performances in the festival's history are Miles Davis ' 1955 solo on " 'Round Midnight " and
10395-486: Was from Cuba and his mother from Mississippi. He studied music under Walter Dyett at DuSable High School , as had many other successful Chicago musicians (including Nat King Cole , Clifford Jordan , Johnny Griffin , Gene Ammons , Julian Priester , and others). He later studied music at Roosevelt University ; by that time he was proficient on piano, vibraphone , and tenor saxophone. While in college he performed professionally with Gene Ammons . After college, Harris
10500-516: Was halted after the stage was rushed and equipment destroyed. The festival would not return to Newport in 1972. In 1972, festival producer George Wein transplanted the festival to New York City, calling it the Newport Jazz Festival-New York. An expanded format involved multiple venues, including Yankee Stadium and Radio City Music Hall , and comprised 30 concerts with 62 performers including Dave Brubeck , Ray Charles , Duke Ellington , Roberta Flack, and Dizzy Gillespie. This format continued for
10605-485: Was identified, and the move was completed for the 1965 festival. Frank Sinatra played the festival that year, and new attendance records were set. Festival Field remained the venue for the jazz festival until 1971. The festival's 1969 program was an experiment in fusing jazz, soul, and rock music, and their respective audiences. The Thursday evening set featured performances by jazz musicians Sun Ra , Bill Evans , George Benson , Freddie Hubbard , and Anita O'Day , and
10710-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in
10815-410: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Newport Jazz Festival Most of
10920-516: Was so successful that a recording of it was released by Atlantic as Swiss Movement . This became one of the best-selling jazz albums ever and was nominated during the 13th Annual Grammy Awards (1970) for the Best Jazz Performance – Small Group or Soloist with Small Group. Harris also came up with the idea of the reed trumpet, playing one for the first time at the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival . He moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in
11025-536: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and
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