On Friday July 24th
Jazz Mobile Summerfest presented Barry Harris Jazz Group that included the BH
chorus. At 8:15pm The Classical Theater of Harlem presented the Tempest with Ron Cephas Jones as Prospero.
At the #7 bus stop on the way home I made a new friend. MP had already made
extensive plans to attend the NEWPORT
JAZZ FESTIVAL: car renting, hotel and
tickets purchased on line.
NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL
is the oldest and grandest of jazz listening venues. It is a three day
Friday-Sunday mega event, July 31- August 2, 2015. It is produced by Newport
Festivals Foundation, Inc. a nonprofit, with generous support from NATIXIS
global asset management. When my dream of attending began to percolate I surfed
newportjazzfest.org. The
list of scheduled artists were unfamiliar names. The location was Fort Adams
State Park, a half hour drive from a friend’s summer home in Rhode Island.
It was a long slow drive
from Manhattan on Friday afternoon. Giving me the opportunity to admire the
variety of beautiful trees along the scenic and winding Highway 15. Je’dore Le
Merritt. Young and old trees, small and large, some pruned, some sculptured by
storms, small leaves, broad leaves but rarely a conifer. As the sun set, a blue moon rose, large and
bright.
Saturday morning it was a pleasant drive on Highway 138 then
parking in Jamestown. Taking the $23
roundtrip ferry ride to the Fort Adams Park was a choppy 15 minutes. The Jamestown exit (before the second bridge)
avoided the traffic congestion in the town of Newport . In a party of two or
more economically park in Newport at
$25, then ferry to Fort Adams $10 roundtrip. First mate Joy aided the
boarding. Captain Skip checking tables
in Elderidge explained the unusually
low tide associated with perigee. Mean low at Jamestown is 4.8feet.
In my starry eyes there
appeared a gentleman up-holding Festival tickets. He gave me one.
The
Fort Stage is the largest of the four across the park. There are picnic tables near
the Quad Stage. The Storyville stage is indoors and Harbor Stage is the shadiest, coolest
spot. They all have chairs up front for 10am arrivals. The next option is
rearmost ground seating in the sun. There were many arts and craft vendors:
jewelry; hand-bags; paintings: abstract and portraits; fashionable clothes in
African prints; WBGO jazz station chairs
for sale that were the regulated 39” height; a tent where you could purchase appearing
artists’ CDs. Lots of food: lobster roll sandwiches, huge colorful open tacos,
pulled pork, oysters, clams and chowder. Yum galore. The Brother Thelonius Beer Garden required ID for entrance. Jazz media: Jazz Times and Downbeat and radio stations including the New Jersey station WBGO
which sponsored a daily bus trip to the Festival that departed from my
neighborhood, the Westside of Manhattan.
Being overwhelmed by the
immensity of the crowd I quickly spread an old ragtag patchwork quilt in the
grassy area closer to the water than to
the Fort Stage. Maria Schneider
introduced her orchestra with Jonathan Blake ( a name I know from Kaufman’s CD)
on drums. I could hear him but I couldn’t see him. Then the person in the chair
in front of me shifted; the giant screen monitor came into view. The breeze
across the water hardly cooled too much sunshine. Next came Jon Batiste, Cassandra Wilson. My new friend, MP arrived with her mom from
Baltimore with fruit, sandwiches and chips!
At 5:20pm as Irvin Mayfield and
the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra took
the stage my heat addled brain couldn’t remember how to get home?
Donning my socks and
sneakers I folded the quilt and began to stroll toward the Entrance Gate. There was a short line to board the Jamestown
Ferry, 15 minutes back. Then a van shuttle to the parking lot near Highway 138
and the half hour back to the BLS cabin.
The traveling challenge gave
way to musing about this culture, this scene , this American musical art form:
JAZZ. At all points of possible interaction with strangers a camaraderie was
acknowledged. This was a warm and friendly crowd. Yet this audience did include
some people who chatted the entire set away. No, this was not a concert, not a
set in a club, not a gig nor a jam session. There was jumpin, swinging, bluesy
music on four stages all day long. There was constant strolling from stage to
stage. There as the opportunity to less intrusively leave or enter
mid-performance for a recently vacated shady seat. This music with its cerebral
chord structure tugs emotions without the listeners’ harmonic analysis. In the
same way that an erotic impulse is an emotion with no guarantee of a committed
relationship.
Sunday morning up early
whizzing Highway 138, Jamestown exit, easily finding parking at the Conanicut
Marine Services yard. Two other Festival goers boarded the van shuttle to the
East Ferry Wharf. SH read the logo on my knapsack. She asked, ,"Are you a
cytotech?" Not remembering the logo I was startled! SH works at Lab Core,
a specialist like my retired self. She knows where George Papanicolaou is buried in New Jersey and visits there
annually on our Professional Recognition Day, May 13th. SH works at
Lab Core a private lab in New Jersey; I worked in the hospital laboratory at
Roosevelt/St.Luke’s. We exclaimed the perils of a sedentary career peering thru
a microscope. And associated the ‘four stages’ with a prognosis. Her companion,
LG is a sound engineer preparing for the Raritan, New Jersey Jazz Festival in
September. Perhaps we three will meet again.
At the Admission Box Office
$16 was returned from a $100 bill. Jon
Faddis Triumph of Trumpets was
blaring from the Quad Stage. At the nearby picnic tables I listened and lunched
dinner leftovers. Over at the Harbor Stage Fred
Hersch Trio performed a pianissimo set competing with chirping sparrows.
Next Lou Donaldson introduced his
set, "No confusion, no fusion, no
Kenny G, no 50¢ that’s not worth a quarter." The Brit Jamie Cullum with his
band and a local big band up lifted the crowd to dancing.
WOW!
Let’s plan 2016.
