Newport Jazz Festival 2015

On Friday July 24^th 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 13^th. 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.