What to See at the 2022 Newport Jazz Festival – Saturday

Especially after attending for nearly two decades, this author has a deep admiration and respect for the Newport Jazz Festival. Our site extensively covers the history of the legendary festival from before its formation to the present.Under normal circumstances, our site would feature coverage from Fort Adams of the 2022 Festival. However, due to personal obligations, there will be no live reviews of this Summer’s event. Instead, the author previews what he anticipates will be the weekend’s finest performances. Many publications highlight a small number of acts across the weekend as the “acts to watch.” What sets this post apart from those is that our author does not select a small number of sets across the entire weekend. Instead, we provide a proposed schedule to follow each day. Here is the recommended schedule for Saturday, July 30th. Click here for Friday and here for Sunday. Editors Note: This post was updated on July 29, 2022 to reflect the cancellation of Jack DeJohnette’s group.

11:00 AM – 11:45 AM – Holly Bowling (Harbor Stage)

Classically trained pianist Holly Bowling seems discontented with merely revisiting the works of Beethoven or Brahms. Instead, her interests lie in exploring the works of Phish and the Grateful Dead and converting them to the solo piano. During the pandemic, Bowling live-streamed her unconventional reinterpretations of compositions by a wide range of artists, including Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and Weather Report. Bowling’s influences are broad in scope, and she promises to provide a unique performance.

12:05 PM – 12:50 PM – Giveton Gelin (Harbor Stage)

Newport has long been a home for emerging talent, and trumpeter Gelin continues the tradition. The trumpeter, who graduated from Juilliard only last year, has already received significant buzz in jazz circles. Gelin comes from the lineage of his impressive teachers – Wynton Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, and Roy Hargrove – and his debut album, True Design (self-release, 2022), received critical acclaim. Gelin is also part of Julius Rodriguez’ Let Sound Tell All (Verve, 2022), which you can read more about here. 

1:00 PM – 1:20 PM – Makaya McCraven (Fort Stage)

Beat scientist/drummer Makaya McCraven has been labeled a “cultural synthesizer” for his ability to join ideas from different genres with the tradition of jazz. His last two albums show this well. The first recontextualized the music of Gil Scott Heron (We’re New Again: A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven (2020, XL)) while the second remixed Blue Note Records’ legendary back catalogue (Deciphering the Message (2021, Blue Note). Both albums were fascinating explorations of the music that influenced McCraven but he proclaims his forthcoming one, In These Times (International Anthem, 2022), will be the most “definitive expression of his artistic ethos.” It will be fascinating to receive a preview of the record’s pieces by the artist who continually pushes the envelope.

1:45 PM – 2:45 PM – Sons of Kemet (Fort Stage)

The British quartet, Sons of Kemet, will likely cease to exist in its current form after this summer’s tour. The group had a crowd frantically dancing to their fusion of jazz, rock, and Afro-Caribbean music the last time they came to Newport in 2019. It was one of that year’s highlights. Last year’s Black to the Future (Impulse!, 2021) showed the group going in a slightly different direction than their predecessor, Your Queen Is a Reptile (Impulse!, 2018) but one that is no less compelling. Make sure to check out the group before it is too late.

2:55 PM – 3:50 PM – Yussef Dayes (Quad Stage)

Fort Adams was founded on July 4, 1799, primarily to repel British invaders. While it never saw active military combat, one can’t help but notice the beautiful irony that this summer’s Newport Jazz Festival has been taken over by a significant contingency from Britain. Along with Sons of Kemet and Nubya Garcia, drummer Yussef Dayes brings a solid representation of the creative renaissance occurring in the UK music scene. To many people, Black Focus (Brownswood, 2016) by his now-defunct duo with Kamaal Williams, Yussef Kamaal, was an early warning shot to the creative forces brewing in London. Since then, he’s released two albums, What Kinda Music? (Blue Note, 2020) with Tom Misch, and his solo debut, Welcome to the Hills (Cashmere Thoughts, 2020). Both capably blur any lines between jazz, electronica, hip hop, and more. 

Originally scheduled for this block of time as Jack DeJohnette’s Quartet with Don Byron, Matt Garrison and Luisito Quintero. Due to Garrison contracting COVID, out of an abundance of caution, the group cancelled their Newport appearance. For posterity purposes, below is our original paragraph on the group. We wish them well and look forward to their performance next summer.

Jack DeJohnette Quartet with Don Byron, Matt Garrison, and Luisito Quintero (Quad Stage)

Jack DeJohnette has a long history of performing in fascinating groups at Newport. After all, this is the same artist who played drums with Miles at Newport in 1969, mere months before they recorded Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970). Within the last decade, DeJohnette has brought to Newport the avant-garde powerhouse Made in Chicago with some of the AACM’s foremost voices – the late Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, and Larry Gray – and the jazz-rock fusion of Hudson with John Scofield, John Medeski, and Larry Grenadier. The legendary drummer’s latest band promises to be equally enrapturing, especially with the inclusion of Byron on clarinet. Only about a week and a half shy of his 80th birthday, the NEA Jazz Master continues to guide the music forward. 

4:20 PM – 4:50 PM – Maria Schneider Orchestra (Quad Stage)

Speaking of NEA Jazz Masters, Maria Schneider is one of the more recent recipients of the lifetime achievement award. It is a well-deserved recognition. Since entering the scene in the 1990s, Schneider has become one of the most preeminent contemporary composers and bandleaders of large ensembles. Her orchestra’s latest album, Data Lords (Artistshare, 2020), received significant critical appreciation, even becoming a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The recording also built upon her fascination with the role of technology in our lives. In addition to being a gifted artist, Schneider is a copyright expert, having published several open letters and white papers on the issues of musicians’ intellectual property rights. She’s even testified before Congress on the matter. 

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Joe Lovano Trio Tapestry with Marilyn Crispell and Carmen Castaldi (Harbor Stage)

Unlike DeJohnette and Schneider, saxophonist Joe Lovano is not an NEA Jazz Master. But it may just be a matter of time. Whether his soul jazz work with Jack McDuff and Dr. Lonnie Smith, his role in the incomparable trio with Paul Motian and Bill Frisell, or his long run on Blue Note, Lovano has performed in all styles of the jazz idiom. His most recent group, Trio Tapestry, is particularly enthralling. Across their two albums to date, the trio aptly use the compositions’ fluid structures to give weight to both the notes and the silence between them. It helps that Castaldi is a multifaceted percussionist while Crispell is one of the most creative, though largely overlooked, pianists today. Read our review of the trio’s latest album, Garden of Expression (ECM, 2021) here. Or you can read our interview with Crispell (and saxophonist Yuma Uesaka) here. 

The 2022 Newport Jazz Festival will take place from July 29 to July 31 at historic Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island. More information on the event is available on its website.