Past, Present, and Future: Day Three of the 2024 Newport Jazz Festival

We conclude our review of the 2024 Newport Jazz Festival – read day one here and day two here – by continuing to examine parallels between the musical greats of the past and the artists with us today. As previously noted, this analysis is neither intended to minimize the distinctive individualism of the legends no longer with us, nor to overlook the contributions of those who continue to push the music forward; instead, it aims to examine the threads that unite them. Applied to the third day of the festival, August 4, 2024, we consider the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, Newport at 70, Meshell Ndegeocello, Amaro Freitas, Christian McBride’s Jam Jawn, and Nile Rodgers and Chic.

The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis and The John Coltrane Quintet (1966)

Sunday began in the Quad, an area enclosed by tall granite walls designed to protect against an oncoming assault. For those listeners gathered in the space, however, perhaps even more firepower surrounded them than evaded them. Erected on the rhythmic core of the legendary punk band Fugazi, the Messthetics had the power to pound audiences as heavily as they desired. The sheer force of bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty brought an inescapable energy that could likely be felt across Fort Adams. They certainly woke up anyone left drained from two days of heat and incredible music.

And yet, they also didn’t hesitate to lie back and indulge in the more serene moments, as on a piece like “Boatly” that evoked the drifting graciousness of a sailcraft floating by the bay. This variability in setting scenes provided a perfect backdrop for guitarist Anthony Pirog and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis (JBL) to explore more freely. At times, this increased freedom meant more frenzied sounds. At others, it proved more nuanced. At certain moments, JBL’s gospel influences poured out of his bell. And, throughout, it recalled John Coltrane at the 1966 Newport Jazz Festival.

John Coltrane performed at Newport five times during his career, four as a leader and once as Miles Davis’ sideman in 1958. Of these, all but the last have garnered significant critical acclaim. His first as a leader in 1961, technically a part of the non-Wein run Music at Newport, and the second, two years later, are often heralded as among Trane’s greatest live performances. By 1965, the saxophonist pushed ever outward sonically. In an afternoon dubbed “The New Thing in Jazz,” a masterful performance of Coltrane’s landmark quartet with McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Jimmy Garrison was reaching the end of its powerful run. Later that year, the group would be disbanded entirely. While Garrison would remain, Alice Coltrane would take over the keys, Rashied Ali the sticks, and Pharaoh Sanders would provide a second horn. The music reached far further than perhaps even the leader could have envisioned only eight years earlier. Unfortunately, with the classic band gone, this ensemble is often overshadowed in the history books. It is not due to a lack of musical quality. At Coltrane’s final Newport performance in 1966, the ensemble brought a fire and intensity that could not be mimicked. A sonic enlightenment that could never be feigned. While critics and historians have generally overlooked the date – no cleaned-up major label version of the recorded date has ever been released – the music ultimately speaks for itself. Freedom provided greatness.

Jumping forward almost six decades, the music of Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis is far more approachable than what Coltrane presented in 1966. Some other critics have commented on how Lewis adopts a “sheets of sound” approach reminiscent of ‘Trane. That may be true, but it is an analysis only surface deep. Instead, one must look to what lies at the core of both ensembles: artistic freedom. It is the overt creative expansiveness of both groups that pushes them, and the listener, to another plane. Such is possible only from the best of musicians, giving their all to the music before them.

Newport at 70 and The Jazz Futures (1991)

Duke Ellington. Miles Davis. Thelonious Monk. Newport’s long lineage of incredible jazz performances is so vast that it is easy to fixate on the greats that come before. While that history is undoubtedly worth preserving, a look backwards undermines a significant element of the festival’s full story. Since the beginning, Newport has played a central role in incubating young talent. From the Newport International Youth Band in the 1960s to the ongoing Sunday jam sessions, the Festivals have played a central role in identifying, fostering, and developing up-and-coming voices. Back on the Fort Stage came a group created specifically for this summer’s festival: Newport at 70. Unquestionably reflecting a younger generation, the loose-knit ensemble of alto saxophonist Braxton Cook, tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover, trumpeter Giveton Gelin, flutist Elena Pinderhughes, pianist Caelan Cardello, bassist Anessa Strings, and drummer Savannah Harris, even as they mostly explored some of the festival’s finest moments over the last seven decades.

The performance consisted entirely of old standards with a long history connected to Newport. It began with a rousing rendition of “Two Bass Hit,” a piece Miles Davis once played at Freebody Park with his First Great Quintet back in 1958. Next came Monk’s “Epistrophy” featuring a soaring solo by Gelin. Then an opulent flute solo by Pinderhughes over Cardello’s bluesy piano on the dreamy “I Want to Talk About You,” a Billy Eckstine-penned tune that John Coltrane presented at Newport back in 1963. For the second Monk piece, “Evidence,” the band announced their special guest, Jazzmeia Horn. The vocalist scatted over the melody and a jumping bassline before leading into Abbey Lincoln’s “As Long as You’re Living.” The set closed with “Perdido,” a standard explored at the famed festival by Louis Armstrong in 1956, Carmen McRae in 1957, and Dave Brubeck in 1958. Throughout, the performance was vibrant and contemporary even when its beginning points were over seven decades old. In breathing new life into antiquated forms, Newport at 70 inextricably tied back to the 1991 performance by another set of then young artists, the Jazz Futures. In fact, one Jazz Future, now Newport Jazz Artistic Director, Christian McBride, did not mince words in drawing the parallels. He opened the Newport at 70 by referencing what he did on the same stage thirty-three years prior.

The brainchild of Newport founder George Wein, the Jazz Futures was a short-lived ensemble of some of the brightest names of the then emerging Young Lions: McBride, trumpeters Roy Hargrove and Marlon Jordan, alto saxophonist Antonio Hart, tenor saxophonist Tim Warfield, guitarist Mark Whitfield, pianist Benny Green, and drummer Carl Allen. Today, we recognize them as heavy hitters in the music. But back then, they were still mostly trying to make a name for themselves. That August 28th performance certainly did. Across the driving “Mode for John” and several reimagined standards like the swaying “Stardust,” the band proved their time is now. And we now look at the performance as the apex of the reemergence of straight-ahead music. While time will tell where the Newport at 70 members’ careers will lead them, when compared to the Jazz Futures, they are certainly in good company.

Meshell Ndegeocello and The Newport Rebels Festival (1960)

Next on the Fort Stage came Meshell Ndegeocello. The first winner of the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Jazz Album, the bassist-vocalist has never shied away from speaking her mind on social and political issues. Backed by a band led by West Coast saxophone phenom Josh Johnson, her Newport set was no different. This time, she drew inspiration from James Baldwin. Her first public performance exploring the works of the writer and Civil Rights leader was bold and unafraid to speak truth to power. Donning a shirt reading “Meshell Ndegeocello is a Band,” the leader made clear that while her spoken word was coming from her mouth, she also served as a representative for many seeking justice. Lyrical threads from Baldwin’s work weaved together a series of folksy riffs, hard-hitting basslines, and bluesy refrains. But Ndegeocello also made sure not to sugarcoat some of the most problematic sides of Baldwin’s life. As she told the audience towards the end of her set, “Like with all our icons and idols, they have their blind spots. Nobody is perfect. Remember the message more than the person. Baldwin had an issue with feminism.” In pursuing a music that was equal parts emotionally evocative and politically stirring, Ndegeocello’s set proved reminiscent of the work of another bassist, Charles Mingus, at the 1960 Newport Rebels Festival.

By the Newport Jazz Festival’s seventh summer, the event had grown far beyond anything Wein and the Lorillards ever could have initially envisioned. The event’s economic success, however, frustrated several prominent Black jazz artists. Chief among them were Mingus and Max Roach, who were particularly irked by the disparity in pay between big-profile bookings and more avant-garde-leaning ones. They alleged racism rather than economics as the primary driver of this change. Supported by writer Nat Hentoff and the ousted Board Member Elaine Lorillard, Mingus and Roach decided to start a rebel festival – scheduled concurrent with Wein’s event. It was to take place only blocks from Freebody Park, at the Cliff Walk Manor. For their event, they booked an impressive lineup that included Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, Kenny Dorham, Abbey Lincoln, Booker Little, Roy Eldridge, and Jo Jones. While the Rebels would mend their relationships with Wein not long after, their one-off Festival proved that musicians could successfully self-organize and control their own narrative. Like with Ndegeocello, their statement was as much through musical notes as it was a commentary on the political and economic environment.

Amaro Freitas and The Thelonious Monk Trio (1958)

Over at the Harbor Stage, Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas took the stage with bassist and URI professor Dave Zinno and drummer François Morin. Performing music from the pianist-leader’s album, ‘Y’Y,’ the trio presented an approach to the longstanding piano trio form that attempted to better reflect the sounds of the rainforest by abandoning colonized interpretations of jazz and emphasizing the magic and stewardship of the earth.

The first piece found Freitas placing shakers on the strings of his piano to provide a low rumble with harsh zings that ultimately cede to deceptively familiar melodic lines before building into a tense and feverish boil. The second piece was a heavily swinging number where preparations provided an electric feeling to the piano, allowing the scene to build in intensity before an ultimately loud and powerful crash. At another moment, repetitive minimalist motifs continue to morph and change before completely disintegrating. The pieces,”Y’Y,” “Dança dos Martelos” (Dance of the Hammers),” and “Uiara (Encantada da Água)” while each distinct, emphasized the creation of sonic worlds through distinctive use of timbres and rhythms more than singable melodies. The trio’s distinctive use of preparations is unlike anything else ever presented at Newport. And yet, one cannot help but feel a connection to the trio work of Thelonious Monk.

During his career, Monk performed at Newport a whopping nine times, including one very memorable late-in-life date when the Festival was exiled to New York. But one, his 1958 trio date as captured in the film, ‘Jazz on a Summer’s Day’ particularly stands out. The trio with Roy Haynes on drums and Henry Grimes on bass was more pared back than Monk’s more common quartet setting featuring saxophone. This reduced size allowed the pianist to lie more into the idiosyncrasies- the rigidly percussive chords, the atypical polyphonic note choices to suggest notes between the equal tempered ones, and his unique movements at the keys – of his approach more than he otherwise would. He had incredible chemistry with his bandmates and they were able to bring these more distinctive elements of the leader’s approach to create a singular, coherent voice that extended beyond the keys, strings, and sticks placed in the musicians’ hands. Just with Freitas, by approaching the piano as a living and breathing instrument that can go in its own direction, Monk extracted its essence that stood beyond the formalities of common approaches to make something more beautiful.

Laufey and Frank Sinatra (1965)

Back at the Fort Stage, Laufey came out to an enraptured crowd of fans as Debussy’s “Claire de Lune” was played by her attending rhythm trio and string quartet. Although the Icelandic singer-guitarist-cellist had performed at Newport in 2022, it was the first time she had taken to such a large setting as the Fort Stage. And the audience was indeed vast. She took the stage at a time where there had been an ongoing debate about her music specifically and whether it is or is not jazz. A critical observer of her performance would be unlikely to walk away with a definitive statement either way on the matter. At times, her music recalled pleasant instrumental music one would hear in the background at a formal dinner. At others, it mirrored the beautiful music that once dominated AM radio but has over the years largely vanished. Songs had dreamy romanticized lyrics like “By the Milky Way, I’ll Stay There Forever and a Day” on her song, “Magnolia” or “Nobody’s going to be so smart as to pierce my porcelain heart” on “Dreamer.”

On “Falling Behind,” she spoke of how everyone but her seems to be falling in love as she played her guitar. She had many, particularly a large swath of young women, eating out of her hands. The set of mostly original pieces then concluded with her rendition of Jimmy Van Heusen’s “It Could Happen to You,” featuring a piano reference to another standard, “If I Were a Bell.” But, again, even as much as the audience loved it and while respect was given to the classics, was it jazz?

But this debate between what is and is not jazz music – often not very productive – is also hardly new. And based solely on the way Laufey was able to connect with the audience, it evoked memories of Frank Sinatra’s performance at the 1965 Newport Jazz Festival.

Let’s be very clear here: there is only one Chairman of the Board. Laufey actually does not sound like him at all, although both occasionally borrow from the Great American Songbook. And yet, both had audiences equally enamored of their performances, outings that straddled a line between pop and jazz. In Old Blue Eyes’ case, his only appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival found him backed by a big band – the Count Basie Orchestra conducted by Quincy Jones, no less – for the first time in twenty years. Some skeptics claimed his music had no place at a festival featuring voices at the forefront of jazz of the time, including Miles Davis, Art Blakey, and John Coltrane. But the fourteen thousand who quickly sold out Festival Field were undeterred. Frank certainly played into it as well, adding an allure to his performance by landing a baby-blue helicopter directly behind the stage and stepping straight into his massive trailer. Over the next almost two and a half hours, so many in the audience kept staring at his trailer, hoping to see him emerge. By the time he did, to take to the stage, he provided an incredibly energetic performance that seemed to win over even some of the most ardent of critics. As TIME Magazine said of the event, Sinatra had “captured 14,000 skeptical jazz fans and made them Sinatra fans.

Christian McBride’s Jam Jawn and Newport’s long history of jam sessions

Closing the Quad Stage, Christian McBride opened with a monologue concluding that “It’s time for the grand finale. Time to say a soulful so long.” His speech led into the latest  rendition of the bassist’s Jam Jawns. Since fully taking on as Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival, McBride’s Jam Jawns have become a highlight of each summer’s offerings. 2024 proved no different, finding him directing an ad hoc group of legends, understated artists, and emerging talent. This time, he congregated with funk hero-trombonist Fred Wesley, drummer Steve Jordan, saxophonist Kirk Whalum, trumpeter Russell Gunn, pianist Christian Sands, and guitarist Felicia Connors. Special guest, NEA Jazz Master Dianne Reeves, joined in later in the set as well.

The combined ensemble stretched out over a set of standards and lesser-known pieces by legends. The opener, Stanley Turrentine’s “Sugar,” featured a solo by Whalum where he played a little more aggressively, though beautifully, than the smoother sounds for which he is stereotypically known. Wesley’s solo referenced Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” before Connors’ bluesy lines and McBride’s more traditional walking bass. Eddie Harris’ “Cold Duck Time” similarly found the group in a space that mined the commonalities of soul jazz and funk. The music overall was incredibly contemporary and made you want to move. It well showcased the distinctive voices of each of the musicians, but it also harked back to something hardly novel to Newport.

Although fairly rare in the years leading up to McBride’s Directorship, Newport’s jam session sets actually date as far back as the festival itself. The very first festival in 1954 had one. The following year’s meeting of Miles Davis with Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims, Percy Heath, and Connie Kay famously revived the trumpeter’s career and led to an insanely fruitful, decades-long relationship. Even the notorious “rock” year of 1969 still included a jam session led by organist Jimmy Smith that featured such firepower as Art Blakey, Sonny Stitt, Hampton Hawes, and Howard McGhee. And when the Festival was exiled to New York for most of the 1970s, the tradition continued. In 1976, for instance, the Radio City Music Hall hosted a late-night session of Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughan. None of that is to take away from the uniqueness of McBride’s 2024 Jam Jawn, but merely to note that it needs to be viewed within the significant historical lineage in which it exists, a thread that has guided the artistic direction of Newport since the very beginning.

Nile Rodgers & Chic and Sly & the Family Stone (1969)

The entire festival closed back at the Fort Stage with a heavy grooving performance by Nile Rodgers and Chic. It is impossible to envision modern popular music without Rodgers’ compositional and guitar skills. He has sold more than seven hundred fifty thousand albums and more than a hundred million singles. Across his decades of work with his own band and collaborations with Diana Ross, Madonna, Sister Sledge, Daft Punk, and Coldplay, he has forged a career few could even dream of and, in so doing, created a songbook surpassed by few other living artists. It certainly gave him a lot to draw upon at Newport while showing that despite all the baseless claims, disco is not only still relevant but fantastic vibrant music.

The set started with “Le Freak” before moving on to “Clap Your Hands,” “I Want Your Love,” “I’m Coming Out,” “You Turn Me,” “We Are Family,” “Material Girl,” “Get Lucky,” and so many others. Rodgers himself seemed incredibly psyched to be at the historic event, telling the crowd, “I’m so happy to be here at Newport, you have no idea.” And the feeling seemed mutual, with the field of listeners turned into a massive dance party with the crowd losing itself in the music, even as an impending rainstorm increasingly threatened the Fort. One might, arguably, someone less familiar with Newport’s history, might question Rodgers’ presence at the top jazz festival in the world. His band’s horns were incredibly tight and took masterful solos. His backing vocalists added a swagger to the affair, and the whole outing was an exercise in Black musical excellence of the type that has guided Newport’s performances – jazz and adjacent – so heavily over the decades.

But if one were forced to find a specific historical analogue, perhaps the best comparison is to Sly and the Family Stone at the 1969 Festival. At Festival Field, fifty-five years before Chic, Sly Stone’s funky grooves, masterfully composed pieces, and tightly-knit performances drove the crowd to such a fervor that it nearly caused a riot. The bandleader only further stoked the flames, ultimately causing ticketholders to run into the photography pit, people from a nearby hill to steal paying audience members’ seats, and security to do all it could to keep people from climbing on the stage. By some miracle, complete disaster was averted by the help of Led Zeppelin. Back to the present: the crowd at Fort Adams for Nile Rodgers was never out of control. There were no risks of any significant rules being broken. And yet the escape that only music can provide returned. The inescapable need to dance remained as strong as ever. All before the rain ultimately washed the Fort grounds, clearing them for the next summer.

Watch the legacy of the past, the power of the present, and blueprints for the future all come alive at the Newport Jazz Festival. 

Photo credits: T. Jordan Hill, PostGenre Media