In the history of improvised music, few figures have brought the music to new audiences as much as George Wein. While the producer did not create the concept of a music festival – they date back to ancient Greece – one can draw a clear dividing line between the time before George Wein and after. Before the first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, music festivals were very localized and small affairs with niche targets. In focusing solely on Wagner operas, the Bayreuth Festival, dating back to 1876, is a fine example. Their limited following forced homogeneous concertgoers into small indoor venues. As a result, the tools needed for big crowds – organized ticketing, professional staging, and sound systems – were largely unused. In many ways, the festival format reflected the historically stereotypical European state:  culture-specific and tied to insular traditions and homogeneous audiences. Even American festivals like those at Tanglewood were often organized in these ways, remnants of an old world. 

But that does not really work – or at least it shouldn’t – in a land that claims to celebrate diversity and pride itself on the idea of E Pluribus Unum; of many becoming one. In some ways, George Wein Americanized- in the best way possible – the concept of a music festival. He moved beyond segmented tastes to present music that could more broadly appeal to listeners: art with improvisational genius at its core, whether labeled jazz or adjacent to it. He pushed his event to outdoor settings to show the interconnectivity of such art and the natural beauty of our nation. The producer relied upon American ingenuity to incorporate functions necessary to share messages with large crowds, whether technological developments or finding new ways – like corporate sponsorship – to fund such presentations. It is no mere coincidence that, for so many years, the Jazz Festival took place on July 4th weekend. 

But the promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have not always been equally applied, of which Wein would have been painfully aware. With the Newport Jazz Festival, he pushed for integrated audiences to hear historically Black music in a city at least partly built upon wealth developed from the slave trade. He also saw the lingering injustices firsthand, not only through the treatment of his friends and colleagues but in how far too many ignorantly judged his marriage to a brilliant woman based on her skin color. As a Jewish man, he undoubtedly encountered antisemitism during his life as well. With the Newport Jazz Festival, Wein aimed less to reflect the America of the time and more the promise of what it could be. Seventy-one years later, it is still pursuing that dream. 

Given that background, one is tempted to view George Wein as a heroic figure; as a rebel trying to use the power of music to lead the nation to its stated ideals. The story of how he refused to create what became the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival until the city could have integrated audiences combined with his insistence upon it representing all facets of the city’s rich culture certainly supports this overarching narrative. Not all would agree. The Newport Rebels of 1960 certainly didn’t, though those bridges were ultimately mended. The real issue, however, seems to be that far too often, humanity tends to romanticize its heroes. As  author Jeffrey Rasley once noted, “When we idealize real people, they lose their humanity.”  A better understanding of George Wein is possible only by talking to someone who personally knew him well. His longtime assistant turned Executive Director of The Joyce and George Wein Foundation, Deborah Ross, is one such person. 

In celebration of what would have been George Wein’s hundredth year, we kick off our 2025 Newport Jazz Festival coverage with a conversation with Ross in hopes of drawing a better picture of Wein, the man beyond the idealized figure. 

PostGenre: How did you first meet George Wein?

Deborah Ross: In 1985, I worked for a man in Boston named Fenton Hollander. He was a concert producer who did something called the Jazz Boat, and I met a lot of jazz musicians through him. I ended up working with George through a Fenton connection, but a classical music one. Fenton used classical musicians in his work as well, and I had worked backstage at Carnegie Hall for something a public relations firm was doing. Through that experience at Carnegie Hall, I met Gus Fleming, who, at that point, was one of the line producers for what was then known as the Kool Jazz Festival. 

Gus told me that I had one job, and one job only, at Carnegie Hall: to make sure that Julie Coryell did not go backstage because her husband, Larry Coryell, was upstairs with his new girlfriend. I agreed and did a great job, and Julie never got backstage. So, then Gus asked me if I was free in June of that year because he needed stage managers for the Kool Jazz Festival in New York. I said I would be happy to help. I still had my regular job, but helping at the festival was something that I was greatly interested in. 

I ended up being assistant stage manager, and that is where I had my first encounter with George. My job was to manage the piano concerts they did. They used to do hour-long solo piano concerts, and the pianist one day was a woman named Patti Bown. The solo concerts were supposed to go for exactly fifty to fifty-five minutes. If they went over, it would go into the stagehand’s dinner hour, which meant it cost more money. I told Patty she was out of time when we hit the fifty-minute mark, and she just kept on going. I panicked backstage when I realized she was going over. I had to tell George what had happened, and he was actually okay with it.  He didn’t blow up at me over it. 

PG: Was he typically calm about artists going over their time?

DR: Well, he did blow up later that week. George had just produced Terence Blanchard and Donald Harrison, Jr.’s first album for Concord Records [New York Second Line (Concord, 1983)]. They were performing and went over time. George ripped into them for doing so. I was stunned by it because my mother was an actress, and I know how sensitive artists can be. I was stunned that he would talk to these artists that way. But he was mad because it was a very tightly programmed evening. In retrospect, George was thinking of the person performing after them whose time would be lessened by them going long.

Later that year, in the Fall of 1985, I got a phone call from John Schreiber, George’s number two guy at the time. John was looking for a new assistant. I enjoyed my job at the PR firm at the time. I mainly worked with classical musicians, orchestras, and conductors. It was an interesting job. However, I thought I would love working with John because I loved my experience working at Carnegie Hall. 

PG: Were you very familiar with jazz at that time?

DR: Well, not heavily. I grew up in Michigan around classical music, opera, and ballet.  Jazz was not something I grew up around much. I learned about jazz through working for Fenton Hollander. Anyway, John hired me as his assistant but fired me about eight weeks later. [laughing]. Now, we laugh about him firing me. So, John went and told George that he was going to fire me, and George said, “No, you’re not firing her. I want her to work here.” So, I started working as the Festivals’ box office manager.

After that, I became George’s assistant and did that for several years. Around the year 2000, George asked me to move from the office to his house because Joyce had cancer and needed a lot of extra assistance. Joyce was an extremely intelligent and brilliant woman. She was also very organized. The first day I came in to start working from the apartment, I was not entirely thrilled with the arrangement. But the first day I went in, Joyce said to me, “I don’t want to see you here five days a week.” So, I went to graduate school on the days I wasn’t working there. I went to Sarah Lawrence [College] and got a Masters Degree in early elementary education. 

PG: You also produced your own jazz festivals.

DR: Yeah, but that was actually before I started working at their apartment. At a certain point, I wanted to do other things besides being George’s assistant. So, I produced the Mellon Jazz Festival in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. That ran concurrently for ten days, so I would bobble back and forth between the two cities. 

PG: It sounds tiring to manage both places at once.

DR: Well, the exhausting thing about Pittsburgh and Philadelphia was that it was in June of 1993. I had my first child in March that year and was managing the festival by June. So, it was a lot of work. I was also the manager of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, which was part of a series George created with Carnegie Hall.  That was a great experience. 

PG: Back to the Weins, do you have any favorite memories of your time with them?

DR: I have so many favorite stories. 

I was so lucky to go to Europe with them several times. When I was working with George initially, he did La Grande Parade du Jazz in Nice [, France], which was then known as the JVC Nice Jazz Festival. I worked with Lois Kuhlmann, who coordinated all the European tours. I was the paymaster for all the musicians and met so many musicians. It was always interesting to me who had managers and which musicians came in and got paid themselves. I also took a couple of road trips with the Weins.

Those were wonderful times. George and Joyce were respectively born in the same years as my parents. They were like second parents to me, though they were so different from my parents. I felt lucky to have these people in my life who, aside from what they did in the jazz and folk worlds, knew about art more generally. I learned so much about African-American art from them. I learned about wine from them. I learned about cooking from them. Joyce was such a great partner for George. 

PG: She also played a very important role behind the scenes, serving in every role from executive leadership to hostess. But her contributions to the festivals generally seem to be less discussed. Do you think she ever felt underappreciated?

DR: She was incredibly special. So many musicians came to her funeral. They understood how important she was. Although much more reserved than George, Joyce was the heart of the Newport festivals. Joyce was not an effusive person, but she was so warm. 

And when you went to a concert, you wanted to hear what she had to say about it. Because she was a scientist [ed.: Joyce was trained as a biochemist], she had a scientific brain that was much more able to take things apart and appreciate music. George really listened to her thoughts. 

Joyce was also very strict with the home books. She wanted to make sure that they weren’t overspending. She kept much more of an eye on their personal pocketbook than George did. And I feel that was an essential part of him continuing to do the work he did as well. 

I will say, particularly now in my role as the Executive Director of the Joyce and George Wein Foundation, that I was so glad that I had the opportunity to get to know both of them. I ultimately knew George better because Joyce died in 2005, and I continued to know George for about sixteen years after she passed. But she is so much in my heart and mind with many different things. But George and Joyce were such a great match for one another. I don’t think they fought very much. They were very compatible in so many ways. 

PG: Just in terms of music, when you started working with the Weins, the Newport Jazz Festival was deep into smooth jazz with bookings like Kenny G, Spyro Gyra, and others booked alongside jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie or Dave Brubeck. Do you feel George selected the smooth jazz musicians because he believed in their music, or were they booked primarily out of financial considerations?

DR: I don’t think I’m as equipped to answer that question as others. I do remember that George produced Kenny G’s first big New York appearance at Avery Fisher Hall. We all thought it sounded like dull elevator music. But it’s sold tickets, and ultimately, one of the things that makes George so unique in my mind was how he absolutely knew the books. He remembered figures like you would not believe. He kept all of it in his head. 

But he was also a musician and had a musician’s sensibility. He went on the road with his Newport All-Stars and developed an appreciation of what that life was like. The others in the All-Stars would love touring with George not only because they enjoyed playing with him but also because they would stay in nicer hotels and have nicer meals with him. Those things were important to George. 

Anyway, I think the smooth jazz bookings were primarily because he was a businessman. If Spyro Gyra was going to sell a bunch of tickets. He wanted them. But, at the same time, and you see this particularly if you look at the early Newport Folk Festivals, he worked hard to bring in different sounds that most people weren’t used to. Maybe you don’t like a particular sound, but you might find something that hits you in a way you didn’t expect. There is something to be said about that, too. 

Lately, I’ve been watching outtakes from the old Murray Lerner documentary on the Newport Folk Festival [Festival! (Patchke, 1967)]. And George and Pete [Seeger] were so ahead of their time in terms of bringing sounds that people hadn’t heard. 

PG: That is also in line with how George approached many bookings throughout his career. For instance, when the Newport Jazz Festival selected several rock bands to perform at the 1969 festival. He did not seem to necessarily love the music but did see it as an opportunity to expose those who do to the more mainstream jazz music that he loved.

DR: Right, right. And maybe they would be open to what he loved. I don’t know. You’ve gone to Newport every year for a very long time. Do you remember when David Ostwald was on the Fort Stage a few years ago? 

PG: Yes.

DR: I’ve known David for a while. I don’t personally know him very well, but I’ve seen him do a lot of gigs. Anyway, he was ecstatic because there was a huge audience for him at Newport. He makes the kind of music George loved, and the audience loved it. They probably would not love a festival full of only that kind of music, but having a group like that was a lot of fun. Catherine Russell brings that, too. 

PG: You have mentioned the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk Festivals, but there was briefly a third Newport festival when you were working with George, the Rockport Rhythm and Blues Festival. It lasted only three years in the mid-1990s. But with the stronger infrastructure in place now with the Festivals Foundation; do you feel it would have survived if it was started today?

DR: The Rhythm and Blues Festival is a long side story. I don’t think George wrote anything about it in his book [Myself Among Others: A Life in Music (De Capo, 2004)].

PG: He did not.

DR: George always used to say that you need to give a festival at least three years before you decide whether it’s good or bad. And, even after three years, that festival did not work. It was a partnership with the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. That relationship was a bit problematic because of how the Rhythm and Blues Foundation was run. I’m just gonna leave it at that. I think the failure had more to do with the fact the Festivals were run by a for-profit enterprise, Festival Productions, Inc., and that the Rhythm and Blues Foundation was a non-profit. Any time you work as a for-profit entity with a non-profit, there is additional scrutiny and decision-making needed as to how money is spent. Having now worked for a non-profit for several years, you have questions –  and you should have questions – but it just wasn’t feasible. And that’s too bad because the Rhythm and Blues Festival presented music that should be heard. At least now, we still sometimes get some R&B at the Jazz Festival. 

PG: Also, during your time with the Weins, the festivals expanded their offerings from one stage each day for two days to multiple stages and spread over three days. Do you feel the expansion created significantly more work for George?

DR: Expanding the Jazz Festival, and later Folk, was an idea that I think was originally floated by Art Edelstein, who worked for George for several years. I don’t think it made George’s job more difficult. I think George thought, “Why the heck did we not do this sooner?”  I think it made Newport more of a real festival. Yes, you had one stage and a bunch of different acts, but with multiple stages, you could walk around and listen to other things at the same time. I know it’s sometimes very frustrating for the audience when their favorites are head-to-head. But I’ve experienced that more in New Orleans [at the Jazz and Heritage Festival] than at Newport.

PG: The one thing about Jazzfest is that it is so large that it is not feasible to hit all the stages at once in any meaningful way. You could theoretically reach all of the stages at Newport across an hour block and see quite a bit at each. Plus, New Orleans culture is generally more laid back as well.

DR: Yeah, I’ve learned that the only way not to feel stressed about a schedule is to just go with the flow. And, when you do that, you might even run into somebody whose music you might not know as well and love it. I think, initially, I did feel almost stressed trying to balance a schedule, and this was all supposed to be fun, not stressful, so I abandoned having one. 

PG: Somewhat tied to stress related to the festivals, in 2007, George sold his company, Festival Productions, to The Festival Network LLC and retired. When the Festival Network went bankrupt a few years later, George came out of retirement and kept the festivals going. In his early eighties at the time, that must have been exhausting.

DR: George hated being retired. I think his continuing to work is what kept him going. I was concerned when he ultimately decided – if you’ll excuse the expression – to wean down his position with the festivals. Again, he had all the figures in his head. He knew what artists should be paid and kept up with everything well into his early nineties.  But he also just loved the music. He would go to Brooklyn to little tiny places and listen to different musicians that other people had recommended to him. He was a huge fan of the Jazz Gallery in lower Manhattan. He was always listening. He never phoned it in on finding new music. 

Did he have some of his favorites? Absolutely. People like Hiromi, for one. He certainly had his favorites. But he was always looking for new music. Sometimes, it was something he would not personally connect with, but he could see the brilliant artistry behind it. He would put on a CD that wasn’t necessarily his favorite kind of music and say, “The musicianship is there” or “The message is there” and there are people out there who would want to listen to it.

For example, somewhat later in life, George became somewhat chummy with John Zorn.  I’m not sure all of John’s music was something George actively sought out, but he and John became friends. John has a booth at Russ & Daughters [one of the last appetizing stores preserving Yiddish “forshpayz” culture]. Do you remember John’s Masada Marathon at Newport [Jazz in 2014]? 

PG: Yes, it was fantastic. 

DR: It was fantastic. And I have to tell you, I initially was unsure it would work. But I was blown away by it, and George was too. I don’t think he thought that was something that he necessarily wanted to hear, but he also knew that John is a genius and knew what he was doing. And maybe John’s music is not as popular as some other music, but it is still valuable and meaningful to people. 

PG: It was a little surprising how many people rushed to the Quad Stage at the beginning of that three-hour set. People were running to grab seats for it. 

DR: I know. And how many other people were programming John Zorn for a three-hour block at a major outdoor jazz festival like that? Nobody. 

PG: In terms of recognizing talent, it likely also helped that George was himself a musician. One of the most memorable moments at Fort Adams over the last few decades was actually part of the 2019 Bridgefest programming designed to fill the week between Jazz and Folk: George’s last public performance. How did that special evening come together in the Quad?

DR: Well, George’s hearing got very bad in the last couple of years of his life. The saddest thing to me was realizing that he couldn’t play the piano anymore because he couldn’t hear clearly. Everything sounded distorted. He used to sit at the piano and play and play and play. But he just couldn’t hear it anymore. We didn’t talk about it a lot because I knew it was painful for him, not only physically but also spiritually and socially. I think George was nervous about that final performance. He knew the tunes and played with some of his musicians…

PG: Christian [McBride] and Jon Faddis

DR: Right; and also some of the musicians from the Newport Jazz Assembly. It was a very moving performance, but we didn’t talk much at all about it as being his last one. We had said it was his last one, but people often say they are having a farewell performance, then come back after all. In retrospect, in some ways, I regret not asking him about it more. But it was a wonderful evening. 

PG: Do you think George fully grasped the importance of what he did in Newport from 1954 onward? There are obviously the festivals he started – Newport Jazz, Newport Folk, the Saratoga Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and others – but he started the modern music festival more generally. As different as they may seem, even things like the Austin City Limits Festival, Bonnaroo, and Coachella probably wouldn’t exist without George’s work in Newport.

DR: I do not think he fully grasped the importance of Newport until many years later. I think when you’re in the moment, you don’t think, “Wow, this is history-making.” He was also still pretty young when he started the Newport festivals. He took a lot of risks when he first ran the festivals. And after the Lorrilards no longer supported the jazz festival, he took the risk of keeping it going. George and Joyce had very little money to keep going. I don’t think George’s parents helped them at all financially, and I think Joyce’s parents were gone by then. And that’s how George figured out that you needed sponsors; a festival can’t make it on ticket sales alone. 

If you look at the lineups from years ago, they’re amazing. But they still had to pay the bills. I think he doesn’t necessarily get the credit he deserves for creating the modern music festival. When you look at something like Bonnaroo or Coachella – and I don’t study those lineups- they seem very destination-oriented. Originally, when the Lorillards said, “Let’s do this in Newport,” the city was also a destination for some people. But, for George, his primary thing was the music. It was the music, not the destination, that mattered most.

PG: You are currently, in some ways, preserving his legacy as the Executive Director of the Joyce and George Wein Foundation. What more can you share about the Foundation’s work?

DR: We started having conversations about forming the Foundation in the early 2000s, back when Joyce was alive. The original conversations were very much centered around providing scholarships for African-American students. It’s mind-boggling to me that that was twenty-five years ago. 

We – Bruce Gordon, Nick Pell, and myself – did not talk to Joyce about the Foundation too much while she was still alive. But we did talk to George about it and knew what kind of things he had in mind. He was very specific about what he did and did not want to fund, though having spent so much time with both George and Joyce, I had a pretty good sense of where their interests lie. George always said he wanted his money to work twice.

He loved the Jazz Gallery. They are very efficient with their money and, ultimately very much centered around the music. [Jazz Gallery Artistic Director] Rio [Sakairi] is the heart of the Jazz Gallery, and George deeply admired her. So, we have supported and will continue to support organizations like the Jazz Gallery. 

Same with Jazz Forum Arts in Tarrytown, New York. [Their Executive Director] Mark Morganelli is a producer and flugelhorn player who worked with George many years ago. He occasionally produced a concert or two for JVC. Mark and his wife have a lovely jazz club that they completely designed. I remember Mark coming in and talking to George about where everything would be in the club because, of course, George had run Storyville in Boston all those years and had to think about all of those sorts of things. 

PG: So, even after many years of focusing primarily on festivals, he still kept the club perspective in mind?

DR: One story I like to tell, which I’m not sure anyone else remembers, is from when Jazz at Lincoln Center was under construction. George went to the site because he was on the Board [of Jazz at Lincoln Center]. He had his hard hat on and was walking with a group touring the space. George finally asked, “So, where’s the kitchen?” Because, of course, they were going to have one and no one else had thought about it.

He was a very practical person and looked at the big picture. He was also very forward-thinking. He would invite so many young musicians – even people he did not know well – over for lunch just to listen to what they had to say about where the music was and where they thought it might be going. Sometimes I would tease him and say, “You know, George, if you had a kid, your life would have been very different.” I think at some point, Joyce and George made a decision not to have children but instead to have the Festivals be like their children.

At the moment, my biggest hope and challenge with the Foundation is to preserve George’s archives. I’m meeting with a former archivist from Carnegie Hall later this week to talk about ideas and things that we might do with the archives. George strongly wanted a museum in Newport, and, unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if that’s going to happen. But there has to be a better place for them than a storage space and in my house. You learn a lot from looking at people’s papers, and when I was packing stuff up after George passed away, I found some fabulous old photos. Even though we lost some things over the years, there is still a lot of great stuff to share with the world. And I’m doing everything I can to make it happen.

Celebrate the legacy of the man who started the modern music festival at this summer’s Newport Jazz Festival from August 1 to 3, 2025 at Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island. More information is available on the Festival’s website. We will be providing coverage live from the event.

Photo credit: T. Jordan Hill – PostGenre Media