A History of the Newport Jazz Festival – Chapter IX: Homecoming, 1981-1983

“We’re Back” announced the front page of The Providence Journal, complete with a photo of a smiling George Wein, upon the news of the Newport Jazz Festival’s return to America’s First Resort. And while it was indeed a cause for celebration, the newly reborn festival differed significantly from its predecessor. These differences emerged primarily from conscious efforts to avoid the chaos that caused the Festival’s exile to New York almost a decade earlier. Four days of performances were scaled back to only Saturday, August 22nd, and Sunday, August 23rd. Whereas the older incarnation mostly scheduled nighttime events, the new one would take place from noon to 6:30 PM. The intended audience also shifted from younger crowds to families. Alcohol was prohibited on the grounds. The wooden chairs which provided most seating at Festival Field – and Freebody Park before it – were mostly gone, replaced by open spots of grass on which attendees could place blankets and tarps. 

The venue also played a critical role in maintaining order. The surge which destroyed the 1971 festival came from a hill nearby Festival Field. Interestingly, Fort Adams’ military history caused the location to be intentionally difficult to attack. Located on a peninsula, it is surrounded by Narragansett Bay on three sides, rendering only its Southern entrance – a flat open space – as a feasible entryway by land. A stage was placed alongside the fortress’s northern wall, making only those in the intended audience and nearby boats able to witness the events. Though, in true Newport fashion, the presence of sixty or seventy cruisers, sloops, and brigantines was indeed felt; each time a band ended a piece, a black ship full of young couples would fire a cannon. 

But as Dizzy Gillespie would comment regarding the reformed event, Newport remained the mother of all festivals and “[a]lthough there are improvements, the mother is always best.” Instead of including acts at jazz’s edges, the 1981 Festival focused primarily on established names with long ties to Wein’s event. Of course, they were still among the music’s finest. Respect was also given to the Festival’s history. The longstanding tradition of having artists sit in with others returned. On Saturday, Zoot Sims joined Mel Lewis’ Jazz Orchestra and Art Farmer collaborated with Dexter Gordon’s Quartet. On Sunday, Milt Jackson performed with Gillespie’s Quartet. The legendary jam sessions were also revisited with a pairing of Gilespie, trombonist Al Grey, saxophonist Buddy Tate, and pianist Mike Renzi. Partly in honor of the Festival’s first set in 1954, older sounds were represented by the Classic Jazz Band consisting of Dick Hyman, Bob Wilber, Major Holley, Oliver Jackson, Vic Dickenson, Doc Cheatham, and special guest Ruby Braff. Dave Brubeck, one of the last artists to perform before 1971’s riot brought his quartet. Other acts included McCoy Tyner’s Quintet, Buddy Rich with his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and Nancy Wilson. Lionel Hampton and his All-Star Band closed the weekend. 

On Saturday night, George Wein also brought the festival back to its original home – the Casino. To celebrate the location’s centennial, Dick Hyman’s Classic Jazz Band entertained a black-tie audience of a little under two hundred of Newport’s social elite. 

1981’s main event brought a combined 8,000 people across the two days. It was a small crowd compared to the up to 20,000 that would attend Festival Field each day. But the event was nevertheless peaceful, orderly, and successful enough to justify the Festival’s return the following year. Earlier that summer Wein’s Festival Productions Inc. also presented The Kool Jazz Festival in New York City. Among its highlights was Miles Davis’ reappearance after a five-year retirement. The New York festival proved successful enough that it convinced Brown & Williamson, Kool’s parent company, to expand its hosting of jazz festivals throughout the country. This included sponsoring the 1982 Newport Jazz Festival. The company which once convinced Wein’s Festival Productions to drop the Newport name now desired to support the reborn Festival. 

The 1982 event – now retitled The Kool Jazz Festival – prominently featured duets with pianists. Saturday, August 21 paired George Shearing with Don Thompson and Dorothy Donegan with Page Cavanaugh. The next day, Chick Corea with vibraphonist Gary Burton. Sunday also brought The Great Quartet – a special offering that Kool booked for its festivals featuring Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, and McCoy Tyner. The group also performed at that year’s Newport Jazz branded Festival in Madaro, Japan, an event that occurred annually until 2004. Other acts at Fort Adams included Mel Torme, Gerry Mulligan and his Orchestra, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan with her trio, and Tal Farlow’s trio with Red Norvo.

Overall, the early 1980s was an unusual time in jazz history. Although many giants of the music remained, throughout the 1970s, several of its heavyweights – Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington chief among them – passed away. And, in their absence, new music increasingly incorporated ideas from other styles. One of these – which would later reach commercial prominence as “smooth jazz” – incorporated some jazz elements into instrumental R&B and pop music.  The Newport Jazz Festival was not immune from these influences and began to book several “smooth” artists throughout the 1980s. In 1983, this approach was represented by the band Spyro Gyra, fresh off of their album City Kids (MCA, 1983), the second-highest-grossing album on that year’s Billboard jazz charts. Gato Barbieri, a saxophonist who emerged from the avant-garde also showcased his movement in a gentler direction.

Of course, these new sounds were significantly different from the music that came before and created an uproar among some ardent jazz fans. Part of this response included the emergence of a neotraditionalist school which argued that jazz had strayed artistically sometime in the 1960s and should be returned to sounds more reminiscent of its origins. Perhaps the best known of these advocates being the critic Stanley Crouch and a young trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis. A year after leaving Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers – itself a group that performed at Newport that weekend – Marsalis appeared at Newport to promote Think of One (Columbia, 1983). Marsalis’ solo on the album’s version of Thelonious Monk’s “Think of One ” would later win him a Grammy.

Other performances that weekend included those by Oscar Peterson, Brazilian vocalist Tania Maria, Carmen McRae and her trio, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and a trumpet duet between Freddie Hubbard and Jon Faddis. George Wein again reformed a Newport All-Star Band, this time dubbed “George Wein’s Kool Jazz Festival All-Stars” and featuring Scott Hamilton, Oliver Jackson, Warren Vache, Vic Dickenson, and Slam Stewart. 

While the 1983 Festival was another success, by 1984 Brown & Williamson began to feel that its sponsorship of jazz festivals had run its course. Aware of the company’s increased exhaustion with its marketing strategy, George Wein asked that Newport be released from the company’s sponsorship. Brown & Williamson readily agreed and the event was renamed the Newport Jazz Festival once more. But a new sponsor was needed to make the event financially viable. Enter the Japan Victor Corporation.

The 2021 Edition of the Newport Jazz Festival will take place from July 30th to August 1st at Fort Adams State Park. We plan to have live coverage of the event. More information can be found on the Festival’s website.