A History of the Newport Jazz Festival – Prologue: Born in Storyville, 1950-1954

In September of 1950, twenty-four-year-old George Wein used his college savings to open a nightclub, Storyville, at Boston’s Copley Square Hotel. The venue boldly planned to present jazz in a new light. Taking its name from the legendary New Orleans district of debauchery, brothels, and flophouses from whence the music came, the budding entrepreneur planned to reform its image towards one more reflective of the art form’s true beauty. The approach was an instant success with people from across the city flocking to see the Bob Wilber Sextet’s performances there. Within six weeks, however, the building owner’s deceptive business practices forced Wein into an ethical dilemma. Rather than continuing to perpetuate these acts, he chose to shutter the business. 

Storyville reopened in February of 1951 at the Buckminster Hotel near Fenway Park. Unlike its predecessor, it initially struggled to find an audience. While this would have deterred many, Wein remained undaunted. By the fall, he expended a significant sum to book pianist George Shearing, who had a large following. The gamble paid off, beginning a series of sold-out performances. Over time, journalists increasingly visited and, through their writings, also exposed artists to a new audience. Throughout, it was clear that Storyville would be a place of serious reflection. Gone were the culture of drugs and prostitution that once undermined the music. And while chatter and background noise were unavoidable, the venue’s focal point was unmistakable. As Nat Hentoff noted, “[c]ompared to the other clubs in town, listening to a jazz musician at Storyville is like sitting at home with a pair of earphones.”

The success of this location caused Wein to open a second club, Mahogany Hall, named after an infamous New Orleans bordello. By September of 1953, the Copley saw new ownership and Storyville returned to its original home triumphantly.* Over the years, various sets were recorded there by artists ranging from Sidney Bechet to Dave Brubeck to Billie Holiday. 

But it was on a cold winter night in 1953 at Storyville that Wein would take the first steps to make his greatest mark on history. That evening, a regular of the club, Professor Donald Born of nearby Boston University, was joined by a stylishly dressed redheaded woman who had been auditing his courses. Previously, she also studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and the Boston School of Fine Arts. Her name was Elaine Lorillard and, in addition to being an ardent music lover, she was the wife of Louis Livingston Lorillard, a descendant of tobacco tycoon Pierre Lorillard. The younger Lorillards were leaders of high society in Newport, Rhode Island. 

While a beautiful small city with an old New England charm, Newport was, in Elaine’s words, “terribly boring in the summer.” She tried to add some excitement the prior year by hosting a performance by the New York Philharmonic at the Newport Casino, a historic club for the community’s social “elites.” The endeavor lost the Lorillards and their acquaintances $30,000. Elaine hoped that George could present something jazz-focused that would succeed where this prior project failed. Wein’s immediate inclination was to open a summer-only club there. However, he gradually moved towards something bigger. Drawing inspiration from the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s seasonal residency at Tanglewood, it ultimately became the Newport Jazz Festival. 

In many ways, this project further emphasized Wein’s goal of presenting jazz as “high art” deserving of respect. The music itself has always idealized both diversity and democratization. In some ways, these stood in opposition to Newport’s past. Even as it was a birthplace of religious tolerance, the city also played a significant role in the slave trade. To bring musicians – many of whose ancestors were slaves – to share their humanity and their creative brilliance had a beauty to it. Additionally, Newport was well known for its spacious mansions and opulence but the presentation of more socially marginalized voices put them, even temporarily, on a well-deserved more equal footing. In many ways, 1954 was also the perfect time to focus on the past due correction of these divides; it was the same year the United States Supreme Court unanimously held in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (347 U.S. 483) that segregation in public schools needed to end because “separate but equal” was inherently unequal. 

Wein wasn’t entirely sure how he would present a festival. At the time, there had been very few besides the Nice Jazz Festival which started six years prior. Upon obtaining the Lorillard’s blessing and financial backing of $20,000 – roughly ten times that amount in today’s dollars – he went to work setting what would become the blueprint for all modern music festivals, jazz or otherwise, to come.  

To further support the endeavor, Louis Lorillard established Newport Jazz Festival, Inc, a nonprofit organization, to host the event and secured the use of the Newport Casino’s tennis court for a nominal rate. An architect, Hsio Wen Shih, was hired to design a cardboard soundstage as Wein’s team worked out the creation of the very first photography pit and tried to find ways to make the most of limited outdoor audio technology and lighting. 

As far as the music itself, Wein intentionally kept the bookings as broad as possible, believing that artistic merit was not limited to preset category lines. On July 17, 1954, the two-evening event opened with a prologue by Stan Kenton who emphasized to a packed 7,000 member crowd the festival’s historical significance.  

But the first act scheduled to follow, an all-star traditional jazz band led by Eddie Condon, was stuck in traffic. Newport’s Mayor John J. Sullivan gave a speech to fill the time as the crowd became increasingly impatient and began chanting “let’s have music.”

* Storyville’s scheduled lineup continued to grow in impressiveness over the ensuing years. By 1955, it hosted Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Erroll Garner, Gerry Mulligan, and Sarah Vaughn. Charlie Parker was slated to perform there on March 12, 1955, the night he passed away.  

Significant portions of this prologue were adapted from the Music Museum of New England (https://www.mmone.org/storyville/), George Wein’s fantastic autobiography (co-written with Nate Chinen) ‘Myself Among Others’ (Da Capo Press, 2009), and ‘50: The Newport Jazz Festival, 1954-2004’.

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