{"id":1323,"date":"2020-07-26T14:44:13","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T19:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2023-06-07T09:03:13","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T14:03:13","slug":"newport-jazz-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/newport-jazz-part-iv\/","title":{"rendered":"A History of the Newport Jazz Festival \u2013 Chapter IV: Revival, 1961-1964"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following the riots of the prior summer, there was no Newport Jazz Festival in 1961. However, the city had not abandoned the idea of being a cultural center for jazz. Instead, promoter Sid Bernstein hosted \u201cMusic at Newport.\u201d In some ways, it emulated the original. It was set in both the same venue and time of year. It also featured many of the same artists who appeared there throughout the years. That is not to say the two festivals were indistinguishable. Dancers Carmen Delavallade, Norma Miller, and Al Minns each separately performed. Vocalists Bill Henderson, Miriam Makeba, Judy Garland, and the group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross also appeared. So did crowd-pleaser Bob Hope. Yet Music at Newport lacked the magic of the Newport Jazz Festival. Bernstein himself even realized this, noting in an interview towards the end of his event that \u201cthe only person who really knows how to handle what goes on up [in Newport] is George Wein.\u201d*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After Music at Newport\u2019s demise, Wein began work resuscitating his festival for the summer of 1962. He trademarked the name \u201cNewport Jazz Festival\u201d, created a new for-profit venture – Festival Productions Inc.- and secured Freebody Park as a site.  Newport \u201862, was cut back down to three days in length. However, it did not abandon its broad view of music. Adopting a subtitle: \u201cThe Meaning of Jazz\u201d the Festival purposely left open to debate the contours of the term, something made even less definable by its programming choices for the event which emphasized the removal of barriers between people. 

Notably, this included making amends with former rebel Charles Mingus who would appear with his sextet. The Festival even attempted to ease growing divides between the East and West during the height of the Cold War with the inclusion of a set titled \u201cIron Curtain Jazz\u201d by Polish band the Wreckers and its leader pianist Andrzej Trzaskowski. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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