[Dixielandjazz] Is there a future for Newport (and other) Jazz Festivals?

[Stephen G Barbone]

AUGUST 6, 2011 - NY TIMES - BY BEN RATLIFF
At Newport, Assessing the Future of a Jazz Festival


NEWPORT, R.I. — The Newport Jazz Festival has been running since 1954,  
with a few gaps, a few different sponsors and a few major changes of  
consciousness about what a good jazz festival is.
In the ’80s and ’90s, the festival got into pop and light jazz. Since  
2004 it has been more serious, though not so rarefied that it would  
turn away its core constituency of middle-aged New Englanders who come  
because the festival is reputable — one of the few long-running brands  
in American jazz — and is two nice days in the sun.
The festival started today at 11 a.m. and runs until 6:30 p.m., and it  
has the same schedule on Sunday. Saturday’s crowd was decent, but the  
event has not sold out for either day (capacity here at Fort Adams  
State Park is 10,000).
I’ve stopped to hear sets by Ambrose Akinmusire, Eddie Palmieri,  
Hiromi (playing solo today), Joey DeFrancesco and the New Orleans  
trombonist Trombone Shorty, who’s playing loud, rugged funk on a stage  
about 100 feet away. Later today, I’ll be seeing what Wynton Marsalis  
and Steve Coleman have to offer.
I’ve been to festivals of all kinds since the last time I came here,  
in 2004, and I wonder about the road ahead for this one. As a  
business, jazz has depended on the support of casual listeners, those  
who like the idea of jazz and perhaps care about it as environment as  
much as music — maybe the kind who brought their collapsible chairs to  
sit in front of the main stage all day and will not move, no matter  
which young DownBeat poll-winner is holding it down on one of the  
other stages. This is definitely a divided crowd: there are older  
folks registering their disapproval of Trombone Shorty. (“There’s no  
melody, nothing. Just a lot of smears and growls.”) And there are  
loosey-goosey groovers, up for whatever.
But who are the plugged-in ones, who might talk excitedly about  
hearing Mr. Akinmusire — it was a good set, imposing, new-sounding —  
and follow him closely after this? Are they the handful of college  
boys at the front of the crowd in the smaller tents? Are they music  
students or just regular civilians? Will they keep coming back? What’s  
in it for them, not so much musically but culturally? Do they identify  
with this festival? Is there a way the festival could change so that  
they’d identify with it more, without sacrificing the people in the  
collapsible chairs?

NOTES from Barbone:
Patrick Jarenwattananon of NPR’s jazz blog remarked on Twitter that a  
third of the bandleaders in this festival are around 30 or younger.  
That’s significant. I wish the same could be said of the audience.

It rained heavily on Sunday and the main stage had no audience tent.  
Perhaps 200- wet fans.