The 71st annual Newport Jazz Festival boasted a broad canvas of colors, from the “in the tradition” heart of acoustic jazz to artists and bands perhaps not closely identified with the form, but all of them doubtless jazz-informed. That is indeed one of the keys to mounting a major festival in today’s marketplace, and in our further blurring of the invisible lines of musical demarcation.
In that light, Newport, with founder George Wein’s handpicked successor Christian McBride as Artistic Director, delivered mightily across its three sold-out days at Fort Adams State Park. It was a broad and largely successful cornucopia of artistry, all appropriately flown under the jazz festival flag.
With three mainstages and overlapping set times, it was impossible to see it all. Presented with opportunities to taste the sumptuous buffet of sounds, I mainly took the option of settling in for complete meals rather than hopping from stage to stage, nibbling liberally from the smorgasbord.
Stylistically the sounds ranged from the acoustic majesty of the Ron Carter Quartet to Kenny Garrett’s plaintive alto wail — leading his own band and pretty much also leading the proceedings on Marcus Gilmore’s exceptional centennial tribute to his late grandpop Roy Haynes. Also notable was the Afrofuturist R&B of singer Janelle Monáe; the tasteful roar of the Christian McBride Big Band, and the ever-excitable Jacob Collier belting out “Misty” like some 21st-century throwback.
Friday
Our first stop Friday was the Harbor Stage for pianist Aaron Parks’s refreshingly resourceful Little Big quartet with guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David Ginyard and crafty drummer Jongkuk Kim. This is a tale-spinnin’ ensemble of a most imaginative mindset.
Maestro Ron Carter took the stage, resplendently suited, pianist Renee Rosnes silkily wrapped, Payton Crossley on drums, and the meaty tenor sax of Jimmy Greene, his sumptuous tone embracing “You and the Night and The Music” with a warm hug. Their “You Are My Sunshine” cannily traversed blues precincts just as the overcast skies and slightly choppy sea began to dissolve into sunshiny loveliness.
They were followed by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, but it was time to drift over to the Quad Stage for the occasional assemblage known as The Philadelphia Experiment, 25 years since what seemed at the time like a one-off project on Ropeadope. The quartet lifted off with Questlove’s infectious backbeat and McBride’s Philly-proud bass undergirding, as DJ Logic tossed out pithy rhythmic asides on the ones and twos.
Keyboardist Uri Caine brought edge to the proceedings as the band journeyed to the ancestor saxman Odean Pope’s catalog for a different flavor of Philly soul. Part of what makes McBride, the group’s titular leader, great is his huge-hearted openness to settings and instrumental configurations of whatever his fertile mind conjures. Time for a new recorded chapter of this Philadelphia Experiment.
“Pastor” Kenny Garrett, tailor-suited and topped as always, the folkloric-immersed Cuban percussionist-vocalist Melvis Santa standing alongside as one-woman deacon board, raised the roof with such familiar themes as his infectious “Hargrove,” closing out with his anthemic “Happy People,” ministering to an eager flock.
Saturday
On the Fort Stage, the thickly massed section of standees and the early bird–arriving lawnchair occupants behind them were introduced to the compelling magnetism of UK vocalist Raye. Different timbre, but something about Raye’s infectious bravado brought echoes of the late Phyliss Hyman to the senses.
Raye has a fine command of her soaring instrument and seems quite astute in her note and musical choices, and she has true stage presence. As with so many of the Newport newbies on those three stages — be they jazz or beyond — she was genuinely thrilled to be performing on those hallowed grounds.
The resourceful Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey, with pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Harish Ragavan, opened his set with a slightly twisted version of Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” Sorey’s impressively interactive trio operated as if in dance. Themes evolved naturally as streams of consciousness. Their set was a continuous flow, always in forward momentum — one stream closes, a new, more rhapsodic tributary arrives.
Marcus Gilmore drummed a centennial tribute to Roy Haynes, with Garrett blazing brightly on “My Little Suede Shoes,” joined by bassist John Patitucci and pianist Danilo Pérez. Somehow Roy had made “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” a hip vehicle, which was certainly a quotient upheld by this assemblage.
Tenor saxophonist Nubya Garcia (Nu-buy-a not Nu-bee-a, as she cheerfully informed the crowd) brought a certain maroon-draped elegance to enhance her robust sound, blessed with an impressive low register. Her set included the original “Solstice,” a lovely, pensive tone poem about water, with insistent, painterly keyboard effects. A beautiful tenor cadenza blossomed into a positively rockin’ “You Don’t Know What Love Is.”
Queen Dianne Reeves, centrally seated most of her set to closely absorb every nuance of her band, beautifully updated “What’s New” with a Latin tinge, though squarely in the tradition of the Bob Haggart standard. Dianne delivered “Someone to Watch Over Me” with social justice fervor as a coda, with her longtime mates Peter Martin on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass and Terreon Gully on drums (guitarist Chico Pinheiro stood in for Romero Lubambo).
String majesty was served up as positive sorcery by the trio of banjoist Béla Fleck, Columbian harpist Edmar Castaneda and drummer Antonio Sanchez. Danilo Pérez and John Patitucci returned for another taste of Newport sunshine and salt air, with explosive drummer Obed Calvaire bringing a new energy to the trio usually completed by Brian Blade. “Beloved,” written for Toni Morrison, found Patitucci arco accenting, while a mid-set piano cadenza had Danilo journeying to Panamanian folklore.
Despite any jazz-police naysaying, Janelle Monáe’s acting chops lend a sense of drama to her stage show, and she doubtless brought along an audience segment new to the delights of Reeves, Garcia and Gilmore, who preceded her on the Fort Stage (scene of past George Wein genre-blurring efforts that featured the likes of Led Zeppelin and Sly & The Family Stone). How many Flying Lotus fans “found” Danilo Pérez by happenstance after blissfully floating over from the Fort Stage? Oh, and Monáe did shout out the ghosts of “Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.”
Sunday
Sunday opened with alto sax powerhouse Lakecia Benjamin delightedly whipping up the masses at the Fort. She did some fervent, spiritual toasting at the top of a piece about America, then blew a stem-winding “My Favorite Things” in her ongoing Coltrane paean. This gold-suited sista could bring fervor to a nursery rhyme.
As the Christian McBride Big Band prepped for its set, it was carnival time on the Harbor Stage with trumpeter Etienne Charles, he and alto man Godwin Louis comprising the most vividly garbed frontline of the weekend. Here island funk meets jazz improv at a Trinidadian intersection, with Etienne skillfully balancing his significant hand-drum chops between congas and cajon.
McBride’s big band celebrated its new Mack Avenue release Without Further Ado on the Fort Stage, bringing forward vocal guests including Cécile McLorin Salvant, who went deep on “Fine and Mellow,” full of proper sass as the song broke into a duet with the bass master. Old-soul pianist Emmet Cohen’s prodigious touch and command were on full display in a trio set that delivered potent stride in celebration of the spirits of our ancestors, with resourceful drummer Joe Farnsworth’s fluid drive and Russell Hall’s bass underpinnings.
Later, Salvant returned on the Quad Stage, this time with her pianistic partner Sullivan Fortner, bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Kyle Poole. Her uncanny sense of dynamics is near peerless, aptly demonstrated on such vehicles ranging from Clarence Williams’s “Changeable Daddy of Mine” to her original “What Does Blue Mean to You,” another Toni Morrison dedication.
Esperanza Spalding commenced her set on piano and voice, introducing two dancers for her second soliloquy, further illustrating Newport’s gender equity, which spanned the weekend with an impressive array of women bandleaders.
So, no, I’m not the old guy standing on Fort Adams Drive flying the “This Ain’t Jazz” flag in light of the mass attraction of Monáe, Flying Lotus (nephew of Alice Coltrane, cousin of Ravi, not incidentally), Jacob Collier, Willow, British funk throwback Cymande, hip-hop royalty De La Soul or any of the other beyond artists — each of them in various measures influenced by, if not steeped in, the jazz aesthetic. JT