PROVIDENCE – George T. Wein, who emerged from semi-retirement to revive the Newport jazz and folk festivals he founded in the 1950s, this week was granted a state license for this summer’s events.
Wein founded the jazz fest in 1954 and the folk fest in 1959. He eventually created his own production company to run those and other music festivals, which he continued to oversee until he sold the business in 2007.
Since then, he has been involved in the festivals only peripherally – until this year. When he learned that the Newport events were in danger of being canceled due to financial problems at the new production company, Festival Network LLC, Wein decided to resume a more active role. (READ MORE) “I can’t let the festivals die,” he said last month. “They’re too much of my life.”
Since then, he not only has been seeking licenses for the events – a Newport license still is needed – he also has been lining up musicians and seeking new sponsors, All About Jazz reported on March 18.
Wein told the trade journal that his jazz festival will feature at least 40 big-name acts, which he intends to announce early this month. And he invited prospective sponsors of the festivals – which he is marketing as the George Wein’s Folk Festival 50, to be held July 31 through Aug. 2; and George Wein’s Folk Festival 55, to be held Aug. 7 through 9, both at Fort Adams State Park – to contact John Phillips at jphillips@georgewein.com.
“Any organization that gets involved with the jazz festival in Newport will immediately benefit from the more than five decades of this newsworthy celebration of America’s music,” Wein added in a statement on his new festival Web site.
He also thanked JVC for supporting the jazz festival for the past 24 years – an association he said “is perhaps the longest-running event sponsorship in history. The company placed us at a level that no one can ever imagine, and affected jazz and the jazz festival in a way that increased awareness of the art form and touched people around the world.”
Problems may be looming with Festival Network, however. The company initially welcomed Wein’s intervention, saying in March that it was pleased he would be “assisting with the groundwork to ensure the legacies of the Newport Folk and Newport Jazz festivals.” Its Web site (www.FestivalNetwork.com) still lists the events as the Newport Folk Festival and the JVC Jazz Festival Newport, and Wein as their producer emeritus.
“We view George Wein’s effort to ensure the legacy of music festivals in Newport as complementary with FN’s own effort to produce the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk festivals, the trademarks of which we control,” Chris Shields, Festival’s CEO, told The New York Times in an e-mail last week.
But the newspaper noted that in February, Rhode Island had canceled the company’s contract to present the festivals at Fort Adams, after Festival failed to meet its payment schedule.
And Wein – who now lives in New York City, where Festival is based – told the Times that he is staging the events under his own name, with no connection to Festival Network.
“The folk and jazz public have my guarantee that both festivals will take place as promised,” with or without outside sponsorship, he said in a statement last week. “Each will be as exciting and memorable as any of the many world-famous music festivals that Newport has hosted and enjoyed in recent years.”
Additional information about the Newport folk and jazz festivals to be held this summer at Fort Adams State Park – George Wein’s Folk Festival 50 and the George Wein’s Folk Festival 55 – is available at www.NewFestivalProductions.com.
The R.I. State Properties Committee – established in 1953, “for the purpose of acquiring, administering and disposing of interests in land and other real property,” in cooperation with other state offices – is made up of two members of the public and several state officials, including the attorney general and the director of administration. Additional information is available at www.StatePropertiesCommittee.ri.gov.
