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| New Faces At George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 by K. Leander Williams  The spirit of new beginnings is in the air this summer in Newport, RI. For five decades now, thousands of extraordinary musicians have stunned the audiences who've made the pilgrimage to the hamlet's annual seaside fete in Fort Adams State Park, witness to some of the finest music of the last half century. George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 signifies this long history as it sets the stage for an auspicious future. The artists making festival debuts this year clearly personify the variety and continued vitality of the jazz idiom. It's a globalist mix of movers, shakers, veterans and newcomers, representing creative visions forged in the historic jazz laboratories of New York and Chicago as well as in swinging homes-away-from-home like Japan and Cuba. As per the original mission of George Wein, the festival's founder and current impresario, each artist will ascend the big stage at Newport having already charmed, challenged and excited audiences around the world, one prerequisite for which there is absolutely no substitute.On Saturday, August 8, CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 welcomes ensembles led by three new faces at Newport: Hiromi's Sonicbloom, the Vijay Iyer Trio and Vandermark 5. All are basking in the glow of mid-career international acclaim. The name of Berklee scholarship alumnus Hiromi Uehara's group underscores the 30-year old keyboardist's polyglot sensibility, in which jazz becomes the foundation for forays into various pop-centric styles of music; it's the pride of her one-time mentor and album producer Ahmad Jamal. Indian-American pianist Vijay Iyer is a composer-pianist-scholar with an equally far-reaching rhythmic gestalt; his apprenticeship in both avant-garde projects and alterna-funk amalgams allows his trio to affect a seamless balance between complexity and simplicity. The Vandermark 5's tenor saxophonist Ken Vandermark's name also precedes him; after reigniting the Chicago jazz and rock scenes in a series of bands that proved creative expressionism can't be confined to one genre, Vandermark was a recipient of one of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's prestigious fellowships (otherwise known as the "genius grant"). His hefty tone and workaholic compositional vision are the focal points of an exhilarating quintet. On Sunday, August 9, CareFusion Jazz Festival 55's debuts are even more varied, and in the cases of trumpeter-arranger Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra (MTO) and the freewheeling sax trio By Any Means featuring Rashied Ali, Charles Gayle and William Parker, also include seasoned veterans who continue to register creative milestones. Bernstein's MTO, a gregarious little big band, is an updated version of the mid-20th Century regional orchestras (or "territory bands") that were tasked with spreading the gospel of jazz beyond the big cities. Their unerringly crowd-pleasing repertoire rubs the likes of Prince's "Darling Nikki" up against "Pennies from Heaven." Meanwhile, at least one member of By Any Means, drummer Rashied Ali, is no stranger to the Newport area; his long, multi-faceted career includes a performance at Fort Adams State Park in the mid-'60s, in which he accompanied tenor icon John Coltrane. Ali's partners in the current powerhouse collective, tenor saxist Charles Gayle and New York bass avatar William Parker, are first-timers who will assist the drummer in bringing the dreams of Coltrane into the new millennium. Proof that CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 welcomes jazz's proverbial "Spanish Tinge" comes with Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez, a dynamic prodigy who recently took up full-time residence in the States at the urging of none other than superstar producer Quincy Jones. Rodriguez is not to be confused with the afternoon's other debut, the brother-to-brother quartet the Rodriguez Brothers (Robert, piano; Michael, trumpet). Scions of a musical family, the Queens-bred team practices a smooth blend of percolating, conga-driven music, assuring that its slot at CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 will be another step forward in what promises to be a vibrant career. George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 kicks off Friday, August 7, at 8:00 pm with Chaka Khan in a jazz set with the George Duke Trio and the Howard Alden/Anat Cohen Quartet at the International Tennis Hall of Fame at the Newport Casino, 194 Bellevue. Joining Mos Def & The Watermelon Syndicate on Saturday, August 8, at Fort Adams State Park, at 11:30 am are Branford Marsalis Quartet; Joshua Redman Double Trio; Esperanza Spalding; Cedar Walton All-Stars with Lew Tabackin & Curtis Fuller; Hiromi's SonicBloom; Vandermark 5; Jane Monheit; Christian McBride; Vijay Iyer Trio; Marsalis Music Presents Miguel Zenón Quartet, North Carolina Central Big Band, Branford Marsalis-Joey Calderazzo Duo and Claudia Acuña. The festival picks up again on Sunday, August 9, at 11:30 am at Fort Adams with Tony Bennett; Dave Brubeck Quartet; Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band; Michel Camilo; Joe Lovano UsFive; The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis; James Carter Organ Trio; Conversations with Christian McBride; Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra; Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band; Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition; Rashied Ali-Charles Gayle-William Parker's "By Any Means"; Alfredo Rodriguez; The Rodriguez Brothers and Roy Guzman Quintet. Artists are subject to change. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Jazz News :: home page |