A day of sun, surf, and sound at Fort Adams State Park on Friday, 4 August 2023.

With Joe Russo’s Almost Dead headlining, the first night was on course for a rocking conclusion. Throw in Branford Marsalis to make sure the closer remains in tight dialogue with the jazz tradition. The living legend saxophonist was a late add after Kamasi Washington fell off the slate. The rich just get richer, while Julius Rodriguez and Angel Bat Dawid opened up new horizons.

Our coverage will bounce between four stages: the headliner Fort Stage, the Quad Stage, the Harbor Stage, and the plucky Foundation Stage in the shadow of the Fort.

Endea Owens at the Quad

Endea Owens & The Cookout were the official openers for the 2023 edition of the Newport Jazz Fest by a solid five minutes. The artists narrowly beat out Lauren Sevian’s LSQ at the Harbor Stage.

In recognition of the ceremonial significance, none other than Christian McBride hyped up the crowd and introduced the act. It was an eight-piece, or thereabouts, as this festival has a way of spilling musicians on stage throughout the set for impromptu guest spots. The profusion of talent on the sunswept peninsula in southernmost Rhode Island was formidable.

And the photog pit was swarming with lumbering figures that were more camera than human, desperate to wet their whistle in the comely pool of the first live performance picture opportunity.

After starting with the full band – a kind of stock-taking first flurry – Owens quickly retrenched into solo territory, striking a sound impression with a standup bass and a dress the color of yellow bricks.

Slowly, and surely, the rest of the band was worked back into the mix like a voice swelling in anticipation of a sonorous climax. The horns, the piano, the trio of backup vocalists sang good morning to the assembled crowd.

Lauren Sevian’s LSQ at the Harbor

Lauren Sevian’s LSQ didn’t open the festival, but the quartet was probably the first band that most concertgoers saw on Friday morning, filtering in through the gates right into the lap of the Harbor Stage.

What did they see?

A human-sized baritone saxophone in the warm embrace of Lauren Sevian, posted at the lip of the stage in front of her fellow LSQers Miki Yamanaka on piano, Boris Kozlov on bass, and Johnathan Blake on drums.

It was high end, late night, jazz club jamming, served up bright & early. Had the feel of a kind of open session that’s really just open to four local heads who fit each other like keys fit locks.

Rimea Jazz All-Stars at the Foundation

What’s the Foundation Stage?

It’s the microstage at the margin of the marquee Fort Stage that plays host to small, local acts. Amateurs or near amateurs with a lot of love for jazz. Acts willing to take a bullet when the big names on the Fort Stage are running late.

The Foundation Stage keeps the sweet music flowing in odd moments to soothe the savage masses hunkered down among the blankets and umbrellas. They come early, plant their flag, and guard it all day in anticipation of the headliner. That’s a long, hot & crowded hang, so the more amenities, the better.

First up, the RIMEA Jazz All-Stars. That’s Rhode Island Music Education Association, which offers music education and performance opportunities to young folks. Case in point: a spot on stage at the Newport Jazz Fest. If you’re starting your live concert career off at the NJF, everything to follow has to be a kind of low key disappointment, right?

Julius Rodriguez at the Harbor

Julius Rodriguez has been dubbed one of the faces of a new generation of jazz. But up on the Harbor Stage, he was just as content to shout out the musical legends that have appeared in Newport over the decades.

The musician led a quintet that favored uptempo improv & experimental jammers. You can hear the familiarity with tradition in his piano work, the years of jazz apprenticeship, whether in the classroom or the club. And you heard a playful insouciance in how the group stitched together the fabrics of received tradition into a new cloth. The FX processing might have put a few purists on edge.

Rodriguez rocked a keys double-stack, at least, with a synth tucked atop the piano. Perfect for the moodiness of “Gift of the Moon” or the virtuosic wrangling of “Chemical X”, both off his album Let Sound Tell All (2022, Verve).

Extra points for the eruption from a local dance troupe and Julius Rodriguez fan club that made the gig – it was Swifties-meet-KPoppers for a few minutes there at stage left.

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet at the Quad

Immanuel Wilkins was blowing harder than the whistle on a freight train bearing down on a school bus stuck on the tracks. It was Coltrane’s Meditations energy to close out the set of the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet on the Quad Stage. A furious four-piece.

Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brothahood at the Harbor

Even as part of a three-day lineup of artists who all make an impression, Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brothahood stand out. Was tony Newport ready for this jazz siren from the Windy City?

Angel Bat Dawid was ready for Newport, in any event. She’s touring on the heels of her musical monument Requiem For Jazz (2023, International Anthem), a sound document that is equal parts philosophy and music. The artist is rarely at a loss for words, but she came equally prepared to expend her life force through the reed of a clarinet. At least three of them adorned a kind of centerstage altar to jazz, along with synth keyboards squirreled away at her elbows.

Did the act soften its bite a bit for the sea & surf crowd? If you’ve listened to the remarkable LIVE album or the Tron-inflected philosophizing of Requiem For Jazz, you know the sort of hellfire that Angel Bat Dawid can rain down from the pulpit. There was less politics and more shamanism. Some of the gray hairs were spooked when the artist “explored the space” at the start of the set. Essentially, the standard punk move of playing from the pit. 

In the beautiful, if sometimes staid, confines of Fort Adams, it was easily one of the most motherfucking real performances of the three-day fest. Shout to “Black Family,” a song that takes full advantage of the depth of musicianship that The Brothahood bring to the stage with the frontwoman.

Big Freedia at the Quad

Big Freedia shook the Quad Stage, shaking what God gave them. It was the HIIT, bounce version of jazz. Or maybe it wasn’t jazz at all? New Orleans credentials suffice. The organizers were clearly going for a change of pace. On any given day in a multi-day festival, you need a changeup to spark the crowd. A high fizz energy drink instead of another gutpunch martini. You shed a few pounds just watching the fans work their mojo after being invited onstage.

Soulive at the Fort

For three mere mortals Soulive puts up a big sound, wet enough to saturate the grounds around the headliner stage.

And the trio had some help filling the stage itself, as each wing of the stage was augmented with raised platforms to accommodate additional spectators. Presumably VIPs?

It’s a strange thing to be onstage with the artist who you are watching perform. Not behind a curtain at the side, not in a high-priced loge seat, not in a corporate luxury box adjacent to the stage. None of that. These people were right up on top of the performing artists, as much of a spectacle to the proles in the pit as the artists themselves.

You see a similar setup in some gourmet restaurants where an expensive table is set up right in the kitchen so you can own the presumably revelatory experience of watching your food being prepared. People come up with the craziest ways to pay more for things. 

Newport Jazz Camp at the Foundation

“One time at Jazz Camp…”

One time at Jazz Camp, you got to play at the Newport Jazz Festival. In 2023 the camp ran from 7/31-8/5 and cost $1,200 for overnight campers and $700 for commuters. About $200/day on the upper end?

Not a bad deal, actually, considering you’re getting room, board, and instruction. Damn, kids are expensive though.

Extra points for the killer purple tie-dye shirts the campers were sporting at the festival.

DOMi and JD Beck at the Quad

The jazz duo of DOMi and JD Beck strike a twee, Gen Z posture that must have appealed to the organizers. For a festival with tradition like Newport, the challenge is always to craft a lineup that brings the oldheads back while attracting a fresh crop of younger faces into the tent. And in the age of social media, it’s nice to have artists who aren’t still using flip phones.

Are Domi and JD Beck juicing the youth movement?

They’re putting in the work, in any event. Visit their website and you’ll find (after clicking through the rotating image of a hamster playing a little saxophone) the pair living a parasocial existence on Youtube, Discord, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (err…X?), TikTok, Tumblr, and Snapchat.

Is that connected enough for you? They also play a mean strain of space lounge, cascading oscillations of keys and percussion across the multiverse. Extra points goes to DOMi for performing the whole set atop a converted toilet seat.

DJ Pee .Wee (Anderson .Paak) at the Quad

Maybe the only logistical hitch in a festival that ran like clockwork was the transition from seated jazz set to cleared-out dancefloor for DJ Pee .Wee.

The removable seats had to be removed before the set could begin, and the organizers needed the crowd’s help to do it. Not so much to move the seats themselves, but just to get out of the way and let it happen.

A reasonable ask – but how many festival crowds are reasonable? It took some cajoling from the man on the PA, and the deed got done. Between Big Freedia earlier in the day and a DJ set from Anderson .Paak in disguise, the Quad saw the most bodies moving on Friday.

No rest for headliner Jon Batiste. The Saturday night closer just sewed up a slot at the Newport Folk Festival earlier in the summer. Now he was back for the end of night jazz sendoff…

Elder statesman Herbie Hancock closed the festival with a nod to the musical innovation that keeps the jazz tradition vibrant. Diana Krall and Samara Joy wow the crowds at the Fort and Quad Stages.

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