2012 at Newport: NOW we’ve heard it all…

After baking in the sun and wandering between the three scattered stages at the Newport Jazz Festival for seven or eight hours, nearly all in the crowd call it a day during or right after the final set at Fort Adams State Park. It’s time to quench one’s thirst, grab a meal and a shower, and head home or to local lodging - and rest up for Sunday’s equally long schedule.

But that’s not the case for everyone. Some 250 fans and a  nearly a dozen musicians dusted off and cleaned up - perhaps changing to something less casual - and headed for Marble House. One of Newport’s storied mansions on stately Bellevue Avenue, it was built between 1888 and 1892 as one of the Vanderbilt family’s “summer cottages.”

On Saturday April 4, 2012, Marble House was something else: the site of a fundraising gala for the Newport Festivals Foundation, which produces the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals under the leadership of the festivals’ founding producer (and foundation chairman), George Wein. The gala raised more than $200,000 to help the nonprofit carry on the festival tradition well into the future.

The gala featured an array of musical combinations not heard at Fort Adams – or anywhere else for that matter. And the tapes were running. The Festivals Foundation has released that recording, called Newport Jazz Festival Gala!, on ArtistShare.

Keeping the candle burning

Given finite resources and wavering community support, it can be challenging to keep the jazz candle burning in many areas. The ebb and flow can vary from gig to gig, month to month, season to season.

The latest example is on Florida’s east coast, where the Jazz Arts Music Society of Palm Beach has announced that it is suspending its annual concert series for the upcoming 2012-13 season. That after 13 years of presenting more than 250 concerts featuring an array of international, national, regional and local mainstream jazz musicians.

How do you measure a nonprofit's impact on its community?

In the case of the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, you do it one class at a time, one student helped at a time, one workshop or master class at a time. For more than 40 years, MCG has been a multi-disciplined arts and learning center that fosters a sense of belonging, interconnections and hope within the urban community. Its state-of-the-art facility on Pittsburgh’s North Shore contains visual arts, design, ceramics and photography classrooms, a dining hall, auditorium/concert hall, and gallery to showcase creativity and craftsmanship in learning.

The MCG Jazz program, now in its 25th year, is preserving, presenting and promoting jazz music to increase its intercultural understanding and appreciation in western Pennsylvania and around the globe.

MCG President and CEO Bill Strickland recalls giving Dizzy Gillespie a tour of the school when he visited and performed in 1989. Gillespie told him: “You know... you are a great jazz musician yourself. This place is our instrument, man, and everything that happens here is your song.”

The MCG Jazz concert series, drawing thousands of visitors to MCG each year and resulted in a steady stream of quality live performance recordings, has tangible numbers are quite staggering.

• 515,970 attendees
• 1,638 concerts
• 40 albums
• 4 Grammy Awards

Kudos go out to MCG Jazz Executive Producer Marty Ashby and his dedicated team as they ready for the 25th anniversary season, which includes 16 concerts between late September and mid-May 2012. It opens with the Bob Mintzer Big Band and concludes with Kurt Elling Swings Sinatra.

Others on the bill include Pat Metheny with bassist Larry Grenadier; Pancho Sanchez; Take Six; Jon Faddis; the Count Basie Orchestra with the New York Voices; Chick Corea performing solo; and Toots Thielemans with Kenny Werner.

Pittsburgh is blessed to have such a vibrant arts force in its midst.