Newport Jazz Festival

The Newport Jazz Festival is the subject of a new book that details the two main phases of the Festival. The first phase covers the establishment of it, dating from 1954 to 1971. The second phase started in 1983 and has been ongoing ever since.

Following the riots in 1960 between the youth and the "establishment" that arose from the differences between these to groups (mainly that the middle class had chosen to follow a specific lifestyle after the war that included aspects of business, bureaocracy, suburbia, mass consumerism, and the new technology that was emerging while the younger people seemed to protest this lifestyle through their dress, language, social behavior, and music), a counterfestival was held in Newport by a group of black musicians. It was led by Charlie Mingus and Max Roach in order to protest the various discriminations that the original Festival held towards them, including low wages. Overall, this was a response to two other cultural clashes that were similtaneously occurring in American society. The first was the fight for equality of blacks against the white establishment. This one was began in the middle of the 1950s especially in the fields of education and public facilities. The second cultural clash took place between the black people. The line was divided depending on whether they had accommodated to white society or whether they were interested in developing and maintaining a militant black position.

Through the rest of the 1960s, Wein somehow managed to make a return to the early middle class ways. He managed to isolate his program through the musical selections and operations from events that were occurring in the rest of American society. It was not until 1969 that a musical source that played rock brought back young people. With the return of the younger audience came the return of violent confrontations that were fairly typical in American society concurrently. Issues occurred in both 1969 and 1971. It was this second issue that managed to end the Festival in Newport.

Some people found that the operations of the festivities were representational of the virtues of American business practices during the same period while others (who were called the counterculturists) felt that it was a symbol of all that was wrong in American business. The music showed the cultural connections of the time as well as values and attitudes. The music also represented the cultural protests.

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