By Ashley Kahn
Special to MSN Music

On a recent steamy, Saturday afternoon, George Wein answered the door to his generous, art-filled apartment on Manhattan's East Side. At 80, George Wein has learned to move just a little slower, a cane always near or in his grasp. He graciously ushered his guest to the kitchen, prepared a cup of coffee then set it down with a packet of cookies and settled into a chair across the table.

"I'm working everyday," Wein stated with a Boston twang and no trace of complaint. "My head doesn't stop thinking." Permission to start powering down could be his for the taking, yet the man has never been busier. "I'm working on a major, major project right now for 2008."

Wein helms Festival Productions, Inc., the event-production company he founded in 1962. FPI (as it's known to many) is currently in midseason, having produced jazz festivals in New Orleans and New York earlier this year. They're now gearing up for similar events in Bermuda and Los Angeles.

Wein is most immediately focused on the weekend of Aug. 11 to 13, when the 52nd annual Newport Jazz Festival (now called the JVC Jazz Festival - Newport, in deference to its main sponsor) takes place in seaside Rhode Island. He has just announced the addition of jazz

heavyweights trumpeter Chris Botti and pianists McCoy Tyner and Eddie Palmieri to Newport's already stellar lineup.

During its three-day run this year, Newport will feature evening concerts in the town's casino, while day-long sets of music can be heard at two outdoor stages in nearby Fort Adams State Park. The larger stage abuts the ruins of a Revolutionary War fort, overlooking a generous lawn and the mouth of Newport Harbor, a (normally) sun-drenched panorama. The performances promise to stretch from the flamenco-flavored soul of guitar maestro Raul Midón to the traditional stylings of the recently reunited Preservation Hall Jazz Band (both on Saturday); and from the refined chamber-jazz of Dave Brubeck to the New Orleans boogie and bounce of Dr. John (on Sunday). Such diversity -- what Wein often calls "Jazz from 'J' to 'Z'" -- is his (and the festival's) enduring trademark.

"I think the real contribution I made as producer of Newport goes back to the very first year, when I put [swing-era guitarist] Eddie Condon and [modern jazz pioneer] Lennie Tristano in the same program. That had never been done before and affected the presentation of jazz ever since," Wein says.

And not just those focused on jazz. Historic rock festivals such as Monterey Pop and Woodstock in the 1960s -- and a world of current jazz celebrations from Montreal, Canada, to Montreux, Switzerland -- share roots that reach back to Newport. The long history of the

legendary festival that sprung up among the mansions and playgrounds of Rhode Island's elite (colorfully documented in Wein's autobiography "Myself Among Others") began in 1954 when the Boston-born producer, then running a nightclub called Storyville, was approached by a socialite with the novel idea of moving jazz from the smoky confines of basement rooms to an al fresco, summertime setting.

Artful negotiations secured Newport's hallowed tennis club and an A-list of jazz talent including Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Ella Fitzgerald and others. One long July weekend later, national headlines proclaimed the birth of a new kind of event. "Newport Rocked by Jazz Festival" stated the New York Times headline, while the Saturday Review noted that "jazz goes well, as it should, with sea, air, trees, history, and the haut monde ..."

More than 50 years later, the Newport gala evolved into a monde of its own. It generated the Newport Folk Festival and became home to many moments of legend. Miles Davis signed his first major-label contract after wowing the crowd with a rendition of "'Round Midnight" in 1955. Duke Ellington credited Newport for re-igniting his career: "I was born at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956." "The Newport Jazz Festival? Oh man, that was one of the greatest thrills of my life," admitted Louis Armstrong.

Today, Newport is a top-tier venue all jazz musicians aspire to, a

long-established rung on the climb to jazz respect and renown. And Wein's stature in the jazz world -- as its premier impresario and inventor of the outdoor jazz festival -- still casts an oversize shadow. And he continues to play jazz piano as often his schedule allows.

The kitchen conversation that flowed that afternoon revealed a man who is as proud of his accomplishments as he is concerned with the music that first persuaded him to take up piano, and to later forgo a career in medicine. He can be strongly opinionated, having seen jazz wax and wane from his perspective at the box office. At times, he is also disarmingly self-aware. The recent death of Joyce, his wife and lifelong business partner, finds him still grieving, yet avoiding despair. "Thank god I'm not a bitter guy," he observed. "There's no reason for me to be. The only thing I'm unhappy about is that I lost my wife."

MSN Music: You're fresh from the JVC Jazz Festival New York. How did that go this year?

George Wein: I was very happy. We did all right in a time when jazz seems to be losing popularity. This year we presented Ornette Coleman -- always an icon and for years he was always good to sell two-thirds of Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, at least. This year he filled one-third of the Carnegie Hall. Where is his public? Usually as an artist gets older there's more interest. Dave Brubeck sells more tickets now than he did since the 1960s. Coleman is playing as great as he ever played, actually.

His concert this year was wonderful.

With Herbie Hancock we sold out Carnegie Hall. We made a production out of it -- Herbie with a long list of special guests like Michael Brecker -- the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. We also presented Charles Lloyd at [Carnegie's] Zankel Hall, 600 seats. We ended up giving away 100 seats, and there were still a couple of seats to sell, but he had a good house and gave an incredible concert with Zakir Hussain on tablas and Eric Harland on drums.

A typical Wein festival these days always has a very flexible definition of jazz. You presented Smokey Robinson and Gladys Knight singing standards at Carnegie Hall as well this year.

It's interesting that headliners like them, who draw the most criticism from critics, are what probably keeps the festivals alive -- it's crossover music that draws a non-jazz public, and then they hear some jazz.

In New York I do it with individual concerts. I'm trying to get away from that in Newport. But then, because my sponsor wants somebody that sells tickets, I will put on a Smokey or Etta James or shows like that. Musically they have their own value but it's not jazz. So I don't know.

I know I have a big commercial streak. But it's getting people to love

the music I love and getting them to come see it. If I had to bend a little bit here and there -- booking rock acts and R&B music -- I bent a little bit here and there. But at the same time I never gave up on my pure jazz guys. I still work with them and I still play with them.

It seems part of the problem is that whereas other music festivals -- such as Bonnaroo with jam/rock bands or Ozzfest with heavy metal -- are successful by narrowcasting their appeal, jazz festivals remain open ended and flexible in what they book. What is the future of the jazz festival?

The future is nonprofit subsidy, governmental support and smaller crowds. The days of drawing 20,000 people on a Saturday night like we used to at Newport with Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie are over. Through them, jazz was able to reach a broader public. Ella was a Las Vegas performer even when she was singing pure jazz. So unless we get some artists like her, we're going to have smaller crowds. It slips a little bit every year, two percent, five percent, 10 percent. 700 people less, 1,000 people less.

Jazz has become institutionalized to a degree. Most governments subsidize jazz orchestras and towns come up with money for jazz performances. I saw a wonderful Roy Haynes concert in Nice for 400 people paid for by France's Maison de [la] Culture. We don't have a federal agency like that in America, but many cities are starting to do

the same thing here.

I think there will always be jazz festivals. The [corporate] sponsors stay with us 'cause we still get press. The festivals now serve as public relations for jazz -- whenever there's a festival there's media coverage, when there's no jazz coverage for the rest of the year. That happens all over the world.

There are probably 10,000 events in the world right now that call themselves jazz festivals. They're all paid for. The musicians are getting paid. Are they a commercial enterprise like when I started? I don't think so. It's a question that's difficult to answer because it's not independent of where jazz goes.

It seems that every few years there's the pronouncement that jazz is on the way out, and then a few years later comes the news that it's back. Where is jazz now?

I was recently describing the difference between musicians who play pop and jazz music. The jazz musician wants to play his music and hopes you enjoy it. He hasn't done a study of what today's audience wants. Pop musicians, they have studied that. The inspiration for pop music comes from outside while the inspiration for the jazz musician comes from the inside. I think that's why jazz will have a following that's smaller -- but it will be stronger.

But I believe the secret of any popularity is creating an identity. The public is always looking for something to identify with, and jazz is not doing that right now. The greatest painters in the world broke their necks to get identity, whether it was Jackson Pollock, so that you looked at it and knew that it was a Jackson Pollock, or a Pablo Picasso, who achieved four or five different identities in his life.

Jazz musicians now, you don't know who's playing. If you can tell Branford's saxophone from Joe Lovano's, you're a real aficionado. It's the musician, not the song or the structure of the performance, that determines the identity.

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, what advice would you give jazz players to help counter this trend?

I'll start off with my reaction to a lot of music. When I go to hear a group now, after the third number or the second number, I know the guy's entire vocabulary. I know every lick and every phase he's playing because he's repeating himself. So the first thing I would tell them is: Stop playing so much. John Coltrane did it and got away with it, and Sonny Rollins did it and doesn't do it anymore. Don't do three 20-minute tunes in an hour, do 10 six-minute tunes. Six minutes is a long tune, you know? And give each tune a different personality and a different structure so that you can then show your vocabulary over a period of an hour and not in the first 10 minutes of your performance.

The second thing I'd say is that too often critics don't judge a musician for what he's playing, but what they think he should play -- and musicians are very affected by jazz critics. Of course the minute the musician starts listening to critics then his playing suffers. He should really be playing for himself or for the public.

The third thing, which is probably the most important, is: Get a group and stick with the group until it gets its own identity and its own image, whatever you want, play it. I'm not telling you what to play.

Jazz reached two apexes in my lifetime. The first was the swing era, which of course was about dance music, with Benny Goodman, etc. And in that sense, jazz was huge. That was knocked out of the box by Glenn Miller's pop sound and by the war. That destroyed the swing era.

Jazz reached its other apex in the '50s, when you had so many wonderful groups. It was the, shall we say, sweetening of bebop so that people could enjoy it, with George Shearing, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Dave Brubeck and Cannonball [Adderley]. Bebop hadn't left the scene -- it was still the vehicle which people used to direct their music.

They put groups together that stayed together and developed a sound. To this day, when you hear a group's name mentioned, like the Modern Jazz Quartet, the sound comes to your mind. Every group had a

sound and they worked to get that sound. It was a throwback to the days of the swing bands when every band wanted a sound. That has mostly disappeared. There are some groups that still try to do that, like the Bad Plus. If the trio will go down in jazz history as being great remains to be seen, but the trio has stayed together.

You presented groups such as Led Zeppelin, Sly and the Family Stone and the Allman Brothers in the late '60s at Newport. Looking back, do you regret not having continued with more assured profit-makers like them?

Never, never for one second. I don't like loud music. If I go to a restaurant and the music is too loud, I ask them to turn it down. And they say that they can't; people like it loud. What are you going to do?

I don't care what style of music it is -- the thing I like about music is basically one thing. I listen for the artistry of the person playing, whether it's a flamenco guitarist or even an amplified musician. I saw Prince one night where he was playing guitar unaccompanied. He is an artist. But when it became too difficult to function with the artists, I said I don't want to be bothered with it.

I did go heavily into R&B when I created the Kool Jazz Festival in 1975 [originally the Ohio River Valley Festival]. That was our moneymaker

as jazz slowly fell off. But I never wanted to be a slave to the rock-and-roll industry, because basically you're not a producer anymore. You're just working for the artist. Ask [New York City's veteran rock presenter] Ron Delsener. It had nothing to do with producing an event.

Any regrets at all?

In the '60s, I should have been recording Thelonious Monk every night when we were touring, but I didn't think about it. I was too concerned with making the tours happen. That was stupid of me.

I made decisions many years ago that my business was creating events. And everything else I did was for fun. When I started earlier, when I started Storyville Records, I thought we might go in the record business. But I found out I couldn't devote full time to it all, and so after that I made the decision my job is simply producing great events.

But if I've done anything -- I wrote about this in my book -- I feel I've gained more respect for jazz on, let's say, the establishment level, and hired as many musicians as I did. That's what I've more or less devoted my life to: Let's see the musicians get a gig, and let's see that they get paid for it.

I recently did a concert at Lincoln Center that had four pianists play --

Michel Camilo, Uri Caine, Randy Weston and Geri Allen. A great bill right? We only sold 500 tickets.

Anyway, I went backstage, like I always do before a concert, to sit with the musicians, and Geri says, "I read your book and I took a quote out of there that I put on my piano at home. I said, "Really -- what quote?" She said, "The first thing about gaining the trust of musicians is to pay them."

Ashley Kahn is an American music historian, journalist and producer. He has toured as road manager with artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Hugh Masekela, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and Britney Spears. Kahn has also written books about two essential jazz albums: Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" and John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Downbeat, Jazz Times, Rolling Stone, Mojo, New Statesman and GQ; he's also a regular commentator on NPR's Morning Edition.