Quirky NY Chick: Jazz Festival 55

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Jazz Festival 55

4:20 AM | Posted by Quirky NY Chick

George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55: August 9 @ Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI

This past Sunday, I ventured out to Fort Adams State Park with my camera to take in George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55. This was the last day of the three day event and this is what I saw.

Joe Lovano was the first artist to play the main stage Sunday. He was joined by Esperanza Spalding who performed her own set the day before.

Then I popped over to check out The Rodriguez Brothers who were enjoyable.

I caught some of Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band's set. We all know I'm not a drum fan but I rather liked Blade's work. And found the band enjoyable.

I went back over to the main stage to see Michel Camilo.

Rudresh Mahanthappa and festival founder George Wein chatting in the media tent before they were each whisked off to their interviews. Mahanthappa played the opening set over on the Harbor stage earlier.

I then went around to catch a couple of songs of the solo piano set by Alfredo Rodriguez.

I moved on to check out some of Steve Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra. I wasn't expecting to even remotely like them but what I saw wasn't too bad.

It was then back over to the main stage to check out Roy Haynes who was joined by special guest Ron Carter.

I stuck to the main stage to see Dave Brubeck who seemed to be in really good spirits.

It was then off to another stage to see the James Carter Organ Trio. They were the highlight of the day for me.

I then went over to check out By Any Means. Drummer Rashied Ali was unable to perform as he wasn't well and couldn't make it. His brother Muhammad Ali filled in for him though.

After that was The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis. They were a little to experimental sounding for me so I didn't stick around long enough to catch Lewis hit the stage.

Antonia Bennett did a short set before her father took the stage. She didn't inherit her father's entertainment gene. She was lacking in stage presence in my opinion. I found her rather boring to be honest.

Closing the festival was Tony Bennett. I'm not a Bennett fan and expected to completely hate his set. Well, much to my surprise, I didn't hate it. While I'm still no fan, I did find him entertaining.