A Newport state of mind

Once proclaimed to be the original American art form, jazz continues to thrive at the eponymous jazz festival of Rhode Island

- Russell Higham

IN his 1939 undergraduate thesis at Harvard University, the composer, conductor and pianist Leonard Bernstein noted that jazz is 'the ultimate common denominator of the American musical style'. Nowhere is that style and spirit more prevalent than in Newport, Rhode Island, home to the Newport Jazz Festival, which celebrated its 70th birthday last month.

Less than two hours' drive from Harvard through leafy New England, this elegant resort on the north-east coast of the US is where the 'aristocracy' of America's Gilded Age-the Astors, Kennedys, Roosevelts and Vanderbilts built their 'cottages', as they called them, in the late 19th century.

Intended as summer boltholes from New York's sweltering temperatures, the misnomer was as ironic as the false modesty.

One of those 'cottage' dwellers was Elaine Lorillard. She had married into the family who owned the site where The Breakers stands-Newport's grandest mansion of all -a four-storey-high, 70-bedroom monument to prosperity, designed by Richard Morris Hunt for Cornelius Vanderbilt II. Lorillard, in combination with George Wein-a pianist and producer who ran Boston jazz club Storyville-founded the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1954 as a summertime distraction for her friends and neighbours.

Despite her dizzying wealth and Newport's rich abundance of leisure opportunities, Lorillard lamented to Wein 'there's just nothing to do'. To alleviate boredom the previous summer, she had helped organise a performance by the New York Philharmonic at the Newport Casino-now home to the International Tennis Hall of Fame-built in 1880 on historic Bellevue Avenue. She chose this location again for what was initially called the American Jazz Festival.