# Field Notes: Newport 2017: The fest wraps with plenty of sun and groove

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/08/25/field/
- Published: 2017-08-25T19:52:08+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**“I view the [jazz] tradition as being like the roots of a tree,” the bassist Christian
McBride told _JT_ writer Nate Chinen in 2013. “But you can’t just have the roots.
Something’s got to grow out of that: different branches, leaves, the tree’s going
to get taller.”**

That’s a familiar set of metaphors that are also strong and right. And they reflect
the way McBride took to his first year as the artistic director of the Newport Jazz
Festival, helming the venerable institution with its co-founder, George Wein. In
many ways McBride is both a populist and a progressive, but you’d be nuts to say
he hasn’t upheld jazz’s most righteous technical and cultural tenets. Just taking
into consideration its final day, McBride’s Newport had it both ways and then some:
modern-mainstream jazz headliners, slightly lower-profile postboppers, groove-jazz
as interpreted by some of our best musicians, a taste of the avant-garde (a slighter
presence than in previous years) and the Roots, the adult-friendly hip-hop band,
led by McBride’s high-school pal Questlove, that has helped many a bona-fide jazz
festival move a few more tickets.

When the weather is fine at the festival site of Fort Adams State Park—as it was
yesterday, with sun and a high of 77—the mind tends to wander. With overcast skies
and a little drizzle, a critic has no problem hunkering down for a full set and 
copious note-taking. When you realize that you’re essentially walking inside an 
Edward Hopper landscape, meditations on the heady counterpoint of saxophonist Tim
Berne’s Snakeoil take a backseat to other thoughts: How much does Jason Moran’s 
Fats Waller mask weigh? Does he ever wear it around the house to scare his kids?
Are any of the many people here under the age of 23 _not_ student musicians? And
where is everyone getting these lemonades? Do I need a lemonade? I drank a soda 
20 minutes ago. Is it too soon for lemonade?

In other words, it becomes a festival as opposed to a series of hourlong sets. Sunday’s
program, heavy on improvised music to be appreciated within rock and R&B tastes,
dovetailed well with the goodtime vibes. Moran’s Fats Waller Dance Party fulfilled
the promise of its name onstage and off, and that long-running big-head bit, which
allows Moran to offer juicy historical tidbits in-character, never gets old. Cyrille
Aimée mixed a clever loop-assisted solo arrangement of Bob Marley’s “Waiting in 
Vain” and a full-band take on Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” into her set of postmodern
Gypsy-jazz—part stellar vocal-jazz, part Hot Club and part singer-songwriter, with
an emphasis on letting a great guitar band do serious work.

Bokanté, the high-volume global-blues outfit fronted by Snarky Puppy’s Michael League
and the fantastic Guadeloupe-raised singer Malika Tirolien, also worked toward its
peaks through guitar firepower. Atop locomotive African-blues grooves, a trio of
soloists positively ignited: There was Chris McQueen, playing hard angles with a
flinty tone; Bob Lanzetti, shredding with an echoey sound built for an amphitheater;
and lap-steel master Roosevelt Collier, playing beautiful singing lines as well 
as weird, idiomatic rhythmic ideas. (Bokanté was also a rare instance of a Newport
artist even hinting at the current political climate, though there certainly could
have been examples I missed happening on other stages. Between tunes, Tirolien related
the parable of the boiling frog, explaining its meaning that when “something’s wrong
in your family … your country, you better do something.” Cheers came quickly.)

The supergroup Hudson hit precisely the marks you’d want from a band featuring drummer
Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John Scofield, bassist Larry Grenadier and organist/pianist
John Medeski. I caught a loud, elastic, cathartic take on Hendrix’s “Castles Made
of Sand,” with Scofield covering the vocal melody in tasty Wes-style octaves before
DeJohnette sang with fatherly, workmanlike charm. Hudson is in many ways an homage
to a postwar generation raised on both acoustic jazz and the brilliant popular music
of the 1960s, so Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” approached as soulful midtempo postbop,
came off as a kind of theme song, or mission statement.

Hudson felt special, like a set that will mark this particular Newport against all
the others. But the band still has a bunch of tour dates left. Far rarer was the
fifth-ever gig by the Philadelphia Experiment, featuring McBride, mostly on electric
bass, keyboardist Uri Caine and drummer Questlove, plus, for this set, turntablist
DJ Logic, whose scratching fell into the mix impeccably. Due to Bokanté’s move to
the main stage, caused by the illness-related cancellation of R&B singer Andra Day,
the Experiment got a full hour-and-15 to stretch out with its powerfully backbeat-
driven version of jazz-funk. The musicianship here was airtight: Caine, on Rhodes,
proved how classically earned technique can enhance rather than detract from a naturally
funky rhythmic sense; McBride’s solos were complete statements of melody and chops,
with quotes that highlighted his encyclopedic jazz and R&B listening; and Questlove
laid down an unmovable foundation while showing off his nimble way with displacement
and the ability to morph grooves with the seamlessness of a club DJ.

The spirit of the set, however, was as loose as the highest-quality barroom reminiscing.
Questlove and McBride spent a lot of time giggling toward one another like the prank-
loving, trash-talking chums they were at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative
and Performing Arts during the 1980s. Some of the anecdotes—like driving their high-
school orchestra director batty by fitting funky grooves into unlikely places—were
flat-out funny. Other stories—like Questlove remembering the different musical recommendations
he got from his schoolmates McBride, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Black Thought—were deeper,
and helped to explain the current state of American jazz, hip-hop and R&B. As with
McBride’s playing, bandleading and now curating, the history lessons went down easy.

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