22 to Watch in RI in 2022: Christian McBride
GoLocalProv Lifestyle Team
22 to Watch in RI in 2022: Christian McBride
McBride had been doing much of the heavy lifting for the past few years while working in partnership with the legendary George Wein who passed in 2021.
Now, it is McBride — a seven-time Grammy winner — who is continuing the process of transforming the Jazz Festival.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBy title, he is the artistic director — but is now, de facto, the face of the event.
The history of Newport Jazz goes back to the 1950s.
As the New York Times wrote in 2007, “Elaine Lorillard, a socialite who with her husband, Louis, lured jazz greats to their hometown in Rhode Island for a two-day concert series in the summer of 1954, starting the Newport Jazz Festival and creating the model for what became a worldwide circuit of outdoor jazz festivals, died on Monday near her home in Newport. She was 93.”
The Lorillards hired Wein to run the festival and from there the future was set.
In March of 2016, McBride was named creative director of the Festival to work with Wein.
The Newport Jazz Festival is now in the hands of McBride — we can’t wait to see and hear its future.