Photo of the 1954 Newport Jazz Festival (from the Newport Jazz Festival)
The first Newport Jazz Festival (also known as the First American Jazz Festival) took place at the Newport Casino on July 17th and 18th, 1954. The two-day event featured academic panel discussions and live musical performances by musicians such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lee Konitz, and Eddie Condon, among many others.
With 13,000 fans attending the inaugural event, the festival was deemed such a success that in 1955 the festival moved to Freebody Park.
Excerpt from How Newport Jazz Began by George Wayne:
“The first Newport Jazz Festival, held in 1954, set the formula for all major jazz festivals that followed. Popular artists sold the tickets, but it was important unknown jazz heroes, from traditional to avant-garde, who charmed the critics and gave the festival artistic credibility.”
In 1954, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Gene Krupa, George Shearing, and Billie Holiday were popular jazz artists. The program included tributes and reunions that are commonplace now. The panels featured an academic approach to music. This formula, a blend of commercialism and artistic credibility, continues to this day. The difference is that the great names in jazz, such as Ellington, Armstrong, and Fitzgerald, had passed away, and so it became necessary to use crossover groups from time to time that reflected the many aspects of American popular music that didn’t necessarily reflect the purity of jazz. Still, these artists sold tickets, and every festival producer knows that without people, there’s no festival.
The two sell-out events were covered in national newspapers, the festival had a global impact and the whole city of Newport was talking about what had happened at the historic Newport Casino.”
Read more about the history of the Newport Jazz Festival
