George Wein

Jazz festival visionary BORN 1925

Born in Massachusetts to musicloving parents, George Wein studied piano and served in the army before opening his Storyville label and nightspot in Boston, promoting and recording John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and others, in 1950. In 1954 he presented Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and many more at the first Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, laying the groundwork for the modern outdoor rock festival (he recalled donating his first producer’s fee to keep the event solvent). In 1959 he staged the storied Newport Folk Festival, scene of Bob Dylan going electric in 1965, and would go on to found similar jazz celebrations across the world, notably the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He was awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur, was decorated by Presidents Carter and Clinton, and as a pianist recorded albums with the Newport All Stars and many others. He played his final gig – billed as One More Once – at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2019, aged 93, a living thread between eras.