Musonomics Recap: George Wein and The Newport Legacy

By: Clayton Durant, CEO at CAD Management and Graduate Music Business Student at NYU Steinhardt; Sara Schulmann, Social Media Consultant

When you think about current music festivals within the broader concert ecosystem, brands that come to mind may be Coachella, Bonnaroo, or Firefly. These massive festivals contribute big dollars to the $10.9 billion concert market. How big are some of these festivals? For context, a festival like Bonnaroo in 2019 grossed $25 million and drew over 85,000 fans. Even during the pandemic, Lollapalooza drew an estimated 385,000 people total to Chicago's Grant Park from July 29th through August 1st. Across the festival ecosystem, Nielsen estimates that about 32 million fans attend festivals per year. It is clearly difficult if not impossible to imagine the concert business without music festivals.

So how did the music festival come about? When tracing the lineage of the modern music festival, many live music professionals unanimously agree that the festival model can be heavily attributed to George Wein. Wein, a jazz promoter, musician, and producer, is best known for founding the annual summer Newport Jazz Festival, which started back in 1954. Wein used the festival as a platform to boost careers and industry respect for musicians, such as Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Additionally, he used the festival as a tool for social justice, promoting a diverse lineup of artists and appealing to racially mixed audiences. Wein died in September at the age of 95 peacefully in his sleep.

To celebrate and commemorate his historic career and legacy, Musonomics’ latest episode titled, “George Wein and The Newport Legacy”, interviews Michael Dorf, founder of City Winery; Gina Raimondo, the 40th U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Grammy Award winning bassist Christian McBride who shared their personal experiences with Wein throughout the years. The episode depicts Wein’s commitment to artists, his willingness to mentor, his ingenuity on festival production, and his role in breaking some of the most important jazz acts in the modern music business.

Over his forty plus year career, George Wein is many things to many people. A friend, a family member, a mentor, a career breaker, and an innovator to say the least. So how can George Wein’s legacy be defined? Here are some of the answers from the Musonomics interviewees:

“George Wein's legacy is a combination of things. Not only is it the music festival, but it is also a legacy of deeply caring about art and the people that make it.” – Christian McBride

“Providing a safe space for artists past, present, and hopefully future to practice their art.” – Jay Sweet

“His legacy is defined by the lives of the musicians that he has worked with over all of these years. George hired them and helped them make a living and I think he would be happy with that.” – Jerry Chazen

“George Wein’s legacy is enduring and 100 years from now we'll still be talking about the impact he made on the Jazz industry, Folk, and the festivals will still be breathing life into the Newport and Rhode Island community” - Gina Raimondo, the 40th U.S. Secretary of Commerce

 Listen to the full episode of Musonomics out now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Soundcloud.