Dianne Reeves and her band and The Count Basie Orchestra with Special Guest Nnenna Freelon will open the 2007 JVC Jazz Festival - Newport at 8:00 pm on Friday, August 10 at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. This year's program will evoke the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, which is, arguably, the one of the most well known Jazz Festivals, Newport or otherwise.
On successive nights in 1957, the Newport Jazz Festival presented several of the greatest female jazz singers of all time. Ella Fitzgerald & Billie Holiday at Newport was the title of an LP, made from those recordings. Add Count Basie's band to the mix and it became the most exciting and hard-swinging performance of one extraordinary night.Festival Producer George Wein and Artistic Director Dan Melnick celebrate that history by presenting the present day Basie Orchestra, led by long-time trombonist and Basie alum, Bill Hughes and two of the 21st Century's best jazz vocalists, Dianne Reeves and Nnenna Freelon."One night this past fall, I was home listening to a reissue of one of the great 1957 recordings at Newport and then remembered there was an extensive collection of material recorded that year. It occurred to me that we should acknowledge the fiftieth anniversary of some of those sets at this year's festival," stated Melnick.Videos