With no news confirming — or denying — that there will be a mainstream New York City jazz festival next summer like those produced by George Wein since the late ’60s and for the past 25 years supported by the JVC Corporation of America, the artist-organized “avant-jazz” Vision Festival stands as the largest and longest concentrated such effort in the city this year, having just released its complete schedule of concerts and panels to be held at the downtown Abrons Arts Center and Angel Orenzanz Foundation June 9 – 15, 2009.
Wein by comparison — and disassociated with Festival Network, to whom he sold his former Fetival Productions company two years ago — has announced he’ll present singer-pianist Diana Krall at Carnegie Hall June 23 and 24 (in celebration of Quiet Nights, her recently released, string-drenched, chart-topping album of broken-hearted love songs) and stage jazz and folk fests in Newport, Rhode Island, where he established the successful format for summer vernacular music fests 55 years ago.