The Rifftides Lead Of The Week Award goes to Steve Greenlee of the Boston Globe for this entry:
NEWPORT, R.I. — News bulletin: Major theft this weekend at Fort Adams State Park during the JVC Jazz Festival. Description of subject: Elderly gentleman, white hair, thick glasses, walks and speaks slowly, but plays piano like a madman. Date of birth: 12-6-20. Item stolen: the show.
Greenlee was describing Dave Brubeck. To read all of his review of Sunday at the Newport Festival, go here.
In the interest of survival, jazz festivals everywhere have loosened the admittance requirements for musicians and modified the already indistinct definition of jazz. There are no rules determining who qualifies as a jazz artist, so the Newport management might defend on business grounds its inclusion of B.B. King. Let’s call it a borderline compromise. But I must share Greenlee’s surprise at the presence on the Newport stage of the blues-rock-folk, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink performer Bruce Hornsby.
Next year at Newport: Ricky Skaggs, The Grateful Dead?