George Wein and Jazz

I’ve been reading Myself among Others: Life in Music by George Wein with Nate Chinen. It’s an engrossing read about the business side of jazz over the last 60 years, told by the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and heritage Festival, and many others. Wein has had his fair share of criticism for exploiting musicians and compromising the integrity of his productions by the inclusion of various crossover artists but, as someone who works in the cost-recovery publishing racket, I have some sympathy. Authors are sometimes as temperamental as musicians, although I haven’t yet run across a Miles or Mingus, so I do have some understanding for Wein in that area. Also, what is commercially viable is not always the acme of artistic perfection. I can see that an hour-long concert by Cecil Taylor is a harder sell than one by Dizzy Gillespie. Kenny G, though? – really, George!

Compared to characters like Louis Armstrong’s longtime manager Joe Glaser, Wein comes off pretty well. As a musician himself, as a man who married interracially when such a thing was rare indeed, and above all as someone who clearly loves the music and respects the artists, Wein strikes me as a person for whom musicians could have respect and affection even though he was the Boss, his own version of things aside. After all of these years, one would expect the book to have some grat stories, and it does. The vignette of Charlie Parker soloing on Royal Garden Blues in a pre-bop style on a stage full of swing-era musicians and playing so much that Vic Dickenson almost dropped his trombone – that in itself made Myself Among Others a fascinating read. Also, Nate Chinen, now with the New York Times, did a fine job of working with Wein to craft a book that holds up well over its 500+ pages. (I would say, thiough, that some background in the music helps.)

In 2010, Wein is still producing jazz festivals at age 84 and, according to the Times just a week or so ago, often hangs out in small clubs scouting the talent. Let’s hope he continues to do so for many more years.