Mike's Music Blog: Newport Jazz Festival 2018

This past weekend was the 64th year of the Newport Jazz Festival. They’ve continued to bring in more cross-over artists (which Christian McBride helped curate, such as with one of the headliners being Parliament Funkadelic) as well as continuing to bring some of the artists who are pushing into new territory in jazz now. This year they celebrated Charles Lloyd’s 80th birthday by having him play 3 sets (one each day of the festival)

His first of the three sets with the the trio Sangam was the highlight of the entire festival for me - consisting of Zakir Husain, Charles Lloyd, and Eric Harland. What is immediately striking about the instrumentation of this trio is the absence of a bass player - which Zakir often takes the role of by controlling the pitches of the tablas. Charles Lloyd is truly a mystic - and this set was by far the most spiritual and hypnotic of the three sets he played over the weekend.

Still Dreaming was another highlight from Friday - being a project lead by Joshua Redman which pays homage to Old and New Dreams (a band which his father, Dewey Redman, was in) - playing some of the compositions from that group and some original compositions as well. It’s the most interesting group Joshua Redman has been a part of in over a decade in my opinion - and Brian Blade’s drumming brings this groups music to another level.

On the flipside: BADBADNOTGOOD were not bad, but not very good either (at least relative to the caliber of artists featured on the main stage). There were some moments where their grooves carried it, and it was super cool to see them bring such a young audience to the NJF since they’re such a crossover act (such as collaborating with artists such as Kaytranada & Ghostface Killah), but more often than not it sort of sounded like a less inspired version of the Beastie Boys instrumental jams.

R+R=Now is Robert Glasper’s new ensemble who closed out the festival on Friday. I caught a bit of their set, and was digging it for a hot minute (especially their rendition of “How Much a Dollar Really Costs”) up until Robert Glasper opened his mouth. Every year I feel so conflicted as I really enjoy the music this dude makes - but can’t stand how big his ego is. He is by far the best player in his recent ensembles - and I believe this is mostly because he doesn’t want anyone to outshine him in his group. Between his bragging about how he played on 9 of the tracks on “To Pimp a Butterfly” and his bragging about grammys, and just his overall vibe as a human being, I was too disgusted and had to leave.

On Saturday Laurie Anderson performed with Christian McBride and Rubin Kodheli. The set consisted of primarily instrumental string music with a few compositions where she was also doing spoken word. To my knowledge the set was of entirely new material, which I hope will be released in the not so distant future. She is the absolute fucking coolest.

The festival ended with George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic. At 77 years old George Clinton is still vibing hard. At times there must have been at least 20 people on stage - at least 5 being hype-men. It was by far the highest energy set I’ve ever seen at the jazz festival and a fun way for it to go out - especially as this is George Clinton's last tour.