Daily Dose OF Jazz…
George Wein was born on October 3, 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts. As a youth he was a jazz pianist and while studying at Boston University led a small group, playing professionally around the Boston area. In 1950 he opened a jazz club and record label called Storyville.
In 1954 Newport residents Louis and Elaine Lorillard invited him to organize a festival in their hometown of Newport, Rhode Island, with funding to be provided by them; the subsequent festival was the first outdoor jazz festival in the United States, becoming an annual tradition. Wein went on to start a number of festivals in other cities, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles and the Newport Folk Festival. In the 60s he set up Festival Productions, a company dedicated to promoting large-scale jazz events.
Pioneering the idea of corporate sponsorship, his “Schlitz Salute to Jazz” and “Kool Jazz Festival” were the first jazz events to feature title sponsors. His JVC Jazz Festivals are worldwide hosting New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Paris, Warsaw and Tokyo.
Wein has received a wide array of honors for his work with jazz concerts being honored at the White House by both Presidents Carter and Clinton. He has also received the Patron of the Arts from the Studio Museum in Harlem, France’s Legion d’Honneur and appointed Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et Lettres and named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts to name a few.
He has written his autobiography, Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, received honorary degrees from the Berklee College of Music and the Rhode Island College of Music, is a Lifetime Honorary Trustee of Carnegie Hall and sits as a distinguished member of the Board of Directors Advisory committee of The Jazz Foundation of America.
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