Newport Folk Festival

Pete Seeger performs at the Clearwater Great Hudson Revival in June. Photo courtesy of Russ Cusick.

While there will be no shortage of young talent on view at the upcoming George Wein's Folk Festival 50, the new name for the venerable Newport Folk Festival, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary August 1-2 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport RI. But there is little doubt that the man of the hour will be the festival's 90-year-old co-founder, Pete Seeger, who has been having a summer to remember.

In May, Seeger celebrated his milestone birthday with thousands of fans and an all-star cast of musicians at Madison Square Garden in New York. Last month, he was honored again at another festival that he founded, the Clearwater Great Hudson River Revival (photos). At Newport, he will close the main stage on both nights of the festival, returning the event to its roots at least one more time.

The continuing saga of Newport gets curiouser and curiouser. If such a thing is possible.

The latest twist came on Tuesday, when George Wein announced that he would “produce and present George Wein’s Folk Festival 50, July 31-August 2, and George Wein’s Jazz Festival 55, August 7-9, in historic Newport, R.I.” Wein has also launched a website for both festivals, although as of Wednesday it contained not much more than a plea for sponsors (he has none at the moment for either event), a bio of Wein, and a place to sign up for e-mail updates.

Conspicuous by their absence from the announcement were performer lineups for either festival, although that information was promised for early April. Equally conspicuous by its absence was any mention of Festival Network, the company that bought Wein’s festival empire in 2007, kept him on the payroll, and had, with Wein, produced both festivals (and the New York jazz festival) for the last two years.

Festival Network's embattled co-chairman Chris Shields reasserted his company's claim to the Newport jazz and folk festivals in an email publshed today by the New York Times.

“We view George Wein’s effort to ensure the legacy of music festivals in Newport as complementary with FN’s own effort to produce the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk festivals, the trademarks of which we control,” Shields wrote.

Earlier this week, Wein announced plans to proceed with festivals in Newport for this summer, but under new names. They are to be called George Wein's Folk Festival 50 and George Wein's Jazz Festival 55. The statement by Shields leaves open the possibility that the parties could reconcile, but we'll wait to see the next developments.

The Times has been closely following the story of the split between Festival Network and Wein, the founding producer of both Newport events and New York's JVC Jazz Festival. For this installment, reporter Ben Sisario further chases down the New York angle, and quotes Wein opting out of producing a New York festival this year.

Following through on his earlier move to reclaim rights to the festivals he founded, George Wein formally announced his plans to present renamed folk and jazz festivals on the traditional dates and location of the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk festivals.

The festivals will be called George Wein's Folk Festival 50 and George Wein's Jazz Festival 55, with the numbers indicating the anniversary year of the original Newport festivals. The word Newport does not appear in the names, even though the rebranded events will be held on the traditional August dates and Fort Adams State Park location in Newport RI. The announcement said the festivals will retain their familiar format of a Friday night opening concert but did not mention the Tennis Hall of Fame as the location for the Friday concert.

Wein's former employer Festival Network, the company that until recently held the rights to produce the events, has not issued a public statement about Wein's latest move. But today's announcements by Wein suggest that any efforts to reunite the parties are unlikely to succeed.

Okay, so what exactly is happening on the Northeast jazz (and folk) festival front this summer? Is there going to be a JVC Jazz Festival in New York in June? What's the story with the Newport folk and jazz fests in August? And who exactly is running things?

The Newport situation became clearer last week (although you would have had a hard time figuring that out from much of the news coverage). But it’s still not entirely clear. And the New York situation, as far as I can tell, remains up in the air. Also up in the air is the exact nature of the relationship between George Wein, the man who launched the festival era with the first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, and Festival Network, the company that bought him out two years ago and became his employer.

The good news is that there will almost certainly be both a folk festival and a jazz festival in Newport, and that Wein will be producing them. Whether he will be producing them on his own or in conjunction with Festival Network depends on who you listen to.

Festival Network chairman Chris Shields confirmed in a statement to The Boston Globe that it is "in belt-tightening mode," and that it is "not focused on the robust expansion plans of '07 and much of '08, but rather honing our core festivals."

That sounds like a death sentence, at least for 2009, for the two new "destination" festivals the company produced last year in Jackson Hole WY and Whistler BC. But it eases concerns that the Newport jazz and folk festivals could be in trouble. According to the Globe's reporting, the company is in arrears to the State of Rhode Island for its 2008 lease of Fort Adams State Park, where the two Newport festivals are held on consecutive weekends.