REMEMBERING GEORGE WEIN
Photograph by Jacqueline Marque
By Kevin Michaels
O
n the first Sunday of the 2018 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, George Wein slowly made his way onto the main stage in front of thousands of music fans. Most didn’t realize he was ultimately the reason they were there. In 1954, Wein essentially invented the modern music festival by producing the first Newport Jazz Festival. Over the ensuing decades, he orchestrated hundreds of festivals and tours around the world, including New Orleans’ signature musical event. His afternoon appearance on the Acura Stage in 2018 kicked off the year-long countdown to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s 50th anniversary. “I’m 92 years old,” a frail Wein announced from the stage. “I’m waiting for the saints to go marching in. I hope they’ll let me join them. But I’m not ready yet. I’ll see you next year for the 50th year of the festival, okay?” Throughout his epic life, George Wein relished art, food and fine wine. But above all,
his passion was music in general and jazz specifically. Though he was an accomplished jazz pianist, his prevailing talent was not performing jazz, but presenting and promoting it. Of all the events he developed, the New Orleans Jazz Fest was special to him. Appropriately, then, the landmark 50th anniversary festival in 2019 also served as his farewell. After the 2020 and 2021 Jazz Fests were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, Wein died on Sept. 13, 2021 in New York at age 95. As Jazz Fest celebrates its resurrection at the Fair Grounds this spring, it will also remember the remarkable man to whom the festival owes its very existence. The 2022 Jazz Fest will also honor other icons who have passed away since the 50th anniversary. Tributes are planned for Allen Toussaint, Art and Charles Neville, Dr. John, Dave Bartholomew and Ellis Marsalis, among others. “That’s Jazz Fest,” says the festival’s longtime director, Quint Davis, who spent half a century working with and learning from Wein.
“We stay connected to our ancestors. These people are part of us, part of our lives, part of New Orleans.” None more so than George Wein.
Growing up near Boston as the son of a doctor and what he called a “nice Jewish girl,” Wein started playing piano as a boy. By the time he was in high school, he was earning money at it. After serving in the army during World War II, he enrolled in the pre-med program at Boston University under the G.I. Bill. He quickly realized that following in his father’s footsteps was not for him. He also concluded that he wouldn’t be a professional piano player. So, after graduation, he leased a space inside a Boston hotel and opened a jazz club. He named it Storyville, in honor of the infamous New Orleans red-light district of the early 1900s where many jazz musicians found work. Throughout the 1950s, top-tier jazz artists—
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