Elaine Lorillard, a socialite who with her husband, Louis, lured jazz greats to their hometown in Rhode Island for a two-day concert series in the summer of 1954, starting the Newport Jazz Festival and creating the model for what became a worldwide circuit of outdoor jazz festivals, died on Monday near her home in Newport. She was 93.
Her daughter, Didi Cowley, confirmed the death.
It was a casual remark during intermission at a classical concert in Newport in 1953 that inspired the Lorillards to sponsor the first Newport Jazz Festival. Mrs. Lorillard, already a jazz fan, was seated next to John Maxon, then head of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
“It's too bad we can't do something like this for jazz," he said. “That's another music form that's worth a big-time festival."
The Lorillards got in touch with George Wein, then the owner of a jazz club in Boston, and asked him to produce that first festival. The Lorillards and Mr. Wein, who went on to become a renowned jazz impresario, brought together for the first concert series, among others: the Modern Jazz Quartet, the Oscar Peterson Trio, the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, the George Shearing Quintet, the Erroll Garner Trio, the Gene Krupa Trio and the singers Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
About 7,000 fans packed the grounds of the Newport Casino on the nights of July 17 and 18 in 1954.
“Because it was held in Newport, it gave an aura of social distinction to jazz that it had never had before," Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, said in an interview yesterday.
Her daughter, Didi Cowley, confirmed the death.
It was a casual remark during intermission at a classical concert in Newport in 1953 that inspired the Lorillards to sponsor the first Newport Jazz Festival. Mrs. Lorillard, already a jazz fan, was seated next to John Maxon, then head of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
“It's too bad we can't do something like this for jazz," he said. “That's another music form that's worth a big-time festival."
The Lorillards got in touch with George Wein, then the owner of a jazz club in Boston, and asked him to produce that first festival. The Lorillards and Mr. Wein, who went on to become a renowned jazz impresario, brought together for the first concert series, among others: the Modern Jazz Quartet, the Oscar Peterson Trio, the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, the George Shearing Quintet, the Erroll Garner Trio, the Gene Krupa Trio and the singers Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
About 7,000 fans packed the grounds of the Newport Casino on the nights of July 17 and 18 in 1954.
“Because it was held in Newport, it gave an aura of social distinction to jazz that it had never had before," Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, said in an interview yesterday.
