The concert promoter George Wein, now 84, has been getting out to clubs lately.
“More than 20 times in the past year," he said in an interview on Tuesday. In Brooklyn, which he reckons he hasn't visited more than two dozen times since 1960, he's been to Zebulon and Barbes and the tiny Puppets. He's been spending time at the Jazz Gallery, on Hudson Street in the South Village. And there he was last month during the crammed, chaotic Winter Jazzfest, settled in for a long night at Kenny's Castaways on Bleecker Street.
“I've got to change my way of listening," he said. “I've got to listen to what the musicians are trying to tell me and whether they're doing it well."
Some of what he has heard will be found in the first CareFusion Jazz Festival, a major jazz festival in New York this summer, produced by Mr. Wein. It will run from June 17 to 26, and its schedule is to be released on Thursday at carefusionjazz.com.
All this reconnaissance is a change of course. For a long time Mr. Wein ran the fairly formulaic, big-ticket JVC Jazz Festival in New York and relied on employees of his production company, Festival Productions, for programming ideas. The festival imploded under debt last year after Mr. Wein sold Festival Productions. But now he has a new (if smaller) company, New Festival Productions, and he's taking on much of the programming himself.
“More than 20 times in the past year," he said in an interview on Tuesday. In Brooklyn, which he reckons he hasn't visited more than two dozen times since 1960, he's been to Zebulon and Barbes and the tiny Puppets. He's been spending time at the Jazz Gallery, on Hudson Street in the South Village. And there he was last month during the crammed, chaotic Winter Jazzfest, settled in for a long night at Kenny's Castaways on Bleecker Street.
“I've got to change my way of listening," he said. “I've got to listen to what the musicians are trying to tell me and whether they're doing it well."
Some of what he has heard will be found in the first CareFusion Jazz Festival, a major jazz festival in New York this summer, produced by Mr. Wein. It will run from June 17 to 26, and its schedule is to be released on Thursday at carefusionjazz.com.
All this reconnaissance is a change of course. For a long time Mr. Wein ran the fairly formulaic, big-ticket JVC Jazz Festival in New York and relied on employees of his production company, Festival Productions, for programming ideas. The festival imploded under debt last year after Mr. Wein sold Festival Productions. But now he has a new (if smaller) company, New Festival Productions, and he's taking on much of the programming himself.
