NYC Radio Live · David Ellenbogen, host

George Wein remembers Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and the birth of Newport Jazz

April 7, 2026·1 hr 16 min·6 clips

The 1960 Newport riot was in the town, not at the jazz festival, according to police.

1. NYC Radio Live host David Ellenbogen presents a 16-year-old archival interview with George Wein, whom he describes as possibly the most influential music producer in American jazz history. 2. Wein started the Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, the Newport Folk Festival in 1958, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival — before him, only classical music festivals existed in America. 3. The episode's core is Wein telling first-person stories of his relationships with Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young. 4. Wein formed his first band at age 13 in 1938, playing dances for $1 a night from stock arrangements rehearsed in his cellar. 5. His first entrepreneurial act came while playing with Edmund Hall's quartet at the Savoy Club in Boston: instead of asking for a raise, he negotiated one Saturday night off per month and used that to book college gigs, earning $750 per night versus the band's usual $180-$300 weekly rate. 6. He opened Storyville in Boston in 1950 with $5,000 in savings, was $20,000 in debt within six months, and remained in debt throughout the club's entire decade-long run from 1950 to 1960. 7. George Shearing's 1951 booking — arranged on a tip from a New York agent — earned Wein $7,000 in ten days, prompting him to book every artist he loved; when Billie Holiday and Art Tatum didn't match those numbers, the debt deepened. 8. At Storyville in 1953, Charlie Parker walked into the bar mid-conversation while Wein was discussing musicians who don't show up, sat in on 'Royal Garden Blues' with the house band, and left every musician onstage frozen in disbelief. 9. Wein played a week with Lester Young at Storyville: Young made him play three full choruses of 'Pennies from Heaven' before finally getting onstage, then said 'you're not going to be all right' — meaning you'll do fine — which was his approval. 10. Wein describes Young's idiosyncratic private language in detail: 'have another helping,' 'follow the swallow back home,' Lady Day, Lady Clayton, Lady Victoria — and suggests Prez invented the musician practice of speaking entirely in double entendres. 11. The Newport Jazz Festival's first major international incident was the 1960 'riot' — actually a beer-throwing incident outside the festival grounds, not at the concerts — and a second 1971 incident where 20,000 people in the park filed out peacefully when Wein announced the concert was cancelled. 12. Miles Davis's 1955 Newport comeback started with Davis cornering Wein at Basin Street East, repeatedly saying 'you can't have a jazz festival without me' until Wein agreed to book him despite Davis having no band. 13. Wein assembled a scratch ensemble with Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Connie Kay, and Percy Heath; Miles played 'Round Midnight' with the bell of his horn directly in the microphone, coming through clear when everything else sounded terrible. 14. George Avakian ran up from the audience that night and signed Miles to Columbia Records — launching the comeback that would produce Kind of Blue — and Miles walked offstage to tell Wein the performance was beautiful, immediately followed by telling him to tell Monk 'he plays the wrong changes around midnight.' 15. Wein calls three events the watershed moments that happened on his watch: Dylan going electric, Miles's 1955 Newport comeback, and Duke Ellington's 1956 Newport concert where Paul Gonzalves played 27 choruses of 'Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.' 16. During the Gonzalves performance, Wein was standing on stage yelling 'Duke, that's it, finish!' from the wings while Ellington, having the greatest night he had had in years, ignored him completely as 12,000 people surged forward. 17. Wein describes spending nights with Ellington in his hotel room while Ellington composed on the phone, fetching him ice cream at midnight from the all-night drugstore, and renting him three hotel rooms — because Ellington would visit two different women during the night and needed the exits. 18. Duke Ellington visited Wein's apartment for a birthday and said 'turn it around — I'm 64' when Wein said he was celebrating being 46, and then left through the back door to avoid whoever was waiting for him in the street. 19. The interview has a warm, unhurried quality: Wein tells stories with the ease of someone recounting personal memories, and Ellenbogen adds context for listeners about figures like Bird, Lester Young, and Louis Armstrong. 20. Best for jazz history enthusiasts and music fans who want first-person accounts of Newport Jazz Festival history and intimate portraits of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young.

As heard by us

Wein's recollections keep jazz history immediate, with friendship and personality carrying the close.

George Wein's memories make this episode read like a compact oral history of jazz producing, festival-making, and the people around it. He speaks about Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young in plain, lived-in terms, and the account stays…

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Why you'd press play

A front-row seat to jazz history told through George Wein's memories, not museum copy.

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