He's the founder of the Newport Folk Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival, which turns 50 this year. A new three-CD set, Happy Birthday Newport: 50 Swinging Years, celebrates the milestone. In the early 1950s, Wein founded the jazz clubs Storyville and Mahogany Hall in his hometown of Boston, where jazz giants Art Tatum, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz and Miles Davis played. In 1954 he launched the Newport Jazz Festival, where he presented Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dave Brubeck and others. The other music greats he knew and worked with: Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Louis Armstrong. Last year, Wein published his autobiography, Myself Among Others: A Life In Music.
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