After a short boat ride from the harbor, my mom and I join a long line of rowdy jazz fans, anxious to get through the gates and set up their beach chairs. Volunteers throw water bottles to the crowd. It’s a sweltering hot Saturday morning in early August. I’m ready, my shades positioned on my nose, to bounce my knees to whatever groove I can find.
We finally make it through and enter the Newport Jazz Festival. My mom is from Newport, and we’ve made a tradition of spending a weekend at the festival and the ocean. I get giddy seeing so many jazz fans in one place. The crowd hums with mentions of Robert Glasper and Cimafunk and Kamasi Washington. Those guys are cool, but I’m most excited to see Christian McBride. As a fellow bassist, I can tell you that he is one of the greats.
It’s the last act of the day. The screens around the festival flash with thunderstorm warnings. Maybe the boats will stop and we’ll be stranded, but all I care about now is seeing Christian McBride. My mom and I stand behind the rows of chairs. A grin stretches across my face when Christian introduces his “Jam Jawn.” Fred Wessley, the eighty-year-old trombonist who played with James Brown, is on the stage! It gets really funky really fast. Everyone in the crowd nods and shuffles with the beat.
I can’t wait to play bass this year in Soul Sauce and Riverside Jazz Combo. The feeling of locking into the groove for the first time after three months of playing alone is indescribable. It’s always fun to see the new members of the band improve exponentially in their first few months and shape the sound of the band.