1925: George Theodore Wein is born on October 3 in Lynn, Massachusetts. 1930s: Wein grows up in the heavily Jewish suburb of Newton, where, as he would later write, “the children… were spared the discrimination that had plagued earlier generations.” But this didn’t necessarily mean his family was particularly observant. He remembers seeing his father,…
George Wein, co-founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, once wrote, “If there was ever an average middle-class, Jewish-American kid… I was it.” But the life that followed Wein’s childhood in the Boston suburbs has been anything but commonplace. Consider a few facts: As a teenager who hungrily sought out live jazz, Wein sometimes brought musicians…
This autumn’s Manhattan concert calendar contains celebrations both of Jewish musical youth and age, as if offering alternating songs of innocence and experience. Experience comes first, from October 19 to 24, when Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola presents an 85th birthday party for Newport Jazz Festival impresario George Wein. Among the celebrants will be Jazz Jews such…
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