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CareFusion signs on to sponsor August jazz festival in Newport
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Posted by: editoron Thursday, July 09, 2009 - 07:38 AM |
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BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer
The August jazz festival in Newport, known until Tuesday as George Wein’s Jazz Festival 55, has picked up a new sponsor.
At a news conference in New York, festival impresario George Wein and CareFusion announced that the festival will be known as George Wein’s CareFusion Jazz Festival 55.
The festival had been without a titular sponsor since JVC decided not to renew its contract in March, ending a 24-year relationship with Wein’s productions in Newport. The festival will be held Aug. 7-9.
CareFusion is a new company that will become public following the planned spinoff of Cardinal Health’s clinical and medical products businesses.
The Newport festival is the first event of the CareFusion Jazz Festival Series, which will also include the Chicago Jazz Festival (Sept. 4-6), the CareFusion Jazz Festival Paris (Oct. 16-24) and the CareFusion New York Jazz Festival, to be held next June. (There was no New York Jazz Festival this year.)
“It means that we will have a major festival here like we’ve had in other years ... and I think it will be bigger,” Wein said in an Associated Press interview before a news conference to announce the sponsorship arrangement.
“We never solicited them. ... I think it’s a very healthy sign that people are still sponsoring music events like that ... and it’s indicative that American enterprise hasn’t given up even in the face of recessions. ... It proves that jazz has a life of its own that cannot be killed, and won’t be killed.”
The 83-year-old Wein sold his company, Festival Productions — whose lineup included the JVC-sponsored festivals in New York and Newport. — to the Festival Network, which retained him in an advisory capacity. Wein has since severed his ties with Festival Network.
After Festival Network ran into financial difficulties, Wein put up his own money and obtained a license from Rhode Island authorities to put on the folk and jazz festivals in Newport this summer. He also produced three concerts with Diana Krall and Jamie Cullum at New York’s Carnegie Hall in June instead of a full-fledged festival.
With reports from the Associated Press
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