The CareFusion Jazz Festival Series

George Wein's Jazz Festivals Get Infusion of Cash

In this Aug. 10, 2008 file photo, Newport Jazz Festival founder George Wein performs at the Newport Jazz Festival at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, R.I.

At 83, George Wein hoped the future of his Newport folk and jazz festivals would have been set. But the founder of the annual Newport events and the New York jazz festival has been working harder then ever to keep the events alive.

Yesterday at a New York press conference, Wein announced that he’d received a lifeline from CareFusion, a planned spinoff of Cardinal Health’s clinical and medical products businesses.

The company outlined an expansive sponsorship deal for what will be called the CareFusion Jazz Festival Series; the kickoff event will be George Wein’s CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport.

The company will also help Wein revive the New York jazz festival next June, and it will sponsor jazz fests in Chicago, Monterey, Calif., Paris and Australia.

“This is a great boost for jazz,” Wein told the Herald by phone before the press conference. “JazzTimes magazine is going under. No one can find sponsors for festivals. The arts are in trouble. And then CareFusion walked in the door. It’s more than a light at the end of the tunnel. We are out of the tunnel.”

The CareFusion Jazz Festival Series will open in Newport, R.I. The kickoff event will be George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55, the oldest of the festivals and the one that has set the tradition for jazz festivals as they are known today.

The full schedule includes:
George Wein's CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 (Newport, R.I.), Aug. 7 - 9, 2009
Chicago Jazz Festival presented by CareFusion, Sept. 4 - 6, 2009
CareFusion Presents Dizzy's Den at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Sept. 18 - 20, 2009
CareFusion Manly Jazz Festival (Australia), Oct. 3 - 5, 2009
CareFusion Jazz Festival Paris, Oct. 16 - 24, 2009
CareFusion New York Jazz Festival, June 2010 (exact dates to be determined)

Sources:

http://www.carefusionjazz.com/

http://sev.prnewswire.com/health-care-hospitals/20090707/LA4286107072009-1.html

http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/music/general/view/20090708weins_jazz_festivals_get_infusion_of_cash/srvc=home&position=also