Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the fields. The streets are too busy with tourists, and the fields are where the music festivals always seem to be; full days of sounds both familiar and new, good people-watching and the smell of grass (both kinds) makes everybody feel good. All the usual suspects are here, but many have different names than what you’re used to hearing.

     Let’s start where it all started, with the Newport Jazz Festival (August 8-10) and the Newport Folk Festival (August 16-17) both at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, RI. If we’re speaking correctly here, and tipping our hats to the sponsors who pay a lot of money to have their names in front of the traditional monikers, the Jazz Festival is called the JVC Jazz Festival, which it has been for quite a few years, and the Folk Festival is now called the Apple and Eve Newport Folk Festival. I have problems calling the concert venue that used to be Great Woods the Tweeter Center, so it’s difficult to ignore the torch passing of sponsorship that goes on with the folk festival. In recent years it’s been sponsored by Newport Creamery and Ben & Jerry’s, now the honor belongs to a juice company based in Port Washington, N.Y. Anyway, what’s important here is the music, and both festivals have good lineups this year. The Jazz festival, which was started in 1954 by George Wein, and has boasted such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, is still going strong in its 49th year. Dave Brubeck returns this year on Friday night, and shares the evening with K.D. Lang. Other confirmed performers for the weekend include Lizz Wright, Michel Camilo, The Bad Plus, Eddie Palmieri and Smokey and Miho.

     The Folk Festival, just four years younger than the Jazz Festival, is of course best known for its 1965 gathering, when Bob Dylan was booed offstage for playing electric. This year’s lineup includes Ani DiFranco, Aimee Mann, Guy Clark, Jackie Green, Joe Ely, John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Slaid Cleaves, Susan Gibson, The Waifs, Angelique Kidjo, Alison Brown, Erin McKeown, Sam Bush, and Mary Gauthier

     The Rhythm & Roots Festival, (August 29th through 31st) which used to be the old Cajun & Bluegrass Festival in Escoheag, RI, now takes place in Ninigret Park, in RI, where it has for the past few years. In addition to the long list of great performers, including host band Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Little Feat, Marcia Ball and the Gourds, there are a lot of set activities throughout the weekend. One of the first festivals of its kind to cater to a dance crowd, there are two huge dance floors-- one by the main stage and one at the dance tent where lessons are offered during the day in Cajun, zydeco and swing dancing and where the Fais Do Do dances take place at night.  

     Ellen Giurleo, who does publicity for Rhythm & Roots explained that Fais Do Do  translated means "put the kids to sleep"  --the root of this being in Cajun culture many years ago when the Acadiens migrated from Nova Scotia down into Louisiana. They would gather in each others' homes to dance since there were no dance halls then and it was the only place to congregate. They would move out the furniture and being in one room houses the kids would fall sleep in the same room where everyone was dancing.

     Another unique feature of Rhythm & Roots is the scope of family activities including a Mardi gras parade for kids after making masks at the family tent, a workshop stage with demonstrations and Q&A sessions with performers.  There are also movies shown at night for kids and teens in the tent, and there is camping and swimming on site.

     This same weekend (August 29th through 31st) is the Tanglewood Jazz Festival in Lenox, Mass. Tanglewood has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home for more than 60 years, but on Labor day Weekend it belongs to musicians like the Wynton Marsalis Septet, Gato Barbieri, Michel Camilo, Marian McPartland, Hirom, Natalie Cole and more special guests that have yet to be announced. Earlier in the summer Tanglewood plays host to the Festival of Contemporary Music (July 17th through 21st): Five days of new music performed by Tanglewood Fellows, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and guest artists.

     If your musical interests lie not in jazz, folk or classical music, perhaps you’d rather go to a theater festival. The Williamstown Theatre Festival, a summer-long celebration of theater beginning in mid-June and running through late-August, is located in Williamston, Mass.WTF presents over two hundred performances of classic and new plays on its stages, outdoor free theatre, cabaret, and countless readings, workshops, and of equal import, WTF's many training programs offer nearly two hundred aspiring theater artists and managers an opportunity to study acting or serve as interns with professional designers, directors and administrators. Alumni of WTF include Alec Baldwin, Christopher Walken, Holly Hunter and Gwyneth Paltrow, who in 1999 returned to the theatre to perform in a production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”

     Another festival in the western part of Massachusetts is the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Lee, Mass. Situated on 150 acres in the Berkshires, it has twice earned a place in American history – first as a station on the Underground Railroad while a family farm in the 1850s, and again in 1932, with the founding the Pillow by American dance pioneer Ted Shawn. This summer the Pillow presents public favorites such as Twyla Tharp Dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Irma Omerzo, and Stephen Petronio Company.

(Pat Healy)