Concerts

From Herbie Hancock to Jon Batiste to Lake Street Dive to Flea. (Yes, that Flea.)

Newport Folk is the Mother of Fests — and Newport Jazz accurately bills itself as “the Granddaddy.”

Since 1954, baby. The OG.

What’s great about Newport Jazz Fest in recent years is witnessing their ever-stretching elastic definition of “jazz.” Not unlike Newport Folk’s ever broadening definition of “folk.”

Don’t pigeonhole the genre as cliche hep cats in berets playing sax in some smoky lounge, or funky heroin jazz scattering notes into the wind. 

“Jazz” at Newport Jazz Fest is a fluid spectrum. In recent years, we’ve seen Elvis Costello, The Roots, Andre 3000, Laufey.  

You dance, sing, clap, sway, zen-out, you put down your Del’s to jump up and swing. You leave asking, what is genre? What is jazz? Where are my car keys? (OK, that last one may just be me.)

That said, it’s go-time friends. Three days of peace, love and jazz in Lil’ Rhody. If you’re one of the thousands pouring into sold-out Fort Adams July 31-Aug. 2, we got you. 

PSA: If you can’t go, or are looking for tix, the Fest has fan-to-fan ticket exchange via DICE. But don’t roll the dice on who you might catch — we mapped out your must-sees here. 

PS: Fest notes, artists and schedule subject to change. 

Flea

Yes, that Flea.

The ever-charming, gap-toothed, mostly shirtless wildcard from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He’s also, at 63, entering his Solo Jazz Era. 

I’d watch Flea read the phone book on stage. Dude oozes charisma. I’d also watch him — as he did recently on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” — play jazz guitar and trumpet simultaneously. 

I’m guessing he’ll play largely from his debut jazz-infused solo album, “Honora,” (2026) seeing that he’s billed with “The Honora Band.” (Nick Cave and Thom Yorke cameoed on the record — fingers crossed they cameo here.)  But given that we’re talking about Flea, anything might happen. Either way, look for me in the crowd: I’ll be the Michael Jackson eating popcorn GIF. 

Need a Flea Jazz primer? Watch the group’s Tiny Desk concert from earlier this month. Sunday 3:20 p.m.

Herbie Hancock

The jazzman, the jazzmyth, the jazzlegend.

One of the few working performers who might still think of Bob Dylan as a kid. The 86-year-old jazz-fusion pioneer takes the stage Sunday to tell these kids to step aside: Daddy’s home. Put it this way: Berklee students can literally study him.

Hancock, who played with early Newport Jazz greats like Miles Davis, is a 14-time Grammy-winner and Oscar-winning composer/pianist/keytar whiz/jazz-fusion pioneer. The icon embodies current-day Newport Jazz Fest in that he often blurs genre lines. (His lullaby of an ode to Joni Mitchell, “River: The Joni Letters,” is church.)

Sunday, 6:35 p.m.

Snarky Puppy

For the funk fans.

I first learned of Snarky Puppy when I asked late, great David Crosby who he was digging in 2015. “Look them up on YouTube,” he told me. “They will make you happy. They’ll make you dance.”

Sure enough, the next time I interviewed Croz in ’18, he had Michael League of Snarky Puppy in his band.

Billing themselves as “a collective of sorts,” with as many as 25 members in regular rotation, the seed was planted by bassist/composer League in 2004, with friends at the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies program.  

They’ve gone on to win five Grammys — for Best R&B Performance, and for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. 

“Snarky Puppy isn’t exactly a jazz band,” they say on their website. (True.) “We are a band of musicians playing music on instruments,” they proclaim on their Insta bio. (Can’t argue with that.)

To attempt to label the genre-defiers? A funk-jazz-fusion jam band whose funk is off the charts and who can drop acid jazz vibes. They’ll have Newport’s true jazz lovers entraptured.

Saturday, 3:10 p.m.

Anoushka Shankar 

Her dad, sitar great and George Harrison’s guru Ravi Shankar, performed at Woodstock. Her half-sister, Norah Jones, has rocked Newport Jazz a few times in recent years. Don’t miss Shankar’s Newport Jazz debut.

While Jones is a keyboard talent, Shankar, 45, followed her dad’s footsteps to sitar. According to her bio, Shankar is the first Indian musician to perform live or serve as presenter at the Grammys,  and the first Indian woman ever nominated. Touring since age 13, she learned sitar under “the intensive tutelage of her father.”

Another genre-defier, she’s played with everyone from Patti Smith to M.I.A. Catch the 14-time Grammy nominee at Newport Friday before she opens for St. Vincent at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday. Her music is a balm. Destress Friday at 1:40 p.m.

Jon Batiste

He’s back, baby. Genius alert.

Batiste has become something of a regular Newport Jazz favorite, since his Newport debut 2012 — and he never disappoints. 

Steven Colbert’s right-hand man on the “The Late Show” from 2015 to 2022, I still think of that old “Late Show” clip from a decade ago, when Batiste brought Colbert to meet his high school music teacher in an attempt to teach a clueless Steven about jazz. (“Is jazz short for something? Jazzmatazz?”)

Must dance to: “Big Money.” Saturday. 6 p.m.

Gary Clark Jr. 

Talk about genre-blurring: A stellar blues/rock/neo-soul musician, Clark has infused anything from hip hop to jazz into his repertoire. 

The 42-year-told told me previously he eschewed MTV for “Austin City Limits,” and grew up on older blues greats like Curtis Mayfield, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Robert Johnson.

After winning his eighth grade talent show in Texas, he was off and running. Championed by the Rolling Stones, he’s played tributes to Tom Petty and Stevie Wonder, jammed with Beyoncé, collaborated with Alicia Keys. In 2012, then-President Obama invited Clark to the White House to perform alongside Mick Jagger, B.B. King, Jeff Beck, and Buddy Guy.

His 2019 “Dirty Dishes Blues,” and “The Governor,” for example, sound like 1920s blues standards.

But “at the same time, while I was doing that, I was [at my] turntable, I was making beats. I was into all kinds of other stuff that I was only expressing in my bedroom,” he told me previously. “My friends said, ‘Why don’t you do that, too?’ I thought, ‘I gotta stay in my lane.’ ”

Once he broke out? Watch out. Anything goes. Hence: a Newport Jazz invite.

As guitar virtuoso Lukas Nelson once told me, “Gary Clark Jr. is not only one of the best guitarists of my generation, he’s also one of the most creative musical forces.”

Dance to: “Don’t Owe You a Thang.” Get your mind blown by guitar skills on: “Catfish Blues.”

Lake Street Dive

Yup, Boston’s own.

OK. Before we start, if you missed their April Instagram reel explaining “Day in the Life” of a touring musician — and the cereal spoon from hell — dear God do yourself a favor and watch now. Michael Calabrese, you deserve an Emmy, and/or your own TV show. 

Also, I now need every band’s new release to be sung in a staircase.

Their whimsy and humor aside, these guys rock. Think funky jazz-infused neo soul with a Susan Tedeschi type on vocals. Their roots trace back 22 years to Boston’s New England Conservatory. Today, the five-piece describes themselves as having an “eclectic sound — a boldly original cross-pollination of soul, folk, jazz, classic pop, and more” on their website. 

On July 29, they dropped a pre-Newport surprise: a brand new track, “You’re Never Around.” It marks their first new original music since their 2024 record, “Good Together.”

If you’re missing them at Newport (their two Mass. and two Vermont shows are all sold out) you could still make the Lake Street Drive to Portland, Maine to catch them at Thompson’s Point (still tix as of this writing!) before they play Florida, and later Europe.

Sunday, 5:50 p.m.

Need more? Honorary mentions:

• Don’t miss local legend Terri Lyne Carrington. Medford’s four-time Grammy winner plays Saturday. 
• Sonny Miles on a Trane, Saturday. 
• Thunder Cat, Sunday.

See full schedule here.

Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.

Lauren Daley

Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist. As a regular contributor to Boston.com, she interviews A-list musicians, actors, authors and other major artists.

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