Smooth Mix of Jazz Legends and New Faces in Newport

Over the course of two days in Newport's historic Fort Adams State Park, 28 acts spread out across three stages, without a dud in the bunch. The range of styles touched nearly every corner of what could be considered jazz or its outliers.

The people who program the annual jazz festival at the water's edge here always manage to assemble a balanced mix of the music's most respected practitioners, its most promising upstarts, and crowd pleasers who can sell tickets. This year the JVC Jazz Festival outdid itself with a perfect blend of the old and the new, of the highly regarded and the highly entertaining.

There was the tasteful, sympathetic interaction of bassist Charlie Haden, guitarist Bill Frisell, and pianist Ethan Iverson, who gathered just for the occasion. There was the infectious Latin jazz of Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos, the pulsating funk of Soulive, and the rock-band attitude of the Marco Benevento Trio, which covered songs by Led Zeppelin, My Morning Jacket, and Deerhoof. Then there were the superstars: jazz icons Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter, and the marquee pop names of Aretha Franklin and trumpeter Chris Botti.

With music playing concurrently on the three stages, it was impossible to catch more than a fraction of the action. Yet we sampled just about everything, and - it being the season for such things - we feel moved to hand out some medals.

Event: The Newport Debut

Gold medal: Ledisi. If there had been a roof at the park, the singer would have torn it off the sucker, with her hot-and-steamy blend of R&B, funk, soul, jazz, and hip-hop. Drawing largely from her Grammy-nominated album “Lost & Found," she jokingly threatened to stop her set and go home if the people in the audience didn't stand up and shake their booties. They obliged.

Silver medal: Melody Gardot. The 23-year-old chanteuse, disabled at 19 when a car struck the bike she was riding, more than lived up to the hype surrounding her. She hypnotized us by opening with a bluesy tune called “No More My Love" that was accompanied only by her own snapping fingers.

Bronze medal: Lettuce. The seven-piece funk outfit, whose members met as teenagers at the Berklee College of Music, played a tight set of greasy funk that recalled James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Earth Wind & Fire. Joined by JB's trombonist Fred Wesley, the band generated so much excitement that hundreds of people skipped Aretha's set on the main stage so they could hear the whole head of Lettuce.

Event: The Veteran Performance

Gold medal: Sonny Rollins. The titan of the tenor sax hadn't played Newport in more than 40 years, but last night he owned it, with a hard-blowing set that closed the festival. He improvised endlessly on the repeating two-bar figure that serves as the framework of “Sonny Please." He played ahead of time and against time, punctuating phrases with quick jabs, shrieks, and honks. Be it burner or ballad, he blew and blew, and he never ran out of ideas.