The Newport Folk Festival announced today that Ben Jaffe has been added to the festival’s Board of Advisors.

Ben Jaffe is the Creative Director of Preservation Hall and plays tuba and upright bass with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, on March 21st it was announced that the Preservation Hall Jazz Band would play at the 2016 Newport Folk Festival.

Jaffe joins Jim James, Gillian Welch, Colin Meloy, Ben Knox Miller, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Taylor Goldsmith and John McCauley on the Newport Folk Festival Board of Advisors.

Jay Sweet, Executive Producer of Newport Festivals Foundation, share the news in the following announcement;

“When I first met Ben Jaffe, George Wein introduced him as his “surrogate son” and said we would get along swimmingly. As usual, George was right. Ben is the actual son of Preservation Hall’s founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe and grew up in New Orleans two blocks from the hallowed hall itself.

While most people know him as the guiding force wielding his Tuba in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, he also serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Preservation Hall Foundation, the charitable non-profit that serves the mission to “protect, preserve and perpetuate New Orleans jazz music and culture.”  As this sentiment echoes our own Foundation’s mission in Newport, and thanks to George’s long standing relationship with the Crescent City and the Jaffe’s, it’s not surprising why I view Ben as a musical brother in arms.

Therefore it is with great pleasure that Newport Folk welcomes Ben Jaffe to our Artist Board of Advisors.”

Read More from What's Up Newp

Loading...

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.