Nate Smith and Kinfolk with strings. This Newport Jazz Festival weekend, we're spotlighting newly named Artistic Director Nate Smith — hear his sextet Kinfolk join forces with members of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra for a one-of-a-kind concert at the Crosstown Theater in Memphis.

Saxophonist Javon Jackson’s resumé reads like a who’s who of jazz collaborations. Part of the 1980s generation of young musicians who re-invigorated jazz by wearing suits and ties on stage and digging into acoustic hard bop, Jackson cut his eye teeth as a member a of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Since then, he’s ascended as a leader and now chair of the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford (Connecticut). His latest recordings pay tribute to the music of Bob Dylan and poetess Nikki Giovanni. Javon Jackson joins Jesse “Chuy” Varela on Tuesday August 4 @ 3:00pm to talk about the group he will lead at this year’s San Jose Jazz Summer Fest with Charles McPherson and Nnenna Freelon that he calls “Birds of a Feather”. They perform Saturday, August 8 @ 4pm on the main stage.