Newport Jazz Festival hotshots heat up Orono

It was a little like bringing the mountain to Mohammed, but the Newport Jazz Festival strutted into town last night with its 40th anniversary touring show, which was performed to a sold-out crowd at the Maine Center for the Arts. The 11-man ensemble of good-time jazz musicians left the bandstand behind but brought four decades of tradition in jazz and the legacy of America’s earliest and most renowned jazz festivals.

Dressed in suits and looking more like a band of middle-aged businessmen than the hotshot musicians that they are, these guys pleased the audience with a solid survey of music that has been played in Newport since the festival began there in the summer of 1954.

After the opening improvisational run by the full team, trumpeter Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham, the 89-year-old musical granddaddy of the group, was escorted onto the stage and officially began the first set with “Fatha” Earl Hines’ “Rosetta.” He took the star spot of the show through a tribute to his mentor, Louis Armstrong, with the songs “I Double Dare You to Fall in Love With Me” and “That’s My Home.”

Cheatham hung on through “Swing That Music,” and returned later in the night — as if called by the screaming and laughing sounds of fellow trumpeters Jon Faddis and Warren Vache — for “Take the A Train.”

Saxophonist Red Holloway and trombonist Urbie Green offered Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” as a happy lament. Holloway followed that up with the sexy and clear-noted “Lover Man.”

The second set included more soloist and small ensemble work, beginning with pianist Stanley Cowell and “Django,” a showy, funky tribute to Django Reinhardt.

Guitarist Howard Alden, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Alan Dawson served as a steady and impressive rhythm section throughout the night, but were at their best as a trio playing several cool Thelonious Monk tunes.

Urbie Green joined them on trombone for a crystal-toned “You’ve Changed,” a favorite shared by Green and his one-time co-worker, the late jazz singer Billie Holiday. Clarinetist Ken Peplowski was hot stuff with his frenetic and virtuoso version of “The Airmail Special.”

The concert didn’t break any new ground in music, and completely excluded any female artists now in the field, but gave a rich sampling of deft talent and jazz history packaged by some really decent entertainers. Perhaps this is why the performance of “The Wise One,” a John Coltrane number, stood out so remarkably toward the end of the show. Lew Tabackin took off on his flute with accompaniment by a single note on the bass, plucked strings on the piano and bongolike sounds from the drums.