TV REVIEW : A Grab Bag of the Newport Jazz Festival on Channel 28

“Newport Jazz ‘90,” airing at midnight tonight on KCET Channel 28, promises less than it delivers. Although a dozen artists were presented during this year’s festival, only five are seen here. Wynton Marsalis, Phil Woods and McCoy Tyner are among the regrettably missing.

Of those who agreed to be televised, George Benson, the Count Basie Orchestra and the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine qualify as straight-ahead jazz. The Basie band opens and closes the hour, playing two instrumentals and backing George Benson on two others.

The band pieces, both long familiar, are performed with the ensemble’s customary verve and precision, and with an admirable illustration of Frank Foster’s powerful tenor sax. Benson goes through his familiar scat-and-guitar unison routine on “Green Dolphin Street,” then works with the band on an instrumental, better played than balanced (the band overwhelms him at times).

The Zawinul Syndicate, a crowd-pleasing quintet, plays “Carnavalito” with a heavy rhythmic accent on the first and third beats that is the antithesis of swing. A drummer blows a whistle and the bassist encourages hand clapping. It’s a far cry from Zawinul’s old Weather Report, which will be remembered long after this group is forgotten.

Elvin Jones’ one long number is consistently engaging, with Sonny Fortune on tenor sax, Pat La Barbera on soprano and James Williams on piano, all urged on by the leader’s indomitable drumming.

Tito Puente offers a verbal and musical pocket history of Afro-Cuban jazz and salsa, with the singer Celia Cruz joining his band for a typically effervescent excursion.

Though the three-day event was no doubt more stimulating than this brief grab bag, there was clearly no sense of ambition and adventure of the kind that dominated the pioneering Newport festivals in the 1950s and ‘60s. Today the main action is in and around Manhattan, where the festival runs for 10 days; the Rhode Island celebration seems like an afterthought, with the New York tail wagging the Newport dog.