Second-stage acts and other surprises steal the show in Newport

Hiromi (she goes by her first name) started picking out a pretty stride version of “I Got Rhythm,’’ but it erupted into a lightning storm that would have stunned Bud Powell. She half-stood and bounced on her feet as she played, her hands a blur. She leaned into the piano and bobbed her head, heavy-metal-drummer-style. All the while, her hands blazed across the 88 - banging up and down the octaves, clanging thunderous clusters, landing precisely where she aimed. When she brought her hands down on the final chord, the audience too erupted: The Berklee grad was awarded a spontaneous and sustained standing ovation in the middle of her set.

In fact, many of Newport’s finest moments occurred away from the main stage this year. And to think it almost didn’t happen. The world’s oldest jazz festival was in danger of disappearing when Wein announced in March that he would return to make sure the show went on. With a new sponsor, he rechristened it George Wein’s CareFusion Jazz Festival 55.

Despite the abbreviated planning season, Wein put on an exceptional event that was particularly strong on second-stage acts. With 30 sets of music over two days at Fort Adams State Park, virtually every style of jazz was represented on the big stage: the stately cool jazz of the Dave Brubeck Quartet; the straight-ahead hard bop of groups led by Roy Haynes and Cedar Walton; the modern-meets-traditional sounds of pianist Michel Camilo, Branford Marsalis’s quartet, Joe Lovano’s two-drummer quintet, and Joshua Redman Double Trio with two bassists and two drummers; the 21st-century blends created by singer/bassist Esperanza Spalding and by Mos Def’s jazz-slash-hip-hop act the Watermelon Syndicate.

But listeners who spent time at the two smaller stages were rewarded with new experiences and revelations.

Saxophonist Miguel Zenon, the recipient of a 2008 MacArthur genius grant, introduced a new cocktail that mixes jazz with the plena music of his native Puerto Rico. Debuting music from his forthcoming CD “Esta Plena,’’ Zenon began his set with a long, long solo that seemed intended to rival Paul Gonsalves’s legendary 27 choruses back in 1955.