The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

PROVIDENCE — Donald W. King Ping-Pongs back and forth as he tries to define Providence SoundSession, his 50,000-person, weeklong downtown music festival.

It’s a cultural turning point, a chance to mix white, black, Latino and everything in between, a celebration of diversity in music, a validation of years of work, a moment when the neighborhoods own the downtown, a dream of what Providence could become.

Or it’s just the biggest party in town.

“It’s a great big party — it’s actually a bunch of parties in the street. It’s a Caribbean party in the street, it’s a Colombian party in the street, it’s a Dominican party in the street, it’s an African-American party in the street, it’s an African party in the street — you’ve got all these communities, and they’re all waving their flags, and they’re all throwing parties, and they’re all saying ‘Come join our party. Our party’s funky. Come check this out,’ ” said King, artistic director of the Black Repertory Company.

He suddenly turns serious.

“The centerpiece of this is that I believe art can transform people, that art has an opportunity to educate people, that art can allow us, can inspire us, to be greater than we think we are, than we think we can be. So all that stuff is all up in the festival.

“But don’t tell anybody I said that. Tell them I said it’s nothing but a party in the street,” he said, breaking into laughter.

SoundSession has clearly become more than that. The fifth year of the music festival culminates tonight, with a parade from Waterplace Park to Westminster Street, where participants deck themselves out in festive Caribbean costumes and masks. Last year, the Saturday night parade and Westminster Street block party drew 35,000 people, solidifying the event’s status as a signature Providence event, next to WaterFire in its draw.

And who it draws is part of its appeal. WaterFire lures a predominately white, suburban crowd. Lynne McCormack, director of the city’s office of art, culture and tourism, said that Sound Session’s eclectic mix of music draws from all Providence neighborhoods, and from the suburbs as well. For the past five years, it has been a safe, unique moment in the summer when all of Providence and much of Rhode Island meets downtown.

“We’ve moved it from being a music festival to being something that actually means something to the community.”

“You see African-American kids, Asian kids, white kids, all running around trying to make something happen,” she said.

THAT’S PARTICULARLY gratifying to its creators, because SoundSession was drawn up with exactly that in mind.

In 2003, new Mayor David N. Cicilline wanted his arts and culture staff to organize a festival that brought Providence’s neighborhoods together, hopefully in the city’s downtown.

At the same time, King was trying to build the Black Rep into more than theater. He had recently seen the West Indian Day festival in Brooklyn, and the Trinidadian J’Ouvert parade, and was blown away by what he saw.

He thought it was possible in Providence, but Trinidadian organizers told him it could only be done with the help of the city.

Fate struck. In the fall of 2003, then-arts director Cliff Wood came to King with an idea to revive a blues and jazz festival the city had held a few years before.

But the idea excited neither of them. Wood and King talked instead about what they really wanted to do.

“If you look in magazines, you see a lot of jazz and blues festivals … but we didn’t want to limit it to that. We wanted to bring all people together. We wanted to make it as eclectic a music collection as we could. We thought it would broaden the appeal of the festival. Come down, and learn that you might like a different kind of music,” said Wood, now a member of the City Council.

The first year, 2004, a concert at Waterplace Park was planned, with events at the Black Rep later. An event board member had the idea of making the move back an organized transition, perhaps a walk with candles.

That gave King his eureka moment: he could create a parade in a melded style of J’Ouvert or Rio De Janeiro’s Carnival on that walk back, and make it the boisterous climax.

“That idea [turned] into — whoa, whoa, whoa, forget candles, let’s do Carnival and J’Ouvert! We had always dreamed of doing that. We just had never thought it could take place that fast in Rhode Island. But we had the great catalyst. We had Waterplace Park, and we had the reason to need to get back to here.”

That first year 7,000 came, and the organizers felt they had a success on their hands. Jazz legend Ron Carter had such a good time that he asked if they would invite him back to play the next year.

Then in 2005, SoundSession took off, surprising even those who set it up.

“In 2005, it exploded. There were so many people. We got taken by surprise. The festival like tripled, quadrupled, from the first year. It was a shock,” Wood said. “There were so many people we couldn’t get the bands down the stairs. It was so crowded, and we only had one policeman.”

NOW THE CITY knows what a draw it has on its hands, and protects it well. The event costs $200,000, roughly split between the city and the Black Rep. The city provides a $30,000 grant to Black Rep, and pays for the police, and for public works and parks to set up and clean up. Black Rep raises the rest through sponsors, and sells tickets to the events. The first year, they lost $10,000. They broke even last year, and hope to perhaps make a small profit this year. McCormack said the city’s hotels benefit from the festival traffic, as well.

They tout a pristine safety record as creating an environment where families from Johnston, Little Compton, and Providence’s Chad Brown housing project all come together comfortably.

This year, the festival has expanded its weekday activities by hosting numerous small events in different bars and restaurants downtown and into Pawtucket, and the feeling is that they have been successful.

They’ve also hired a parade organizer to ensure that the parade is more professional and more elaborate than earlier ones.

In the future, King and Wood said, they want SoundSession week to be the kind of event where the music is constant — where a visitor can come to Providence and hear a cellist on a street corner, dine to musical accompaniment, and then go to an after-dinner concert to experience a new kind of sound.

And they want it to draw bigger and more eclectic acts.

King’s dream performer? Eighty-one-year-old jazz crooner Tony Bennett, both for who he is and the type of audience he would draw. He dreams of a lineup of Bennett on Thursday night, soul singer Erykah Badu on Friday night, and alternative rock band Radiohead on Saturday.

“Yeah, Tony Bennett. We want to bring that community in. We’d like to bring Tony in,” King said, then paused. “Tony’s still alive, right?”

dbarbari@projo.com