John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band will perform in Bristol on June 28.

Free outdoor concerts bring musicians and listeners together in unusual ways. Musicians who spend a lot of time in dark bars play in the sunshine for people too young to get into nightclubs or too old to bother with them; audiences are willing to take a chance on a band they’ve never heard of because the price is right.

And it’s simply an enjoyable way to bring the town together to celebrate the institution, as well as the fact that it’s actually warm enough to be sitting around outside at night.

Ray Lavey, one of the organizers of the music series connected with Bristol’s Fourth of July parade, says of his summer concerts, “We’re trying to provide not just a location but an atmosphere, where families can assemble and be entertained.”

This weekend marks the beginning of the free outdoor summer concert season throughout Rhode Island, as free music series get moving in East Providence tonight at Rose Larisa Memorial Park, with John Connors and the Irish Express; Providence, where the Waterplace Park Concert Series starts tomorrow night with Roomful of Blues; and Bristol, where their Fourth of July series begins tomorrow night with the country music of Cottonwood. And the organizers of some of the state’s biggest and newest festivals agree that even though it’s tough to continue to provide free music in these times, it’s as important as ever.

The Waterplace Park Concert Series begins its 12th season tomorrow night in downtown Providence, and Lynne McCormack, the city’s director of arts, culture and tourism, says that diversity is one of the keys.

It’s a pan-cultural festival that takes as part of its mission the presentation of a diverse group of performers. “It really reflects the diversity of the city, and that’s what we’ve always tried to do.”

One of the ways to do that is to get people to dance.

“The first thing I think [when choosing bands] is, is this going to get people up

on their feet?” McCormack says.

The schedule certainly allows for that, with music coming from artists including Rhode Island’s blues legends Roomful of Blues; Vieux Farka Toure, one of Mali’s new breed; and Geno Delafose, the Grammy-nominated zydeco master who is a fixture at the Rhythm and Roots Festival.

The festival had 10 weeks of concerts in its early going, which was whittled down to four in 2002. But they’re back up to six, and McCormack doesn’t see it changing any time soon.

While the economy and the city’s budget are going through difficult times, the Waterplace Park series is in good shape — it doesn’t draw from city funds but is instead financed by the Eli Trust Fund, a 100-year-old Parks Department trust established for the express purpose of putting live music in the city’s parks, McCormack says.

And that allows the concerts to stay free.

“It’s the city’s job to make the arts accessible to all the city’s residents,” McCormack says. And that’s part of the mission of the series: Not only should the performers reflect the diversity of the city; the audience should too. A free event means that anyone can go, which means that more people will.

“I think we’re really lucky in Providence, because people really understand how important the arts are to the fabric of the city,” McCormack says. “And there’s a general understanding that access is important too.”

So McCormack sees the series as bringing all the city’s people together, having a good time, and maybe helping along some understanding in the process. “To do it in a way that’s joyful, and makes people feel comfortable and embrace it in a way maybe they don’t even know. That’s the nice thing. …”

Audiences come from all over the area, McCormack says, and some of them have been coming for all 12 years. “It’s about coming out, experiencing downtown on a Friday night and enjoying the city in its best light.”

Two more Providence concert series will open next Thursday — the Music Under the Elms Concert Series, at the John Brown House, on Power Street, and a new series at the American Locomotive Works, a new development in a former industrial building on Valley Street.

The John Brown series is a laid-back affair, with the schedule including the patriotic music of The American Band as openers; the R&B and swing of The Duke Robillard Band; the Cajun music of locals Magnolia; and the original jazz of Greg Abate in its seven-week schedule.

Thursday Nights Live at ALCO starts off with the Cuban jazz of Carlos DeLeon and includes Touliba Afropop, the Celtic music of Pendragon (which the two series have in common) and the Latin dance music of Santa Mamba.

SoundSession, the weeklong eclectic music series sponsored by the city and the Providence Black Rep, begins July 6. Co-organizer Donald King, the artistic director of the Black Rep, says the festival has expanded to 40 venues this year, including bars, nightclubs and restaurants, and that 90 percent of SoundSession’s offerings are free. He says free concerts encourage people to check out music that they wouldn’t otherwise experience, “and that results in a more educated musical audience.”

Pawtucket is represented by two summer concert series: The Arts in the Park Series, in Slater Park, presents children’s entertainment on Tuesday nights and music for everyone on Thursday nights; the Riverfront Concert Series is held Sunday evenings at the amphitheater next to Pawtucket’s City Hall.

Pawtucket doesn’t have a trust to finance its festivals, so Mike Cassidy, of the city’s planning and redevelopment office, one of the organizers and the MC of the riverfront festival, says he was expecting that the tight budget and failing economy was going to lead to the cancellation of the series this year. But the festival’s ninth season starts July 6 with Plainfolk and continues with Pendragon on July 13 and the Art Medeiros Big Band on July 20. The series runs through Aug. 24.

“I put it on the table” during the budget process in January, Cassidy says. “If you want to save five or six thousand dollars,” he remembers telling Mayor James E. Doyle, “we can eliminate the riverfront concerts.” Cassidy said that the mayor told him the city needed to continue providing services to its residents and support for the arts — and, frankly, $6,000 wouldn’t have helped the city’s budget woes all that much.

“I was pretty sure this was not going to be a year of concerts for us,” Cassidy says. But he calls the arts “our bread and butter of late. The city has made a commitment to putting our money where our mouth is. And even in these hard times, the mayor was willing to make sure we supported the artists and the art in the city.”

Highlights of the Slater Park Thursday-night concerts include Brass Attack July 17, Atwater-Donnelly Aug. 7, The Bandstand Revue Aug. 14 and The Nightlife Orchestra Aug. 21.

Ray Lavey, chairman of music and entertainment for the Bristol Fourth of July Committee, says the front lawn of Colt School, the usual site for the Bristol concert series, is torn up for repairs, so the committee had to find a new site. When they got a big one — Independence Park — they decided to go big.

They’ve gotten their own stage and sound system, and increased their budget for entertainment, looking for “regional acts as well as local acts,” Lavey says. Now that bands will play on a proper stage instead of the front steps of the school, “that allowed us to go to the entertainment that we have and convince them that it wouldn’t be amateur night.”

The schedule, which runs from tomorrow through July 3, includes community groups such as The East Bay Summer Wind Ensemble and the Bristol Senior Citizens Chorus, but it also features regional heavyweights such as John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band and David Foster and the Mohegan Sun All-Stars.

Lavey says they’re also growing the festival with an eye toward the future. “It’s a stepping stone for us on the committee to raise the tenor of the celebration going forward,” Lavey says. The Fourth of July celebration is important to Bristol, he says — “it’s important that we put our best foot forward.”

The Bristol celebration marks its 225th anniversary in two years, so they’d like to grow it in preparation. One of the financial steps they want to take is reaching out to larger sponsors and seeking backing for entire concerts, or even the entire series.

But to be a big deal, you’ve got to be a big deal. “If you build it, they’ll come,” Lavey hopes. “We’re trying to show sponsors that the crowds are larger, and [they’ll] have a lot more exposure.”

And the bands seem to love the experience of playing an outdoor free concert.

Mark Bedrossian, of The Nightlife Orchestra, says his swing big band is playing about 20 free outdoor events this summer (both town and privately sponsored). He says the band looks forward to playing for an all-ages audience, which helps popularize the music for a younger generation. “You’re able to educate them and give them that experience.”

The band also does a lot of black-tie events, such as weddings, and Bedrossian says outdoor free concerts give the group a chance to break out of the wedding routine, where certain songs are always requested, the night follows a fairly unchanging order, and the crowd is looking for something more akin to background music — “musical wallpaper,” Bedrossian calls it. Outdoors, he says, the band gets to play some more straight-ahead jazz.

And people seem to listen a lot more closely in an outdoor situation rather than the drinking atmosphere of a nightclub. “It’s quite an experience when people applaud and they really mean it.”

For classical music fans, the Rhode Island Philharmonic Pops plays free concerts starting July 11 on the Narragansett Town Beach and running through Sept. 13 at Slater Park.

McCormack, of the Waterplace Park series, says there’s an openness about audience participation in Waterplace that a lot of towns and cities don’t have. That’s especially a plus for African bands, she says, who are used to the audience getting on stage and dancing with them.

And all the musicians, she says, “come into the city, they walk into the park, the city’s behind them and the sun’s going down, and the audience is always having a great time.”

rmassimo@projo.com