A group of Island musicians was in the key of comfort Friday night at Nancy’s in Oak Bluffs, mixing old school tunes with a little new school funk. The Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Quintet was performing together for the first time. The group is a mix of jazz cats young and old — the three members of the Vineyard high school group Ramblin’ Tides and three members of the Brian King Nelson Sextet. Different ages, same passion.

Ramblin’ Tides and the Brian King Nelson Sextet open the first Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Festival Saturday at Nectar’s; the Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Quintet closes the weeklong festivities next Saturday.

The festival begins on Saturday and runs through August 13 at six different Vineyard venues.

The high school trio will be the youngest at the festival which has a stacked lineup of veteran jazz musicians. The festival kicks off this afternoon with a parade in Oak Bluffs as Dixie band Made in the Shade recreates a little bit of Bourbon Street, starting at the ferry building.

Headlining the event is Nnenna Freelon, a six-time Grammy-nominated singer, who performs Thursday night at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown. Other musicians include bassist Ben Wolfe (Sunday), drummer Warren Wolf (Wednesday) and saxophonist Antonio Hart (Tuesday). On Monday, Michele Holland and Elan Trotman perform, while next weekend brings the Mario Castro Quartet and Berklee College All-Stars plus Ivan Neville and Dumpstaphunk.

And just like the genre itself, the festival will encompass a little bit of everything – in the festival’s case, it’s music, book signings at the Bunch of Grapes and of course food and drink. Featherstone and Shephard Fine ArtSpace are venues, and Oak Bluffs restaurants Deon’s and Lola’s will play host to many of the concerts.

“It’s really important to have these venues that support the jazz,” front man Brian Nelson said. “You want the people that love the music to come out because now there’s a reason to go out.”

You would never have known it, but the new band played many of their songs for the first time on Friday night. The sextet (named a quintet by Mr. Nelson because he felt quintet had a better ring to it) got into a natural flow, working off of each other’s instincts as if they’d been doing it all their lives.

Everyone had a signature rhythm. From Ramblin’ Tides, bassist Evan Hall put his full body weight into every downbeat he hit, guitarist Zion Morris whaled on his guitar riffs without so much as a weight shift and drummer Joshua Stallings was so in the zone you could have sworn his eyes were closed.

Brian Nelson swayed his C melody saxophone with a little shoulder pop, careful not to lose his reading glasses off his head, and baritone saxophonist Steve Tully let the beat roll through his knee. Trombone player Mark Campos was off-Island for the night.

Those character traits shone through too at a rehearsal the following Monday night.

“What I strive for in playing is comfort, because then you can go anywhere you want to,” Mr. Nelson said. “If you’re always worrying about if you’re going to get lost, then you can’t emerge yourself in the moment. But I’ve been with guys in their 50s whom you feel a little bit unsure about, and the [Ramblin’ Tides] guys are great, and they’ve only been playing for two years.”

Mr. Nelson, 47, studied music theory at George Washington University, followed by film scoring at Berklee College of Music, and he said it was time to pass the torch on to the next generation. Growing up in Washington, D.C., Mr. Nelson pined for jazz mentors. Even in a city with a thriving music scene, most of it was underground and the traditional jazz scores he was yearning to learn were buried by the emerging genre of jazz fusion.

“I really felt that if I had support from the elders when I was a kid, that would have been so amazing,” Mr. Nelson said. “I don’t sugarcoat anything for these kids. If it’s good I say its good, and if it stinks I’ll say, let’s improve that. But it’s exciting to me to say, wow, here’s a chance for me just in a very supportive way to give a little bit of my experience and get them on the stage with guys that have a century of experience.”

Ramblin’ Tides has been together for only a few years, but they’re raw talent, Mr. Nelson said. Evan and Joshua will be attending Berklee College of Music in the fall. Zion will be a senior at the regional high school.

“Because they bring so much to the table we can jump right in to the vibe,” Mr. Nelson said. “Some of the endings [Friday night] were nice and crisp, and that adds a nice flavor to the whole package. That’s the beautiful thingthey’re on a wonderful level. It’s really impressive.”

The group of 18-year-olds sat there humbled, and thanked him for his compliments.

“It did sound good, didn’t it?” Evan said of Friday’s performance. He sat behind a drum set, unable to contain himself, humming a little, dropping a beat and accenting it with a touch of the snare. “I think it’s really cool we can play a random funk jamthen they would just take it all these places together. I just don’t get how you know how to play the same notes at the same exact time. It blows my mind.”

“That’s why jazz is so special to me,” Mr. Nelson said. “You could drop anyone of these three kids in any country on the globe, they could go into a jazz club and they could get over.

“They know enough of the language to be able to speak it and that’s exciting, because then we can have a conversation.”

Mr. Nelson started humming a tune, Evan came in and finished it.

“I’ve heard [high school jazz teacher] Mike Tinus play those licks, a lot of the licks you guys are playing I can recognize from him,” Evan said.

“Now that’s what’s cool – he soaked in the moments at the club, he’s digesting it and now he’s spitting it back at us, and that’s the process of learning,” Mr. Nelson said. “That’s why these kids are amazing.”

The Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Festival starts Saturday with Ramblin’ Tides and the Brian King Nelson Sextet at Nectar’s at 9 p.m. Saturday’s free parade begins at 12:45 p.m. For a full list of festival events visit mvjazzfest.com. Tickets are available at ticketsmv.com or at the door. The Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Quintet plays at Nancy’s on Fridays.