Saturday’s bill at the JVC Jazz Festival-Newport closed with Aretha Franklin, so it was only fitting that yesterday featured another classic voice at the top of the bill — Sonny Rollins.

The songs and structures weren’t groundbreaking, but that wasn’t the point: The legendary saxophonist’s tone was more than enough to satisfy the announced crowd of 6,000 at Fort Adams, as he and his band worked through one-chord jazz-funk on the opening “Sonny Please,” the sprightly standard “Someday I’ll Find You,” the lush ballad “In a Sentimental Mood” and more. Rollins soloed on chorus after chorus on a thrilling marathon version of the calypso-influenced “Global Warning,” and throughout the 77-year-old continued to demonstrate his mastery of the language that generations of saxophone players have worked to match — as expressive as a human voice, only better, with eternal sustain, elephantine howls and bottom-of-the barrel growls.

Meanwhile, Soulive was levitating the second-stage crowd with lean, mean funk, including a guest appearance from trombonist Fred Wesley (who did the same favor for Lettuce on Saturday) and from singer Anthony Hamilton, who was on his way out, saw Soulive doing a fiery version of Sly Stone’s “If You Want Me to Stay” and got in on the fun. (Hamilton scrapped the blues project he had announced for his main-stage performance and went with his new-yet-retro R&B. His sweet voice showed a nice falsetto and the spirited singer at one point leapt from the stage and went deeper into the crowd than any Newport performer in recent memory.)

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