by John Snelson
Don't be put off by the "J" word. Go to JB-HiFi right now, put hand in pocket, navigate over to the Blues and Jazz Section where the CDs live, and above there in the rack, pick up a copy of "Jazz On a Summer's Day" - it's a DVD. Go to counter, pull out any old $10 note, pay and get some change. Cheap as chips.
Why, you might well ask ? I don't like jazz. Here's the reason - trust me - this is good. Yes, trust me, you will like this !
A well known American photographer called Bert Stern was fortunate to go to the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958.
There is no story - no dialogue - no commentary - no narration. It is unique film, shot with hand held cameras directed by photographer Bert Stern (whose best known work is The Last Sitting, a collection of 2,500 photographs taken of Marilyn Monroe over a three day period, six weeks before her death, taken for Vogue).
Here though in 1958, in full swing at the festival, Bert Stern filmed the event as a documentary - and took some just wonderful shots (in colour of course), that captured the event - the artists, the audience, the cars, the fashion, the drinkin' an' dancin' and smokin'.
Bert Stern captured on video the food, the make-up, the hair styles - terrific insights into everything from the microphones, to the stage lights, the artists dental work (yikes !), what they had for lunch and the lipstick, the sunglasses, the hats and the music.
Picture this ... a beautiful afternoon and evening. In the Bay off Rhode Island, the America's Cup international sailing extravaganza and rort is in full swing.
The festival in Newport has a line up of many well known, popular icons - plus a few fringe upstarts who over the next 50 years will change the world of music, but don't be put off - this is not about jazz. There's not much jazz in this video. The music is just fabulous - but it's not about the music.
This is about having a good time while seeing great musicians - for those on stage and those who were lucky enough to be at a music Festival one Summer's day in Newport in 1958.
Okay, let's cut to the chase, what's this video really about. Who is on stage ? Here we go ...
The video commences with the terrific Jimmy Giuffre trio (with Bob Brookmeyer and Jim Hall) playing "The Train and the River" .. close your eyes and you can hear the ripples of the stream - you can hear the steam engine. Just beautiful. I love it. I just love it.
Next on stage, a pianist who in those days was looked upon as either nuts, a sham or some sort of freak, a fringe player on the edge of experimentation with his piano half notes constructed from two adjacent notes. This is Thelonius Monk wearing of course those famous bamboo glasses.
Imagine what the jazz purists thought in 1958 - this guy plays piano, but thinks it is music if you deliberately create discords and hit two adjacent keys at the same time. What's more, he is also wearing wooden spectacles. Of course he is playing the classic "Blue Monk". I don't play the piano, I am a jazz luddite not an aficianado, and even I can hear that this is brilliant. Brilliant.
(Source :- time.com)
The movie shifts between the festival performance and the stage rehearsals to private jam sessions in the local homes and pubs, showing us life in the Fifties in other dimensions - musicians hanging out of windows, watching the show from their roof tops, dancing in the streets.
It's early afternoon, on stage comes Anita O'Day in a black dress, white gloves, lot of lippy and teeth and a huge B&W feathered hat to sing "Sweet Georgia Brown" and a wonderful rendition of "Tea For Two". In those days, the microphones are as big as fire hydrants, gigantic, the technology pretty ordinary yet the sound in this film is excellent.
The camera sucks in scenes of kids playing on the beach within the sound of the Festival, with shots revealing the swimwear of the day - wow, that is frightening. Back at the Festival, and yes, long before Woodstock, the frolicking was there. I noted some strange substances drifting frequently in front of the cameras, apparently just as efficacious then as today.
George Shearing is there playing "Rondo" of course - then on comes Dinah Washington wearing an amazing pair of earrings'. I was hoping we were going to get "September In The Rain", but maybe the balmy, sexy night convinced her to sing "Why Don't You Take All Of Me" so suggestively that I thought a few of the jivers were going to have a damp accident.
Gerry Mulligan, the most famous and probably greatest sax baritonist of all time, played with Art Farmer before Big Maybelle Smith hit the stage - well, she nearly sank it. Now Big Maybelle could teach Jimmy Barnes what to do with a big voice - rather than using it to scream at the audience, Big Maybelle adds some colours, hydration and textures, changing volume and adding a bit of offbeat rhythm and soul and something that the Barnestormer was never able to achieve - feeling.
Big Maybelle sings, rocks and swings at the same time through "Let It Roll All Night Long" with all of its sensual overtones and hardly hiddden double entendres (you don't need to be Einstein to work out what "roll all night long" really means - please), followed by a raucous version, delivered from a position a good metre from the mike, (well she doesn't need a microphone), of the "morning after" song "I Ain't Mad At You".
Let's not forget that this is 1956 - the dawn of real Rhythm 'n' Blues - my favourite genre - at a time when it was not seen as "pop music" - it was accepted as a by-product of jazz and delta swamp blues of the deep South. Who better to deliver the message than the unbelievable Chuck Berry with his hardly guarded, blatantly provocative presentation of "Sweet Little Sixteen" ... young, sexy, moving those hips and legs across the stage (making what Michael Jackson did 40 years later look like a churchall dance) in what was to become his famous duckwalk.
It's as rough as guts but you can't beat a good live show from Chuck Berry, no wonder the cats went wild, he did cause a bit of a stir with the jazz nazis.
I dunno - here it is in proof - R & B and rock 'n' roll came out of jazz ... Chuck Berry is here, and yes his Gibson ES-350T may not sound too well-tuned - but since when did the jazz Nazis not like a bit of discord ! Jo Jones (on drums) one of the greatest drummers in jazz and an original member of the Count Basie Band and Rudy Rutherford (on clarinet) also from Basie's Band do a fine job behind Chuck - a great clarinet solo indeed. (Wouldn't it be great to see more clarinet and sax in our modern bands ?).
Applause for Chuck Berry's performance at the start is muted - well, I guess that sound might grate in the jazz ear - but not for long - Chuck is performing rather than trying to create a musical masterpiece - jeez, I loved it, the audience loved it too. They didn't know whether to scream, laugh or look embarrassed .. most of them just got hooked or were so stoned by this time it didn't matter.
Well, even jazzites like a bit of fun and erotic stage performance to 12 bar blues boogies that feature staccato and "slightly off" solos that typify Chuck Berry.
Onto later in the evening with the Chico Hamilton Quintet - before Louis Armstrong hits the stage - what a great guy he was too, telling yarns about meeting the Pope, singing "Up A Lazy River", playing an amazing trumpet solo. Singing along with Jack Teagarden in "Old Rocking Chair" including some really funny stuff about throwing doubts on Aunt Harriet's morals ... so good, ending with “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
To wind up the show, after midnight, Mahalia Jackson, perhaps the world's greatest ever gospel singer, closed the Festival with a brace of stuff finishing with The Lord's Parayer. I am afraid I just don't get gospel music - the singing is often unrelated and unsympathetic to the content, as this is the case with Mahalia Jackson. No matter, a peaceful ending to a great day out.
Thank God for Chuck Berry ! All this for less than $10. Get out and buy yourself something nice.
