Jazz on a Summer's Day [1959] Aram Avakian and Bert Stern

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Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052942/

Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960) is a documentary film set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and filmed and directed by noted commercial and fashion photographer Bert Stern and the film director Aram Avakian , who also edited the movie. The Columbia Records jazz producer, George Avakian, was the musical director of the Newport Jazz Festival at the time.

The film mixes images of water and the city with the performers and audience at the festival. It also features scenes of the 1958 America's Cup yacht races. The film is largely without dialog or narration (except for periodic announcements by emcee Willis Conover).

FEATURED LINE UP
Jimmy Giuffre 3: Jimmy Giuffre, Bob Brookmeyer, Jim Hall
Thelonious Monk Trio: Thelonious Monk, Henry Grimes, Roy Haynes
Sonny Stitt and Sal Salvador
Anita O'Day
George Shearing
Dinah Washington
Gerry Mulligan Quartet: Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer
Big Maybelle
Chuck Berry
Chico Hamilton Quintet
Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars: Trummy Young, Danny Barcelona
Armstrong & Jack Teagarden
Mahalia Jackson

Also appearing are Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Armando Peraza, and Eli's Chosen Six, the Yale College student ensemble that included later-legendary trombonist Roswell Rudd, shown playing Dixieland as they drive around Newport in a convertible jalopy.

Many performances ran long, so that the last act, Mahalia Jackson, did not appear on stage until after midnight, wowing the audience with The Lord's Prayer.

The movie was written by Albert D'Annibale and Arnold Perl. It was directed by Aram Avakian, Bert Stern.

In 1999, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

During the 1950s, the Newport Jazz Festival was an outdoor jamboree held in the exclusive environs of Rhode IslandΓΓé¼Γäós summer resort for the eastern elite. JazzΓΓé¼Γäós half-century rise from the bawdy houses of New Orleans to the bathhouses of Newport was a story made in media heaven, providing irresistible fodder for journalists. Covering the NJFΓΓé¼Γäós 1954 debut for The Saturday Review, Whitney Balliett allowed, with country-club gentility, ΓΓé¼┼ôIt will be good to see a second festival next year, for jazz goes well with sea air, trees, history, and the haut monde.ΓΓé¼┬¥

Well, not only was there a second shindig, the NJF turned into a summertime staple, trotting dozens of musical acts before thousands of vacationers every July 4th holiday. By 1958ΓΓé¼Γäós fifth annual NJF, 10,000 visitors had become customary. That year, though, visitor 10,001 made history. Bert Stern, a 28-year-old fashion, glamour and advertising photographer, arrived from Manhattan to fulfill his lifelong ambition: to produce a movie before he was 30.

Fielding five cameras simultaneously, some handheld and with telephoto lenses, and using the finest 35mm Kodak fast positive-reversal color film, Stern captured brilliant images that, as he said, just jumped off the screen. Moreover, Stern reveled in his venue. Usually jazz films are all black and white, he later remarked, kind of depressing and in little downstairs nightclubs. This brought jazz out into the sun. It was different.

Also different was the high-fidelity audio, recorded on monaural analog tape by Columbia Records and synchronized with the film during postproduction. This roundabout and complicated process actually represented a huge advance over such prototypes as JamminΓΓé¼Γäó the Blues (1944), a smoky, 10-minute simulation of informal small group jazz. Despite its striking B&W cinematography, JamminΓΓé¼Γäó the Blues was exasperating because its stars were expected to synch their onscreen movements with prerecorded music?an impossible task for improvisers. Bert Stern must be commended for rejecting that outmoded approach. But his editor, Aram Avakian, deserves equal credit for meticulously matching SternΓΓé¼Γäós images with the separately recorded sound.

There was, however, a catch. Stern had persuaded George Avakian, AramΓΓé¼Γäós brother and a Columbia Records executive, to deploy his companyΓΓé¼Γäós resources in audio-taping the onstage performances. In return, George literally called the shots as to which numbers would be filmed. Since Stern himself was no jazz fan, his misplaced trust led to such glaring omissions as:

Willie the Lion Smith playing Echoes of Spring
Ben Webster & Billy Strayhorn presenting Chelsea Bridge in honor of Duke Ellington
Dave Brubeck Quartet offering Jump for Joy in similar tribute
Duke Ellington and Orchestra with special guest Gerry Mulligan premiering Prima Bara Dubla
Marian McPartland with special guest Gerry Mulligan jamming on C Jam Blues
Lester Young in his final Newport appearance
Sonny Rollins sporting a photogenic new Mohawk haircut and leading a pianoless trio
Horace Silver Quintet (all with conventional haircuts)
Ray Charles attempting The Spirit-Feel
Miles Davis Sextet performing Fran-Dance

Yes, the last-named unit featuring Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane and Bill Evans was the same supergroup as would eight months later record Kind of Blue and of which no motion picture or video footage now exists. Newbie filmmaker Stern was richly served by his editor, Aram Avakian, but poorly advised by AramΓΓé¼Γäós brother George as to which artists to film.

In any case, SternΓΓé¼Γäós feature-length documentary Jazz on a SummerΓΓé¼Γäós Day (released in 1960), is now recognized as a cinematic landmark, blazing a trail for the entire concert-film genre and spawning such v?rit? classics as Monterey Pop (1968) and Woodstock (1970).