MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL RECORDS INAUGURAL RELEASES
by Marshall Bowden

 

The Monterey Jazz Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and in addition to the usual stellar lineup of talent that will be on display the fest is taking time to look back at some of its great performances and its history. Concord Record Group, under the imprint Monterey Jazz Festival Records, is presenting a series of never before released performances from the festival that jazz aficionados will want to have. In addition, the gorgeous and informative book, The Art of Jazz: Monterey Jazz Festival/50 Years by Keith and Kent Zimmerman is being published to coincide with the anniversary.

The Monterey Jazz Festival has partnered with Concord Records to create the Monterey Jazz Festival Records label. MJFR will release performances from the Festival's past years as well as releasing recordings by new artists or all-star collaborations. In this capacity, MJFR will be a not-for-profit venture, with proceeds going to support the year-round educational programs of the Monterey Jazz Festival. For its inaugural releases, the label has made available sets of music recorded at the festival by Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Sarah Vaughn.

Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars are captured here in their performance at the very first festival in 1958. The emphasis in this first year was on traditional jazz, which is certainly not the first thing most people think of when they think of the Monterey Jazz Festival. Nonetheless, festival creator Jimmy Lyons had assembled a lineup that included singer Lizzie Miles, Burt Bales, Marty Marsala, and other notables of New Orleans-style jazz. Dizzy Gillespie was brought in to emcee the event, an interesting choice that helped bridge the connection between jazz music’s history and its future.
Armstrong is accompanied here by the irascible Trummy Young on trombone, clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, pianist Billy Kyle, bassist Mort Herbert, and drummer Danny Barcelona. Singer Velma Middleton joins in on the trio of final numbers, “St. Louis Blues,” “That’s My Desire” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.” This performance takes place only three years after Armstrong has scored a pop hit with his version of “Mack the Knife,” and two years after his appearance in the film High Society with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Grace Kelly. Richard Hadlock reminds us in his liner notes that by 1958, jazz writers were pretty familiar with the general concert repertoire of the All-Stars, and many chided Armstrong for not playing new material. By this time there were many jazz fans who considered Louis passé, longing for the days when he blazed a trail in jazz history with his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. This situation was to move farther to the fore a mere five years after this performance when Armstrong scored a mega-hit with “Hello Dolly,” knocking the Beatles from the top of the pop charts, and it continued to dog Louis throughout his career.

All of this became rather immaterial when Louis and his merry band of musicians hit the stage, though, because ultimately his skills as a showman and his sets of crowd pleasing tunes tended to win over even the most skeptical members of the audience, if not the critics. The performance included on Louis Armstrong Live at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival is no exception. Opening with his erstwhile theme “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” Louis careens through an eighteen tune set that includes some of his big hits, songs from some of his film performances, features for his fellow musicians, and a smattering o f hot trad jazz numbers that stand as surefire crowd pleasers. He follows the opener with “(Back Home Again) In Indiana,” and a warm reading of “Blueberry Hill” before ratcheting things up a notch with a raucous “Tiger Rag.” The energy level on this performance is good, with Hucko and Kyle turning in particularly good performances. Even some of Trummy Young’s misplaced over-exuberance can’t dampen the proceedings much. Cole Porter’s “Now You Has Jazz” and “High Society Calypso” both hearken to Louis’ performance in High Society, a film that remains a favorite with Armstrong and Hollywood musical fans to this day.

Few jazz performers had the personality and charisma of Louis Armstrong, but Dizzy Gillespie, tireless promoter of jazz and ambassador of bebop, was certainly on a par with the great Satchmo. Like Armstrong, Gillespie’s wry sense of humor and sometimes vaudevillian stage presence made for good entertainment and music rag copy, but sometimes his contributions as a trumpeter and bandleader got left in the dust as a result. Interestingly, Gillespie had played host at that 1958 festival which honored early, traditional jazz and its performers. In 1965 he returned to play a stellar set with an excellent backing group, and the results are explosive and, truly Gillespie.

Gillespie is accompanied here by James Moody on tenor and flute, Kenny Barron (piano), Christopher White (bass), Rudy Collins (drums), and Big Black (congas). Barron does some nice work, and Big Black’s conga work is exceptional, but Gillespie and Moody, the two horns out front, are the big attraction. If this group sounds well put together, there’s a good reason: they had been playing and touring for three years by the time of this performance.
Gillespie was featured prominently at the ’65 fest, presenting premieres of two lengthy suites on which he collaborated with arranger Gil Fuller, and performing as part of a trumpet feature along with Clark Terry, Henry “Red” Allen, and Rex Stewart. Hopefully some of this music will surface on future Monterey Fest recordings (although the Fuller pieces have been available previously). The set he presents here, with his sextet, is high-flying and well-played by all involved.

Things get off to a roaring start with “Trinidad Goodbye,” a hard-driving, conga-fueled number that finds Gillespie’s trumpet as fiery as ever. He follows that up with a ballad, beautifully played, entitled “Day After.” The piece is dedicated to Billie Holiday, and Dizzy’s reading is sensitive and a worthy tribute to this great singer. “Poor Joe” has a Caribbean influence and features nice flute work from Moody as well as vocal and trumpet work by Dizzy. “A Night in Tunisia” is almost de rigueur, but Gillespie never phones in the performance of his most famous composition. Moody’s tenor sax solo is particularly worthy of attention. “Ungawa” provides a lengthy (perhaps overly so) solo spot for Big Black’s congas, and the group wraps it up with “Chenga de Saudade (No More Blues).”

There is also a lengthy ‘Comedy Sketch’ which shows up Gillespie’s wry humor. It will no doubt irk some listeners who want to hear only the music, but it points up an important aspect of Gillespie’s performance style, often cited as one of the reasons he was such asn effective ambassador for both bebop and Latin jazz. In an era when most jazz performers court a concert hall level of respectability, it’s both instructive and entertaining to hear Dizzy’s vociferous antics.

 

>>Continued: Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughn