On Music

...The weather was perfect (and remained so throughout the festival...

...Long faces were to be seen until at one point a dog wandered onto the stage, looked up quizzically at the band, and hurried off...

...By way of contrast Archie Shepp's sextet came on with its own singular brand of noise, including a poetry reading...

...His facial, vocal and gestural cues wring the music out of these men, who in turn project a kind of communal energy rare to most big bands...

...It repeated many of the previous pieces, and the musicianship was consistently sloppy...

...Vi uses vibrato and a slightly ragged vocal edge quite effectively...

...An added delight was the playing of Benny Carter, who sat in with faultless rapport for several numbers...

...Elvin's drumming is, as always, incredible...

...Most of this, like jazz, was improvised—but from some incredible head-arrangement...

...And he apparently said everything that came into his head—from a convoluted story about sex and wooden legs to general put-downs of ugly people and midgets, along with the racial bits he is known for...

...The afternoon concluded with the Clark Terry Orchestra, which provided no surprises but crisp, clean section work and a notable roster of New York musicians, among them Frank Wess, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Cleveland, Grady Tate, and the fine young trumpet player, Jimmy Owens...

...even Hodges was off, in "Star-Crossed Lovers...

...Until then, his most recent albums for Verve (Now please don't you cry, beautiful Edith...

...Despite such minor annoyances, George Wein has made the Newport Jazz Festival an annual rite for thousands of jazz lovers...

...Cootie fumbled his "A-Train" solo badly...

...Guitarist Tal Farlow came out of retirement from New Jersey and altoist Sonny Criss came out of exile from Europe, each to present virtuoso performances...

...When Herman finally got to his own contemporary style, he played a rousing version of "Readymix," a piece by Bill Hol-man who is writing much of the band's book these days...

...Dionne sang her big hits?I Say A Little Prayer for You," "Gotta Get Off," "The Look of Love"—and it was an impressive performance...

...They inspired several standing ovations, one occurring after a superb Garrison solo on "Jim's Tune," another brought on by Farrell's rendering of "Flute Joe...

...At the festival I heard the band perform from backstage and, after the difficulties of setting up (19 men, each with his own amplification system), they practically blew me out of the wings...

...Neither of these imputations, happily, has any substance...

...Carter's tone is still perfection and over the years his conceptions have loosened up to the point where he is now playing better than ever...

...Occupying a hilltop on the outskirts of Newport, the field is flanked on one side by an extensive garbage dump, which sometimes obtrudes fragrantly, and on the other by a sprawling Naval base, purposefully ugly...

...This boisterous, vibrant group is to Paul Verlaine what Aretha Franklin might be to Stephane Mallarme...

...A less sentimental and disjointed perspective on tradition was offered by the great Ellington band...

...Ti he high point of the afternoon was the appearance of the newly formed Elvin Jones Trio, with Joe Farrell playing flute, soprano and tenor sax, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin drumming...

...Their new Columbia disc (Shock Treatment, CS 9668) is at least the equal, albeit not in shock value, of Electric Bath, and it swings mightily in just as wide a variety of time signatures...

...the MC's, Billy Taylor and Father Norman O'Connor, combined information, humor and urbane blandishment in about equal proportions...

...Well, the twins are gorgeous to look at, and their music is interesting when it isn't pretentious...

...These tunes and others are on their new LP for Blue Note, Puttin' It Together...

...Duke continues to be the greatest exponent of programmed whimsy in jazz, and he sustained his reputation with a discourse, hugely enjoyed by the crowd, on the proper techniques of finger-snapping, ear-lobe-dropping, and being demonstrative yet sufficiently cool as listeners...

...Playing first, Rufus Har-ley gave winning performances on the bagpipes, an instrument whose severe harmonic limitations he has learned to master in artful arrangements...

...And that is saying a lot...

...Recently he broadened the appeal of the concerts through the presence of a few jazz-influenced pop artists, and he has taken jazz festivals all around the country, to Europe and to Mexico...

...Conceived as a tribute to the great bands of the past and a showcase for present-day big band activity, the concert featured an impressive array of jazz talent brought in by beer money from all over the country...

...Paul Gonsalves was both boozy and breathy through "Body and Soul," then missed all the changes in the up-tempo portion...

...No man can do more, and when they wouldn't let him leave the stage, Flip Wilson offered to give up his own interim time for the encore...

...Kirk has never produced a record to equal some of his live performances, but Atlantic had its recorders going that Sunday night, and eventually a disc may be forthcoming...

...I was reminded of the brilliant TV burlesque Steve Allen performed on the same subject about three months ago, replete with hokey music, vapid girl vocalists, etc...

...Jack Leonard sang Tommy Dorsey's "Marie...

...Roland then played, as he put it, a medley of "tunes John Coltrane left for us to learn...

...The finale was "Indian Lady," magnificently done but performed, strangely enough, to a near-empty Festival Field...

...The crowd had begun to filter out some time before in order to avoid the impossible traffic jams which inevitably followed each concert...

...They might well have played longer, for next actress Joan Crawford, citizen of Newport, director of the sponsoring Pepsi-Cola Co., commenced a windy speech of welcome, ridden with deep feeling and cliches about America's native art form...

...Since jazz fans are used to perceiving subtle distinctions between manner and matter, it was understandable that she got some heckling from the front rows...

...the crowd was receptive but did not, as some reports had it, applaud everything indiscriminately...

...Again, some fans and critics remain hostile to anyone who smacks too strongly of a pop image...

...This year, by attracting big-money sponsors like Pepsi-Cola and Schlitz, Wein undertook his most ambitious and, from all accounts, his most successful home stand...

...Announcer Andre Baruch (of Lucky Strike Hit Parade fame) recalled the cliches of Saturday night radio ("From the beautiful Pump Room of the Hotel Bilge in downtown Passaic . . .") with rather more nostalgia than humor...

...One Ton," a rocking Kirk original —had the entire crowd on its feet...

...In these atonal and microtonal improvisations, the girls' voices come off more like the sound of squealing—in which case, I suppose, the audience must represent Circe's swine...

...Dizzy's quintet, with James Moody and company, followed with its usual flag-wavers like "Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac," which have never lost their charm for this listener...

...Fully equal to the occasion, the Duke kissed Joan on both cheeks and coolly intoned, "We love you...

...Farrell's reed technique and improvisatory skill in this new, freer jazz signify his complete metamorphosis from the ensemble chores he performed in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band...

...Unlike the Schlitz affair or the Leonard Feather production, here was no lip service to tradition, no pretense, no jive...

...Shepp started with a simple blues which soon developed into his usual wailing cacophony...

...Also, the band has been touring for some time: in fact, Newport was one in a series of concerts Ellis is presenting this summer...

...His newest disc for Atlantic (A Tribute to Courage, SC 1504) is a mixed bag, so to speak, but well worth having...

...The group went on to accompany Vi Redd, a singer who also plays alto sax and deserves wider acclaim than she has gotten...

...If the Town Council doesn't make him Honorary Mayor, it should at least find a suitable location for Wein Memorial Field...

...He explained that the Andrece twins and their pianist-arranger, Gary David, represent the first real departure in modern singing since Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, an assertion many found hard to accept after hearing pieces like "Circe Revisited...

...V6-8709) and Atlantic (The Inflated Tear, SC 1502) are better than anything he has done previously...

...I have not yet heard this, but if it is anything like the live performance, it will be one of the great jazz records of the year...

...While the music varied a good deal in kind and quality, all of it was interesting...

...The Homes and the Right People are situated several miles away on the ocean side of town...

...The concert began with the Alex Welsh Band from England performing fine mainstream jazz, with Ruby Braff, Pee Wee Russell, Bud Freeman, and Joe Venuti sitting in...

...Silver's group, as usual, played driving, straight-ahead jazz with the leader's piano and compositions in the forefront...

...Diz has also found a considerable talent in pianist Mike Longo, who wrote the catchy bossa rock "Ding-a-ling," which induced everyone to swing strenuously...

...Not so Leonard Feather's labored introduction of a new vocal group he is promoting, "The Sound of Feeling...

...A bridge now being built across Narragansett Bay is to appropriate the field for access roads, so after five years here the festival will move once again next season—presumably to some other location in the area...

...They opened with "The Great Divide," a rousing blast written for Newport, and proceeded with various pieces from the albums, midway including a Charlie Parker solo, "K...

...Horace's people have always been competent, and he pushes them hard, especially in numbers like "The Natives Are Restless Tonight," which featured some resounding drumwork by Billy Cobham...

...The festival got back to more familiar ground Sunday afternoon with the Ray Charles organization performing the full concert...

...And yet they seemed content to be bored for an hour the following night by Ramsey Lewis who, like the late Wes Montgomery, is more respectable because he approaches pop music by way of jazz...

...On that Friday evening they played better than I have heard them in several years...

...Although New York Times critic John S. Wilson felt moved to complain of her presence at a jazz festival, the blues and gospel roots of her singing were rarely far from the surface...

...Like all of Dizzy's big bands in the last 20 years, this one has excitement, drive and a unique sound...

...I am not one of Ray Charles' great admirers, but the program was entertaining and the music good if you dig that kind of Schrafft's souMood...

...C. Blues," which Ellis transposed, arranged and expanded for the whole band, with solos...

...When I last wrote about it (NL, June 3), I implied that the band was primarily a rehearsal and studio organization and that, exciting as it was, it lacked an element of "spontaneous swing...

...Erskine Hawkins played "Tuxedo Junction" and "Tip-pin' In...

...she does the medium-to-up-tempo numbers as well as anyone singing today...

...In addition to being virtually inaccessible, the town is physically incapable of handling the hordes attending the jazz or the later folk festival, and after 15 years, there remains considerable opposition to George Wein's productions...

...Rufus plays jazz in the Roland Kirk vein (if that is possible), blowing flute, soprano and tenor sax besides the pipes, but it is the timbre and blend of the pipes with the typical quartet format that is fascinating...

...last and perhaps least, we heard from Bob Eberle, whose infirm voice has hardly deteriorated over the years...

...By the time Woody Herman's very young and aggressively "with it" band had run through a quantity of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Dorsey brothers arrangements, some younger members of the audience could scarcely contain their sentiments...

...On Friday afternoon, before the Schlitzfest, we attended a less inflated, more relaxed, typically Newport event...

...Harry Carney, Russell Procope, Cat Anderson, and Johnny Hodges were highlighted successively in a display of material ranging from "Sophisticated Lady" to a piece from the new religious suite evoking traffic outside the Heavenly Gates, "The Busiest Intersection...

...The evening concluded with another humorist, Dizzy Gillespie, who presented his new orchestra for the first time...

...The Ellis band gets better and better...

...What keeps things going, of course, is the music: Monterey notwithstanding, Newport is still the best jazz festival in the country...

...While the series began on Thursday evening, July 4, the first important concert, the Schlitz Salute to Big Bands, took place on Friday evening...

...The evening and the festival concluded with performances by the Horace Silver Quintet and the Don Ellis Orchestra...

...Gil Fuller, one of today's un-glorified but outstanding arrangers, rehearsed the band and did the book, which included some familiar things like "Con Alma," with an impeccable James Moody solo, fine conga drumming and section work...

...The precarious, exclusionary status of the event is symbolized by Festival Field itself...

...Some of the best jazz of the festival was offered on Saturday afternoon to a comparatively small crowd of 1,600...

...They set to with one of the more ragged numbers of the festival, improved things in "Alfie," and by the time they reached their last tune...

...moreover, George Wein has never been one to conduct business as usual...

...Because he has lacked wide recognition for his role as bandleader in the '30s, his presence with Dizzy's group was a grateful historical gesture...

...Sunday evening comedian Flip Wilson as MC broke up the audience with everything he said...

...But the Big Show was to be Saturday night, and the largest crowd in festival history (18,000) attended, drawn thither by the pop power of Dionne Warwick, a stunning young lady and an excellent singer...

...After angrily threatening the offenders, "Shut up, or I will not speak another word," she was allowed to continue and introduce Duke Ellington for his third festival appearance...

...After Charlie Barnet led them through a medley of his tunes, Duke played the verse of "A-Train" in % time, continuing magnificently in 4 with the full band and a fine Cootie Williams solo...

...From this vantage point Don's antic urgings as leader are both functional and fascinating to watch...

...After intermission and before Dionne, Hugh Masekela performed a kind of South African folk jazz which met with generally stolid response in the press section of the field but animated enthusiasm elsewhere...

...Among other things she gave us "Rocks in My Bed," the great Ellington lyric Ivie Anderson sang, and "This Little Light of Mine," gospel with propelling swing...

...Let us hope that they will have a place to filter back into next year...

...and the sound of this three-way partnership (no one appears to "lead") is dense, complex, yet cohesive and formally unified...

...Roland turns his audiences on not so much through multi-instrumental dexterity as through an authentic sound of feeling: his urgent emotionality rendered with whatever devices jazz—all of jazz—has to offer...

...After their musical transliteration of Verlaine's poem, "Spleen" (whose title Gary David said he didn't understand), another program irony was revealed with the playing of Roland Kirk's quintet...

...Unfortunately, the band proved more difficult to control and it played as poorly as it had played well the night before...

...Count Basie led off and paid his respects to the Jimmie Lunceford band, with Joe Thomas recreating his famous versions of "Cheatin' on Me" and "For Dancers Only...