The Wrong Microphone
Detroit and Chicago close out their free festival weekends, Monterey is next, and the whole field is leaning toward Coltrane's centennial. Then Sekou tells the story of Newport, 1956, and twenty-seven choruses played into the wrong microphone.
LioraTwo free jazz festivals just closed their books. A centennial is coming later this month. And Newport, 1956, twenty-seven choruses played into the wrong microphone. It's Tuesday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Tuesday, September 8th. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: Detroit's 47th year and Chicago's four free days at Millennium Park are done
LioraFestival season just turned a corner, and it's pointing at one name.
Labor Day weekend closed two free jazz festivals, in Detroit and Chicago. Detroit ran September 4th through the 7th, its 47th year, with the downtown footprint fully centered at Hart Plaza, all three main stages consolidated. The festival's own site calls it the world's largest free jazz festival. Chicago ran the 3rd through the 6th at Millennium Park, four days, free. At the Pritzker Pavilion: Dee Dee Bridgewater with Bill Charlap on opening night, Robert Glasper, Paquito D'Rivera, and M.E.B., the Miles Electric Band, marking the Miles Davis centennial.
Next up is Monterey, the 69th, September 25th through 27th at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. Tickets on sale now.
LioraHere's the thread. Detroit built its Artist-In-Residence programming around a Coltrane 100 series. Blue Note's Coltrane tribute lands on the 18th. John Coltrane's centennial falls later this month.
One follow-up. On Cassandra Wilson's death date, the sources still disagree. NPR says Wednesday the 2nd. NBC News cites the Hinds County coroner for Tuesday morning. Wikipedia's entry lists September 1st. We carry both dates until one settles.
Two. Listen to This: Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves share the single "Dedicated to You" ahead of their
LioraToday's listen is a single, and it's a preview of the month. Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves shared a new single this week, "Dedicated to You." It's the title track of their coming John Coltrane tribute, and Blue Note releases the album on September 18th, for the centennial.
The tip. Play the single twice, and give the two plays different rooms. Once in the morning, out loud, while you're doing something else. Once at the end of the night, alone, nothing else open. Same track, twice. See which one it was built for.
LioraAnd the new release desk still has last week's album on it. Linda Sikhakhane's self-titled fifth record, "LINDA," out on Blue Note since September 4th. The label calls it introspective and collaborative, inspired by the pursuit of discovering one's life purpose, and rooted in South African jazz vernacular.
Newport, Rhode Island. Saturday night, July 7th, 1956, running toward midnight. A festival in only its third season, a crowd already thinking about its car keys, and a band led by a man whose career is at a low ebb. Twenty-seven choruses, played into the wrong microphone. Sekou has the story.
Three. The Bridge: Newport, Rhode Island, a Saturday night in July of 1956
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Sekou tells it, I ask the questions. Sekou, where are we?
SekouNewport, Rhode Island. Saturday night, July 7th, 1956, running toward midnight. A jazz festival in only its third season. Late enough that the crowd is thinking about its car keys. And the band about to go on is led by a man whose career is at a low ebb.
LioraDuke Ellington. At a low ebb.
SekouIn 1956, yes. He's 57. His deal with Capitol Records is over, he has no regular label contract, and the jazz press has moved on to younger men.
So late in the set he calls two old pieces of his from 1937. "Diminuendo in Blue" and "Crescendo in Blue." The band had played them back to back for years, with a stretch of blues in the middle for a tenor solo. And the man who took that solo was Paul Gonsalves.
LioraWho was Paul Gonsalves?
SekouNot famous outside the music, but a serious player. Basie's band, then Dizzy Gillespie's, and with Duke since 1950. He had played that blues interlude before. Nobody had ever played it like this.
One chorus of the blues. Two. Five. The rhythm section locks in behind him. Ten. Twenty. He plays twenty-seven choruses, and the park erupts.
LioraTwenty-seven.
SekouTwenty-seven. And here's the part almost nobody knows. He played all twenty-seven into the wrong microphone.
LioraWait. The wrong microphone?
SekouColumbia Records was recording that night for an album. They had their microphone. But there was a second one on that stage, put there by the Voice of America, which carried jazz overseas. Gonsalves stood at the wrong one. On Columbia's tape, the solo of his life is a whisper in the distance. On the Voice of America tape, it is right there in the room.
Hold that thought.
LioraWhat's happening in the crowd?
SekouLarge sections are already on their feet. Accounts often single out one woman: Elaine Anderson got up in the aisle and danced, and soon the park was dancing. George Wein, who ran the festival, is worried it gets out of hand. He tries to signal Duke to stop.
LioraAnd Duke didn't stop.
SekouDuke did not stop. Wein said later that Ellington read the crowd better than he could have. He let it run, then handed the night to Johnny Hodges: a ballad, then a slow blues that brought the park back to earth.
SekouThis is where the legend and the record part ways, and the record is better.
The legend says Newport put Duke Ellington on the cover of Time magazine. He was on that cover. But the portrait was finished in June, before the festival. Newport gave them the hook.
And the album. "Ellington at Newport" became, by every later account, the best-selling record of his career. And much of it was not live.
LioraHold on.
SekouColumbia's tape was thin, remember. The solo was faint. So they took the band into a studio, re-recorded much of the concert, and mixed in applause. For decades, that is what the world heard.
Then in 1996, the Voice of America recording was identified at the Library of Congress. The wrong microphone. In 1999, Columbia lined up the two tapes and released the concert the way it actually happened, with Gonsalves right there in the room. Nearly forty-three years later.
Duke liked to say, "I was born at Newport in 1956." He was 57 that night. And he wasn't wrong.
LioraOne man playing into the wrong microphone. That's the whole story of this music, isn't it. The best thing in the room is usually the thing nobody planned.
That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Nanny Assis and Toninho Horta take two sets at Blues Alley in Washington, with Baltimore
LioraTonight, coast to coast. Tonight's ticket first.
If I had one ticket tonight, it's Washington. Blues Alley has Nanny Assis, "Afro-Jobim," featuring Toninho Horta, in the club's Brazilian Jazz Series. Two sets, seven and nine thirty. A sourcing note: the club's own events page loads a blank calendar, so this one comes from the box office system linked off its own Get Tickets button.
LioraNow the sweep. In Baltimore, Keystone Korner has Saudade, Brazilian samba jazz, at seven, with Claudio Silva, Taisha Estrada, Bruno Tzinas, Jason Arkins, Nico Wohl and Will Hazel. In New York, Mezzrow runs two trios and Vinyl After Hours: the Joe Alterman Trio at six and seven thirty, the Danny Fox Trio at nine and ten thirty, then Vinyl After Hours at eleven thirty. At the Blue Note, Button Masher plays an album release show, eight and ten thirty. In Chicago, the Chicago Cellar Boys hold the Green Mill from eight until midnight. And in Austin, the Elephant Room has the Mitch Watkins Trio at six. The club's own calendar says every Tuesday, in the basement. Seven dollars after eight.
Two rooms dark tonight: Cliff Bell's in Detroit, closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia, listed closed for the holiday.
Five. One More Note: September 8th belongs to bass players: Oscar Pettiford died on this date in 1960 at 37
LioraSeptember 8th is a date for bass players.
Oscar Pettiford died on this date in 1960, in Copenhagen. He was 37. One of the earliest musicians to work in the bebop idiom, and gone at thirty-seven.
And a birthday on the same instrument. Wilbur Ware, the hard bop bassist, born September 8th, 1923. He would have turned 103 today.
One more, off the bass. The British trumpeter Gracie Cole, of Ivy Benson's band, born September 8th, 1924. She'd be 102.
Put on something with a big bass sound and turn it up.
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.