The Rebel Festival
The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz takes its vocals competition outside the United States for the first time, to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris next weekend, where Patti Austin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roberta Gambarini, Gretchen Parlato and Gregory Porter judge eleven semifinalists and both days stream free. Today's record is "We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite," which the Library of Congress put in the National Recording Registry in 2022, and Al Di Meola closes a four night run at Jazz Alley in Seattle.
LioraThe Herbie Hancock Institute takes its singing contest out of the country for the first time next weekend, to Paris. Today's record came out two years early. Later, Newport, 1960, a riot and a rival festival. It's Sunday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Sunday, October 4th. 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: The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz takes its vocals competition outside the United
LioraThe Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz is taking its singing contest out of the country, and its own announcement says this is the first time in the competition's nearly four decade history that it has happened. Next weekend, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.
Eleven semifinalists, out of hundreds of applicants. The institute calls them the most internationally diverse group since the competition's founding in 1987. Six of the eleven come from outside the United States.
LioraThe semifinal is Saturday afternoon. The panel: Patti Austin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Roberta Gambarini, Gretchen Parlato and Gregory Porter, with Bridgewater leading it. Three of the eleven go through to Sunday night, and the institute says they compete for more than a hundred thousand dollars in scholarships and prizes. First place is fifty thousand, from the Fondation.
Here is the part you can use. The institute says both days stream worldwide, live and free of charge. And here is who has won its vocals competitions before. Jazzmeia Horn. Jane Monheit. Cecile McLorin Salvant. Veronica Swift. And Gretchen Parlato, who is judging this one.
Two. Listen to This: "We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite" went into the National Recording Registry in
LioraToday's record went into the National Recording Registry in 2022: "We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite," which the Library of Congress dates 1960, on Candid.
From the registry essay by Christa Gammage: Max Roach, with his wife and singer Abbey Lincoln and the tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.
Start with the cover: three black men at an American diner counter, with a white man serving them. The essay says the picture was meant as a boost for the sit-ins, which had begun on February first that year in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Then the date. The album was meant for 1962, the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, and it came out in 1960 instead. The essay gives the reason: the rapid progression of the civil rights movement.
LioraOne coming. Impulse! announced on Coltrane's hundredth birthday that "The Tiberi Tapes" lands November sixth. More than eighty reels, recorded by the saxophonist Frank Tiberi in clubs from the summer of 1960 on.
Later, on The Bridge: Newport, 1960. A riot outside the jazz festival brings out the National Guard, and a few blocks away, Charles Mingus and Max Roach are running a festival of their own. Silas has the story. Welcome, Silas.
Three. The Bridge: Newport, 1960: a riot outside the jazz festival brings out the National Guard
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Silas tells it, I ask the questions. Silas, where are we?
SilasNewport, Rhode Island. Saturday night, July 2nd, 1960. The walled arena at Freebody Park. The Chicago Daily Tribune puts the crowd inside at fifteen thousand. Sarah Vaughan and the Oscar Peterson trio are on the bill.
Outside are thousands more who hoped to buy tickets. There's no room.
A riot breaks out. By the police estimate, at least twelve thousand people take part. The mob tries to crash the gates. Fighting spreads to the streets and the beaches. The governor sends state police and the National Guard. The naval station, where President Eisenhower is due that Thursday, sends fifty Marines. State police split the crowd with tear gas and hoses. Hospitals treat about fifty people, most for cuts from flying glass.
LioraAnd the concert inside?
SilasNever interrupted. It runs until half past one in the morning.
Sunday at noon, the city council declares a state of emergency. It bars visitors, stops liquor sales, and revokes the license for the Sunday night and Monday shows. The Sunday matinee is about to start, and the council lets it go on. National Guardsmen keep order in the park.
The festival's president, Louis Lorillard, of the tobacco family, tells reporters, "This means the end of the festival forever." His directors vote to sue the city for four million dollars.
All that weekend, a few blocks away, Newport has a second jazz festival.
LioraWait. A second festival?
SilasAt a hotel called Cliff Walk Manor. Charles Mingus and Max Roach set it up before the riot ever happened. Down Beat quoted Mingus on how. "Nat told me to get in touch with Elaine Lorillard." That's the critic Nat Hentoff. "So she got in touch with the owner of Cliff Walk Manor." The owner, Nick Cannarozzi, lets the musicians use his lawn. And Elaine Lorillard? She's the ex-wife of the festival's president.
LioraThe president's ex-wife.
SilasDivorced the year before. So why rebel? Mingus traced his grievance to the festival's first year. He said the organizers asked him to play cheap, because they were just starting out. He agreed. His pay, he said, stayed "meager," even as the festival grew more successful. That's Down Beat's account; later ones go wider. A 2020 retrospective argues the musicians saw the festival as "too pop, too white."
Down Beat and Time printed lists of who played, and they barely overlap. Only three names appear on both: the veteran tenor Coleman Hawkins, the drummer Jo Jones, and the alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman.
LioraDid anybody come?
SilasOn Sunday evening, with the official festival's night show canceled, Time counted seven hundred and fifty people at Cliff Walk, and four thousand seven hundred dollars at the gate. Down Beat put its best night at about five hundred. Either way, it ran all weekend without incident.
That November, Nat Hentoff, producing for Candid Records, took many of the same musicians into a New York studio. The album, "Newport Rebels," is not a recording of that weekend. Eric Dolphy and Abbey Lincoln are on it. Neither magazine lists them at Cliff Walk.
Hentoff's liner notes call the rebel festival "the one positive accomplishment of the 1960 Newport Festival."
LioraThe festival with the arena couldn't finish its weekend. The musicians' own festival, on a hotel lawn, did.
That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Jazz Alley closes a four night Al Di Meola run in Seattle
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket is in Seattle.
Jazz Alley bills the Al Di Meola Acoustic Ensemble on its Guitarchitect 2026 Tour, and tonight closes a four night run. One set, half past seven, doors at half past five. Sixty eight dollars, with a twelve fifty handling fee inside that figure.
Now the sweep.
In Nashville, Rudy's Jazz Room has the Kelli Cox Collaborative, six to a quarter past eight, fifteen dollars at the door.
In New York, Smalls has the Alexander McCabe Quartet at six and half past seven, with Uri Caine on piano. The club says there are no further reservations available for that seating.
LioraIn New Orleans, Preservation Hall has five performances by the Preservation Legacy Band. Leroy Jones fronts it at half past two and a quarter to four, then Gregg Stafford at five, half past seven and a quarter to nine.
And in Cambridge, the Regattabar has John Pizzarelli presenting "Dear Mr. Bennett," four o'clock and six, with Isaiah J. Thompson on piano and Mike Karn on bass. From forty one seventy nine.
Five. One More Note: On October 4, 1923, in New York, Bessie Smith and Clara Smith cut two sides together with
LioraOctober fourth, 1923, in New York. Bessie Smith and Clara Smith sang two sides together, with Fletcher Henderson at the piano.
The Discography of American Historical Recordings holds both Columbia cards. "Far away blues," and "I'm going back to my used-to-be."
Same day, same city, the Original Memphis Five cut "Tin roof blues" for Victor, and the archive flags a disagreement on the card. Victor's ledgers credit the tune to the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. The disc label names five men instead.
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.
That's your Sunday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.