Jazz at the Philharmonic

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Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) was the title of a concert series that Norman Granz produced for more than 20 years and with which he toured worldwide. The concerts mainly featured swing and bebop musicians who initially appeared in small groups and then came together on stage for a jam session with Chase Chorussen .

Norman Granz, around November 1947.
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb .

The first concert in 1944

Norman Granz had maintained his connections to jazz musicians and organized further jam sessions , albeit on a professional basis , during his military service, where he served in troop support . He was soon known as a tough negotiator and insisted on three things: fixed pay for the musicians, no dancing during the sessions, and no racial segregation in the audience.

In 1944, twenty-one teenage Chicanos were arrested during a riot in Los Angeles and subsequently convicted of murder. They were called the "Zoot Suiters" - based on Cab Calloway's stage suit - and their defense became a cause célébre for the liberals of the west coast , in which Hollywood celebrities like Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth participated ( Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee ) . Granz decided to use the publicity to organize a jazz concert for the benefit of the Chicanos and for this purpose rented the largest auditorium in LA at the time, the Philharmonic Auditorium , which previously only performed classical music. At first the concert was called "Jazz Concert at the Philharmonic"; but since the font size that Granz had chosen did not allow so many letters, he dropped the word concert , and so “Jazz at the Philharmonic” was born. Illinois Jacquet (whose high notes on the saxophone were a particular success with young audiences), Jack McVea , JJ Johnson , Shorty Sherock , Nat King Cole , Lee Young, and Les then took part in that first concert on Sunday afternoon, July 2, 1944 Paul part. For the remainder of 1944, monthly concerts were held in the auditorium. The last concert there took place on April 28, 1946, with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Lester Young , among others , after which the Civic Auditorium refused to allow further JATP events, ostensibly because the audience started dancing - Granz himself suspected that she was had enough of the multiracial audience.

JATP poster from 1956

The JATP tours

After several similar concerts in Los Angeles, Granz began to produce tours from 1946, which took place annually - the first with Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Buddy Rich from April 1946 in California, Chicago and New York. At these events, which was still a sensation for the USA at the time, musicians from African American and European backgrounds performed together. Granz preferred to cancel bookings instead of giving in to the organizers' demands for so-called racial segregation (also in relation to the audience). The participating musicians felt they were very well treated, both in terms of hotel accommodation and travel in first class and, if possible, on the plane instead of on the bus and train. The enterprising Granz was able to guarantee his stars high and above all regular salaries for the circumstances of the time.

According to Feather, there were only three musicians who had serious conflicts during the JATP tours: Billie Holiday 1954 (she screwed up a gig at Carnegie Hall and had to be led off the stage, whereupon she berated Oscar Peterson , who is a regular star ensemble of the JATP), with Lester Young, and Buddy Rich, known for his violent temperament, who described the concerts in Downbeat as a lot of junk , but returned ruefully a year later.

Jazz at the Philharmonic introduced the most prominent jazz musicians of the era, such as Louie Bellson , Ray Brown , Don Byas , Benny Carter , Harry "Sweets" Edison , Roy Eldridge , Ella Fitzgerald , Stan Getz , Dizzy Gillespie , Lionel Hampton , Billie Holiday , Coleman Hawkins , Illinois Jacquet , Hank Jones , Jo Jones , Gene Krupa , Charlie Parker , Oscar Peterson , Flip Phillips , Buddy Rich , Charlie Shavers , Willie Smith , Tommy Turk , Ben Webster and Lester Young . In the 1950s his JATP concerts were very popular and enabled him to build a jazz empire. Between 1950 and 1957 around 150 concerts were held annually around the world (in the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia), and the tour lasted around seven months.

Granz had some of the concerts recorded that were released on Mercury Records and later on Clef and Verve , his own record labels at the time . In the 1940s, his live recordings of jazz concerts were something completely new. The JATP tours in the United States were suspended in 1957, but continued to run in Europe and Japan for another decade, but no longer took place every year. Granz also left the USA in 1959 and moved to Switzerland. In addition to sporadic JATP concerts, he was also active as a jazz organizer and manager of Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, among others. In 1967 the JATP concerts temporarily ended with a final US tour (with Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson). Granz said afterwards: “Never again. I made a profit, but it's too much work and, above all, too much trouble. It's no longer fun, at least in the USA. "

In the 1970s , Granz revived the spirit of the JATP events with jam session-like concerts at the Montreux Jazz Festival or with the recordings made there for television and his Pablo label or in the USA in 1972 in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium ( and a Salute to JATP concert at the 1971 Monterey Jazz Festival ). He made one last tour in 1983 on a tour of Japan on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the JATP appearances in Japan. a. with Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, published by Pablo.

JATP in jazz criticism

The JATP venture was - despite its success with the public - “received mostly with a frown from the critics. It was criticized that musicians of different incompatible styles were jamming together, that there were no arrangements, and that the whole thing went off without rehearsals and without finesse, ”said Teddy Doering. Proponents pointed out that in some of the recorded recordings some of the most beautiful solos of the musicians involved at the time were handed down; There are three concert recordings for JATP from the 1940s: the legendary one with Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday on April 22, 1946; the concerts in New York's Carnegie Hall on May 27 and June 3, 1946 (the conclusion of the first tour) and recordings from the spring of 1947 from Pittsburgh with the famous " How High the Moon " and an excellent solo by Coleman Hawkins . The critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton consider the Carnegie Hall concert in 1949 (with the front line, inter alia, from Parker, Fats Navarro and Sonny Criss ) and the Frankfurt concert in November 1952 (inter alia with Lester Young) as highlights of the series of events; they gave Norman Granz 'JATP event the credit of having enormously encouraged interest in swing and mainstream jazz music during a difficult period .

In 1972 Leonard Feather emphasized the importance of the JATP concerts for the recognition of jazz musicians in the USA: Younger jazz fans are no longer aware of the extent to which he promoted the recognition, well-being and dignity of the musicians associated with him ... None of the remembering the Granz years can doubt that he upgraded the role of jazz from that of an underground culture that was seldom taken seriously and was mostly performed in dance halls and night clubs.

Important albums

  • The Complete Jazz at the Philharmonic on Verve 1944-1949 (Clef / Verve)
  • Carnegie Hall 1949 (Pablo, 1949) with Fats Navarro , Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Hank Jones
  • Frankfurt 1952 (Pablo) with Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Hank Jones, Irving Ashby , Max Roach
  • The Drum Battle (Verve, 1952) with Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich
  • JATP in Tokyo (Pablo, 1953) with Charlie Shavers, Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Ella Fitzgerald
  • The Challenges (Verve 1954) with Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie
  • JJ Johnson and Stan Getz At the Opera House (Verve 1957) with Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis , Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Brown, Percy Heat, Connie Kay
  • JATP in London, 1969 (Pablo) with Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry , James Moody , Teddy Wilson
  • JATP at the Montreux Festival 1975 (Pablo) with Clark Terry, Benny Carter, Zoot Sims , Joe Pass , Tommy Flanagan

collection

  • The Complete Jazz at The Philharmonic on Verve - 1944 to 1949 - 10 CDs
1944
with JJ Johnson , Illinois Jacquet , Jack McVea , Nat King Cole , Les Paul , Johnny Miller b, Lee Young dm, Meade Lux Lewis , Shorty Sherock , Bumps Myers , Joe Thomas , Buddy Cole p, Red Callender , Joe Marshall dm, Carolyn Richards voc
1945
with Neal Hefti , Shorty Sherock, Corky Corcoran , Coleman Hawkins , Milt Raskin , Dave Barbour , Charles Mingus , Dave Coleman dm, Billie Holiday , Howard McGhee , Willie Smith , Wardell Gray , Charlie Ventura , Illinois Jacquet, Joe Guy , Garland Finney p , Ulysses Livingston , Gene Krupa , Slim Gaillard , Tiny "Bam" Brown b & voc
1946
with Al Killian , Howard McGhee, Charlie Parker , Willie Smith, Lester Young , Arnold Ross , Billy Hadnot b, Lee Young, Charlie Ventura, Teddy Napoleon , Gene Krupa, Dizzy Gillespie , Mel Powell , Meade Lux Lewis, Buck Clayton , Kenny Kersey , Irving Ashby , Buddy Rich , Ray Linn , Babe Russin , Curly Russell , JC Heard , Billie Holiday, Georgie Auld , Tiny Grimes , Al McKibbon , Rodney Richardson b, Harold Doc West dm, John Collins g, Allen Eager , JJ Johnson, Chubby Jackson , Trummy Young , Slam Stewart , Barney Kessel , Charlie Drayton b, Jackie Mills dm
1947
with Buck Clayton, Trummy Young, Willie Smith, Coleman Hawkins, Flip Phillips , Kenny Kersey, Benny Fonville b, Buddy Rich, Roy Eldridge , Pete Brown , Les Paul, Hank Jones , Alvin Stoller , Billie Holiday, Bobby Tucker p, Howard McGhee , Bill Harris , Illinois Jacquet, Ray Brown , Jo Jones
1949
with Roy Eldridge, Tommy Turk tb, Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, Lester Young, Hank Jones, Ray Brown, Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald , Oscar Peterson , Charlie Ventura, Teddy Napoleon, Gene Krupa, Ralph Burns , Bill De Arango , Dave Tough , Charlie Shavers , Sid Catlett

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Feather, loc. Cit., P. 178
  2. ↑ Information on the history of the JATP in Haskins, p. 104. After Feather, Meade Lux Lewis was also involved.
  3. ^ Gelly Being Prez , Oxford UP, p. 108
  4. ↑ Feather From Satchmo to Miles , p. 174 describes Granz Einsatz: A benevolent giant who strode through the world with seven league boots, knocking down the Jim Crow pygmies as he went . Granz insisted on appropriate anti-apartheid clauses in contracts with organizers in the southern states. On one occasion he rented a plane to save the musicians from spending the night in a southern city.
  5. ↑ cf. Michael Denning The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth-Century . Verso 1997, p. 337
  6. ↑ Feather, From Satchmo to Miles , speaks of $ 50,000 worth of work annually, upwards , e.g. B. for Lester Young. Gelly Being Prez , p. 116, says that Lester Young made around $ 5,000 at JATP in six to seven weeks, compared to the 800 to 900 jazz club stakes that got him in the same amount of time at higher expenses.
  7. ↑ From Satchmo to Miles p. 179
  8. ^ Who, according to Leonard Feather, was fired in the middle of a concert. However, there is no reference to the incident in Gelly's book Being Prez .
  9. ^ Feather From Satchmo to Miles , p. 174
  10. ^ Feather, p. 182. In the original: Never again. I made a profit, but it's too much of a production, too much work, and above all too much aggravation. It's no fun anymore, at least not in the States .
  11. ↑ In an interview at the beginning of the 1970s, Granz thought regular concerts in Europe were no longer possible: Scandinavia likes rock music, in Germany only four to five would be playable instead of eight to ten cities and in France and England only performances in London and Paris would be possible worth it. Feather, p. 183
  12. ↑ Doering, p. 52.
  13. ^ Information and quotations from the Hawkins biography by Teddy Doering, p. 52.
  14. ↑ Cook / Morton, 8th ed., Pp. 701 f.
  15. ↑ Feather From Satchmo to Miles , Quartet books 1974, p. 173, Younger jazz fans are doubtless unaware of the degree to which his efforts secured the recognition, welfare and human dignity of the musicians with whom he was associated ... Nobody who remembers the Granz years doubt that he upgraded the course of American Jazz from a virtual underground art, rarely presented for serious listening and often confined to segregated dance halls and night clubs

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