• Gerry Mulligan Recordings (Craig Hanley) - Blues In The Night

    bluesnight

    Blues In The Night

    1. Boogie Blues
    2. Feeling Happy
    3. Corrine, Corrina notes
    George Auld, Ray Bryant, Tommy Bryant, Kenny Burrell, Buck Clayton, Pete Johnson, Jo Jones, Rudy Rutherford, Tony Scott, Buddy Tate, Jack Teagarden, Joe Turner

    July 5, 1958

    NOTE: Jerome Klinkowitz mentions that Tercinet lists the "Blues Band" as including Gerry Mulligan. On this CD neither the liner notes nor the on-stage announcer mention Gerry at all.

     LINER NOTES

    The Newport Festival - now legendary and belonging to the History of Jazz started in 1954, when Eddie Condon "stomped off the beat for Muskat Ramble at a little past 9 p.m on July 17" - to quote the programme from the 5th Newport Festival in 1958. For a long time recorded documents from that festival have been waiting in the PHONTASTIC archives to be sorted out and edited in order to form suitable programs for the record player.

    But before commenting on the artists and the music some facts about the Newport Festival as such.

    Brief Newport History

    For a long time it was largely an idea in the minds of Louis and Elaine Lorrilard, "a couple full of jazz" and who also had some financial resources, and George Wein, jazz lover, piano player and proprietor of two successful Boston night clubs. After hard work and important sacrifices they saw their dream come true in 1954 and had the satisfaction and pleasure to wit ness how their project turned into the jazz festival of all jazz festivals.

    The opening concert at the first festival included, apart from Eddie Condon's group, a wealth of jazz greats, Bobby Hackeft, Pee Wee Russell, Lee Wiley, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Konitz, Oscar Peterson, Gerry Mulligan, Ella Fitzgerald etc. And the following day the audience could see and hear what the programme very aptly describes as a "parade of talent":

    The Lester Young-Buck Clayton Sextet, Lennie Tristano's Sextet, Billie Holiday, Gene Krupa's Trio, Teddy Wilson - plus a number of artists from the previous day.

    In 1955 the parade of stars continued and in addition big bands made their appearance - the first big unit to appear being Woody Herman's Band.

    That year Louis took part there and one evening Duke Ellington was the emcee. That night the attendance was counted at 9.500! No wonder, with performers like The Modern Jazz Quartet, Jimmy Rushing, Count Basie, Lester Young, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan etc, etc.

    And so it went on for several years.

    A number of recordings from the festivals have been issued and I find it rather surprising that so much of what was played is so enjoyable and of such a high quality musically, also now when you listen to it in your drawing room. More often than not the pleasure derived from recordings from concerts and festivals does not at all compare with the enthusiasm and the feeling of togetherness that you experienced when you "were there". At Newport, however, there was a special, general, feeling of companionship - the musicians obviously very often were deeply nspired by the response which they met.

    Like most festivals Newport offered a true mixture of jazz: old and new, eventgarde and traditional, blues and popular songs. This contrasting variety, where artists of quite different temperaments and with varying "musical domicile" follow each other on the stage, also characterizes the program on some of our Newport CD:s - thus underlining that jazz is a many-splendoured thing.

    'The Blues was the mother"

    In the official programme for the 5th Annual Newport Jazz Festival, 1958, there is an article on the blues with the caption "Blues was the mother", i.e. the mother of jazz. It is easy to agree to that statement, because even if jazz was born as a result of a number of musical influences - it can be said to have had many fathers! - blues certainly was a major one and blues truly s one of the most original and forceful expressions of jazz.

    And the blues have got (I use blues in the p ural from now on) many children. One of the most vital - and most audible is rock and roll and all the - more or less attractive or ugly - grandchildren, which that blues child in its turn produced. Those who have been caught by the blues and have studied this art, from the earliest recorded specimens to this day, know that the blues are a world of their own with a wealth of interpreters.

    During the 20's the blues were brought from the south of the United States up north, to a great extent through an abundance of blues records. According to Charles Edward Smith (I quote the Newport programme), the artist who more than others "brought the blues out of the south and made them an urban product" was the "Empress of the Blues", Bessie Smith. It should be stressed, though, that she was only one of many great blues singers like Ma Rainey, Clara Smith, Alberta Hunter, et al.

    There were a lot of blues performed at the Newport Festival in 1958 and I think this might have expressed - or rather confirmed - the fact that for quite a while the blues had been coming back in the more original form - side by side with the rock and roll and other more or less diluted offspring.

    "The Blues Band"

    To the Festival in 1958 a "blues band" had been put together to accompany some of the singers and they certainly had no reason to complain about the choice of musicians: Buck Clayton on trumpet, Jack Teagarden on trombone, Buddy Tate, Rudy Rutherford and George Auld, saxes, Joe Jones, on drums etc.

    The Blues Band accompanies Chuck Berry and Big Maybelle, both of them spontaneous and down to earth and neither of them trying to be more than just themselves. To me they both belong to "the descendants", but they are a close generation and they convey the "real thing" - even Chuck Berry although write and a rock singer

    . Joe Turner and Pete Johnson were, both of them, almost "legends" already in 1958. Also they are supported by The Blues Band and "blueswise" this combination creates, I think, the most enjoyable part of the evening. When rhythm and blues became popular in the 1950s and Turner gained popularity, he and Pete Johnson had been around for decades and were well known by "the inner circle". They make us feel that blues and jazz after all are one and the same.

    The blues purists may be irritated - or even shocked? - to find that the CD is ending with a section which lets us listen to Jack Teagarden and his band. Yes, it is quite a different type of jazz. Jack and his men were, however, on stage that evening and, as I said hereabove, this is characteristic for jazz festivals: styles and musicians mix, often far more strangely than this. Who, by the way, can, in a deeper and wider sense, be said to symbolize blues better than "Big Tea"? And who played the beautiful trombone on Big Maybelle's performance of If I Could Be With You? Mr. Jack Teagarden, of course.