Jazz on a Summer’s Day
As great as frostbite and black ice are, each winter I find myself looking blissfully forward to the day that it ends. Needing an instant out-of-winter transport solution, yesterday I held a second-time viewing of “Jazz on a Summer’s Day.” Not merely transporting one out of winter, this 1960 film transports viewers to a different era entirely. Namely, an era in which you could wear bamboo framed sunglasses and still look really cool.
The director is fashion and celebrity photographer Bert Stern, whose eye for art is apparent from the film’s first images of rippling, wavy reflections of blending colors and images in the water. Newport, Rhode Island is preparing for its annual Newport Jazz Festival in the summer of 1958. Sound checks are performed to an audience of empty wooden chairs on a wide lawn. As fans start coming in, we hear a bit of conversation.
“Hello. Hello… where are you from? And why’d you come here?”
“I just came here for the fun of it.”
“Let me ask you a question: you a jazz fan?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“You have any particular favorites?”
“Yeah! Gerry Mulligan. He’s my favorite.”
The saxophonist is one of many jazz greats in the line-up for the two day event, but as the film follows the festival events, the shots of the crowd are equally as intriguing as the musicians they are watching. The day crowd appears rather indifferent to the music as the camera finds bright red lips smacking gum, yawning, and eyes impassively taking in their surroundings. The crowd is diverse; suits next to bandanas, white next to black, children, teenagers, and parents next to an older generation. Amidst the panned shots of the brightly colored scarves and sunglasses are glimpses of the sea. Stern filmed parts of the American Cup Trials and merges the sailboats and racing water into the picture of summer he is painting. Other vignettes take the viewer into boarding house jam sessions, where the sweat drips off the musicians’ noses and people dance drunkenly on rooftops.
The highlight of the daytime music is vocalist Anita O’Day, who while lesser known at the time than her counterparts, rouses the audience with impressive renditions of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Tea for Two.” Decked in a massive black hat rimmed in white feathers, O’Day commands the music in all respects. The audience feels it, bobbing their heads in time with the swinging rhythm and cheering loudly. The head bobbing gets difficult during “Tea for Two,” which O’Day sings at what must be the fastest possible tempo ever to have been attempted by a human. Asked later if she had partaken in her routine drug use that day, she responds blankly, “I would say… yes.”
The music continues into the night with performances by the George Shearing quintet, Dinah Washington, Chuck Berry, Big Maybelle Smith, and others. The audience spends the majority of their time grinning through a smoky fog, clapping along and dancing passionately. The film’s top-billed performer Louis Armstrong takes the stage near the end of the evening and after a stand-up comedy bit, he proves again why he is probably the most beloved jazz personality in the world. The children in the crowd are mesmerized as he plays, gazing upwards and clutching his white handkerchief. He seems to be just as comfortable being a vocal trumpet, scatting, gravelly singing, and ending one song with a roaring laugh and high-fives to the nearest musicians.
Seeing as it was the Sabbath, as the announcer noted, and also how the festival organizers most likely did not want the audience to actually crush every chair in the field with their delirious dancing, it was a wise decision to end the evening with a three song set by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. She closes the festival with a powerful rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer.”
“Jazz on a Summer’s Day” is a hard film to classify. It’s not purely documentary, nor a concert film. It is an artist’s glimpse into summer in America; free, careless, lively, engaging. Returning to the conversation at the beginning of the film, the Gerry Mulligan fan turns to his girlfriend and asks, “How ‘bout you, dear?”
“I don’t have any favorites,” she responds, giggling.
“You don’t have any favorites at all? What do you have?”
“I don’t really like jazz.” She can’t stop giggling.
“You don’t? Then what’d you come here for? This man wants to know.”
More giggles. “For the ride?” she gets out.
“For the ride?!” he repeats. “It’s your car!”
Whatever your reason for viewing “Jazz on a Summer’s Day,” it is certainly a ride. And it is most definitely enjoyable.
