Newport 1958

Hep cats.

The Train and the River. Jimmy Guiffre Three.  Probably the last time anyone played a valve trombone in public. Probably.

The movie Jazz on a Summer’s Day documents the Newport Jazz festival in Newport Rhode Island in 1958. I like watching it to see people in an audience looking well turned out. Fast forward a decade and it’s all patchouli and B.O.

The fifties were supposedly a vast cultural wasteland. I don’t see it. There were challenging and interesting things happening in music, film, fashion, books, and every other stripe of intellectual folderol. People still tried to look and act like adults. I’d rather be plunked into that movie than Woodstock. Waking up in a mud puddle that’s only mosty mud while Sha Na Na performs isn’t my cup of tea. And I imagine the drugs were better in Newport, anyway. The gin and tonics most definitely were.

My older brother once mentioned to me that a trombone and a saxophone is the best horn section you can muster. Trumpet’s too, well, brassy. They sure sound wonderful together here.