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The Sound of Jazz |
The Sound of Jazz was a landmark television program that was part of CBS's Seven Lively Arts series. The one-hour program aired Sunday, December 8, 1957 at 5 pm Eastern time live from CBS Studio 58, the Town Theater at 851 Ninth Avenue in New York. The show was hosted by N.Y. Herald Tribune media critic John Crosby, directed by Jack Smight, and produced by Robert Herridge. Jazz writer Whitney Balliett was among the consultants.
"The Sound of Jazz" is perhaps the most famous jazz television show in history because it was the first show of its kind. It brought together giants from the swing era of the 1930s like Count Basie, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, and Coleman Hawkins; the classic (or dixieland) players of the same era, like Henry "Red" Allen, Vic Dickenson, and Pee Wee Russell; and newer, younger musicians like Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, and Jimmy Giuffre. These players played separately with their compatriots (see the song list below), but also joined to combine various styles in one group, most notably in the group backing Billie Holiday on "Fine and Mellow".
The show is justly famous for the performance of "Fine and Mellow", which brought together Billie Holiday and her long–time friend, Lester Young, for the last time. In the 1930s they were very close but they hadn't spoken for years. Jazz critic and producer Nat Hentoff, who was involved in putting the show together, recalled that during rehearsals, they kept to opposite sides of the room. Young was very weak, and Hentoff told him to skip the big band section of the show and that he could sit while performing in the group with Holiday.
During the performance of "Fine and Mellow", Webster played the first solo. "Then", Hentoff remembered,
Lester got up, and he played the purest blues I have ever heard, and [he and Holiday] were looking at each other, their eyes were sort of interlocked, and she was sort of nodding and half–smiling. It was as if they were both remembering what had been—whatever that was. And in the control room we were all crying. When the show was over, they went their separate ways. 1
Within a year, both Young and Holiday had died.
Noting that the cameras were employed as "straight reportorial tools," Jack Gould observed in a N. Y. Times review: "It was the art of video improvisation wedded to the art of musical improvisation; the effect was an hour of enormously creative and fresh TV."2
"The Sound of Jazz" was also released as a recording by CBS's then-subsidiary, Columbia Records, although the gramophone version is actually a rehearsal which preceded the telecast, and is not its soundtrack. The LP was released in 1958 as Columbia CL 1098, with liner notes by Eric Larrabee, and the cover photo by Tom Yee. It is the only LP of a Seven Lively Arts presentation. The recording does not include all of the performers on the TV show (Mulligan refused to participate because no additional pay was involved) and includes several who were not on the show.
Contents |
A bootleg soundtrack recording has also been available.
The TV show is currently available on "The Greatest Jazz Films Ever", idem home video, IDVD 1059.
On VHS/DVD
(personnel and tracks listed on 1)
DVD Extras (Not on idem DVD release, 2003)
On the 1958 LP
Side 1
Side 2
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