[Today: Jazz the way it was meant to be heard...]
“For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.” So said Verve Records founder Norman Granz, the man who organized JATP. This series of all-star concert jam sessions lasted for more than a decade, and featured some of the biggest names in the business on one stage – including Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson, and Ben Webster. The first concert in the series was held at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles in July of 1944, and though JATP took its name from that venue, subsequent shows were put on all across the country.
All-star jam sessions can often be a bore – a case of too many cooks in the musical kitchen. But The Coleman Hawkins Set, and Norgran Blues 1950 (featuring Lester Young) are exciting documents of bands that sound like they had played together for years. Like the blues, the Grateful Dead, and classical music, jazz is best enjoyed live in person, and constitutes a completely different experience than the canned variety. The musicians not only can feed off the audience to take their performance to a higher place, but they’re out on a tightrope where mistakes can’t be overdubbed and corrected. The ensemble magic and solo artistry of jazz is best displayed in such a setting.
Before JATP, live jazz was rarely released on record, but Granz had the good sense (and was civic-minded enough) to record most of the shows in this series and release them to the public. The thrill of hearing Hawkins and Young drive their respective audiences into ecstasies is one that never grows old. Historic recordings are supposed to sound musty and faded, like audio relics from another era, but the albums in the Jazz At The Philharmonic series are bright, colorful reminders that even your grandparents liked to go out and have a good time, dance the night away, and occasionally scream themselves hoarse.
*****
[The JATP shows have been released in a variety of formats over the years. Amazon.com currently has this four-disc box set available for around $20...]
Tags: Buddy Rich, Coleman Hawkins, Flip Phillips, Jazz, Jazz At The Philharmonic, Lester Young, Norman Granz
