Jazz on a Summer's Day

Jazz on a Summer’s Day chronicles the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, capturing an iconic time in jazz history. This was the fourth annual festival and Newport, Rhode Island was an unlikely place for such an event to take place. Until that point Newport had been known for its homes owned by people with last names like Vanderbilt. Even odder, the festival was started by a blue blood socialite, Elaine Lorillard, whose voice is heard briefly in the film through interview. 

The film’s opening credits are shown across water. The light caught reflecting on the bay plunges the viewer immediately into the feeling of this film. The images appear as watercolor paints mixing, bringing to mind the ultra modern artists of the fifties like Pollock, Rothko and Riopelle. And like some of the art of that period, the documentary is a collage. The audio and film is not always in sequence and not always in synch (except where performing singers are concerned). There are moments when the audio and film come together for a brief moment the camera lingers on an audience member singing along to the music, but otherwise the synching is unpredictable and gives the film the sensation of a most erratic jazz tune. Despite this, the film flows beautifully from beginning to end and leaves a feeling of completion. Every performance at the festival is a gem and its only improved upon by the images the filmmaker, Bert Stern, chose to accompany it. Some of the things manipulated with the camera and audio work are startling, such as an performance with a close up on the drummer who pounds away on his instrument, sweat pouring down his face and the bright red lights highlighting his perspiration with the sounds of his percussion barely audible. Over half a century later, watching the film of this event you understand completely the moods of the performers, the audience and the entire festival itself. It is constantly joyous and charming. 

The most delightful aspect of Jazz on a Summer’s Day is the footage of the audience. It’s amazing the wide range of types of people this event drew and there’s not a single person seen in the audience who isn’t intriguing. The festival seemed to be a great equalizer, for everyone congregated together in a totally natural and unquestioned way. Locals and out of towners were side by side; hot, Harlem dolls sat next to wasp-y, seaboard matrons. Watch the film with your eyes open and you’ll even catch a celebrity in the mix (a very young Diahann Carroll). Beyond that, blacks and whites enjoyed the festival without a hint of racial tension. It appears so natural on film but through the lens of history, it’s a shocking image of 1958. Culture without clash. 

The crowd in the film reached its frenzying point for Louis Armstrong. The way some of the audience jived to his music brings to mind the spirit moving through the devoutly religious at tent revivals when particularly inspired by the gospel. Worship became practically literal when the film ended with Mahalia Jackson, who brought a reverence to the event and closed it by singing 'The Lord's Prayer'. The film deservedly received its own saint-like status when the Library of Congress entered it into the U.S. National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” This film is all three of those apt descriptions. Stern gives us a time, place and culture that was unique and impermanent. Armstrong ended his set by saying, "We very happy we swung for you folks." The audience in the film and the audience watching the film no doubt were very happy about it too.

Anita O'Day singing 'Sweet Georgia Brown' and 'Tea For Two' at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Jazz on a Summer's Day -