'Jazz On A Summer's Day' - a film by Bert Stern

January 9, 2013 10:48 AM

Keith Richards saw it fourteen times, albeit not for it all, which is what you get here:
Jazz On A Summer's Day

Carsonb gave us clips but here is the film entire -- and I did not know Big Maybelle was in it until last night. Which is probably the only performance footage we have of her.

( Ah, but if only she was singing Candy... )

And here are reviews: Film Notes - Jazz on a Summer's Day and one from Open Culture that lauds it despite its conspicuous omissions.

posted by y2karl (8 comments total)

Magic.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:48 PM on January 9

That's really lovely. The music is great, and the shots of spectators are just as good. I love the editing, too.
posted by Lukenlogs at 12:58 PM on January 9

I love this film and have managed to see it several times. I've given the DVD to friends on their b'days.

Mr. Stern shot the scenes in Newport beautifully. There sure were some kool kats in the crowd. Love it.

I heard an interview with Ms. O'Day that was (re)played on NPR w/ Terry Gross last summer. She claims to have been quite high on heroin during her performance.

What a line-up.

More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_on_a_Summer%27s_Day
posted by noaccident at 1:08 PM on January 9

A great document, both of the music and of the era's eye-popping clothes.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 1:51 PM on January 9

Wow! This is fantastic.
Great music, great nostalgia.
posted by quazichimp at 3:13 PM on January 9

Oh man, this is just what I needed this evening.
posted by SomaSoda at 8:42 PM on January 9

Sweet!
posted by caddis at 1:10 AM on January 10

I heard an interview with Ms. O'Day that was (re)played on NPR w/ Terry Gross last summer. She claims to have been quite high on heroin during her performance.

Gross: I recently had the opportunity to see a movie that I suspect a lot of listeners have seen, "Jazz on a Summer's Day," which was a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Ms. O'Day: Oh, I was feeling no pain that day.

GROSS: Really?

Ms. O'DAY: I was on "60 Minutes," and Harry Reasoner asked me the same thing. He says that day, when you were on "Jazz on a Summer's Day," and you were out there in that big-picture hat, and the breeze was blowing those real ostrich feathers on top of it, he says to me: Were you high? And I looked at him, and I looked back at the little film they were showing me, and I says: I would say yes. That was "60 Minutes."

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Well, you know what I really wanted to know was how you - you were wearing these great white gloves in it, these like (unintelligible) wrist-high white gloves, and it's very sharp looking. I don't know how many women were actually wearing those gloves back in 1958, but how did you decide to wear them? I think it almost became a trademark…

Ms. O'DAY: Well, I went to George Wein, who was the promoter of the whole thing, and I said what night am I on, because it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday night, and he says to me, oh, you're on Sunday afternoon, and I said, oh, thanks a lot, you know. What am I going to wear on a Sunday afternoon? I'm not going to wear a frock to the floor, and I'm not going to wear it off the shoulder. So I got to thinking.

So I lied prone and I kind of, like, thought what would you wear? I was due at 5:00 o'clock. So I wore a cocktail, afternoon cocktail-party dress with the black sheath and the white peplum and little glass slippers and little white gloves and this black hat with the ostrich feathers, and it worked out apropos for the time O'Day - that's a joke, O'Day. Terry, hello? Terry, are you there?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. O'Day: Yeah, that's what happened, love. Yup, that was it.

Anita O'Day: Revisiting A Classic Voice

And uvularly bereft, to boot. I did not know that.
posted by y2karl at 12:45 AM on January 12