Jazz on a Summer's Day/A Summer's Day With Bert Stern
by Bert Stern, Aram Avakian
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Henry Grimes, Jimmy Giuffre, Sal Salvador, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious MonkDirector: Aram Avakian, Bert Stern
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 84 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-03-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Yorker Video
Movie Reviews of Jazz on a Summer's Day/A Summer's Day With Bert Stern
Movie Review: Some PERFECT jazz plus blues gospel and more
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all, let me tell you how thrilled I am by this DVD - it has amazing musical moment with, for instance, Thelonious Monk, Anita O'Day, Mahalia Jackson and Louis Armstrong shining very brightly (although, yes, the Monk number is marred by some mood shots and other interventions...), Satchmo and Teagarden crooning and scatting magnificently... Actually, I don't think I've seen a more beautiful footage of Armstrong's performance; he was still on the top in the 50s and Bert Stern portraits him beautifully, with some fortunatelly stylized stage lighting.
And it goes beyond music; check out the glamour of O'Day's attire, the moment very spirited Dinah Washington grabs the battons and joins Terry Gibbs on the vibes, the look on great Jo Jones' face while he supports Chuck Berry or, for that matter, the bizarre clarinet spot on that number - someone's review said it's Peanuts Hacko (who is too caucasian, as you can see on Armstrong's numbers on some other DVD's), others mention Rudy Rutheford - I don't know how he looked like (I do know he played in Count Basie orchestra back in 40s or something like that, so I guess he might be African American)...
I would agree with those who say that cool jazz numbers don't fare here as well as the traditional jazz, blues, gospel, mainstream and some modern ( Thelonious Monk!) numbers, even with the annoying break in the middle of the Sonny Stitt-Sal Salvador performance.
The breaks in the performance grow rarer as the film reaches the end, so there is place for true climax and musical as well as cinemathic catharsis in the end. But, from strictly cinematic point of view, I must add that there are some really fine shots; even the disinterested lady eating ice-cream looks interesting - it probably is a picture of the festival culture before the 50s, as is the attempt to connect it with the entertainment and leisure industry in general....
All in all, this is a unique jazz experience (and an interesting although not perfect film), recommended (or, should I say indispensable) to all serious jazz fans and interested beginners.
Summary of Jazz on a Summer's Day/A Summer's Day With Bert Stern
Part concert documentary, part pop-cultural time capsule, Bert Stern's Jazz on a Summer's Day chronicles the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with an approach as deceptively relaxed, even impulsive, as the music itself. Still photographer Stern sidesteps more formal documentary conventions such as narrative voiceovers to wander purposefully from festival stage to boarding-house jam sessions, taking in the parallel color and motion of the America's Cup preparations when he isn't capturing rich color footage of the performances and the celebratory mood of the concertgoers. In the process, he documents American jazz at a notably golden moment in its development--diverse, adventurous, and still broadly popular, this was jazz not yet under the shadow of rock and youth culture, played by an integrated artistic community a few short years away from social and political turmoil that would boil divisively to the surface during the '60s. To say Stern was rolling film in a jazz Camelot is overstatement, but only slightly so.Stern's circular approach and wonderful eye achieve a breezy languor at the expense of more comprehensive coverage of the festival's bumper crop of strong jazz, blues, and gospel musicians. Perhaps inevitably, the camera lingers on Louis Armstrong, Anita O'Day, Mahalia Jackson, Dinah Washington, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and George Shearing. Avid fans of later styles may be frustrated by the fleeting glimpses of other musicians such as Eric Dolphy and Art Farmer, or the honor roll of classic jazz stylists whose Newport sets weren't included in the film, but such omissions seem forgivable, if not necessary, to Stern's serendipitous design. --Sam Sutherland
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