JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY

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Kravis Center For The Performing Arts

Kravis Center For The Performing Arts

1959, 85 min, USA. Directed by Bert Stern.

Recorded at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, this acclaimed concert film shows performances by Thelonius Monk, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson and many more. In 1999, the Library of Congress added the film to the United States National Film Registry for its cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance. The film is stylistically remarkable with images that firmly locate the concert’s setting in a former Gilded Age city along New England’s Atlantic shoreline. Shots of the yachts filling the harbor recall Palm Beach. Further shots of the performers on stage and the audience, who appear bored at some points, enraptured at others, suggest the endurance required for outdoor music festivals. Or perhaps it’s a humorous critique of jazz self-seriousness? However, it is hard to escape the clear black and white racial divide between the performers and the vast majority of the audience, a situation addressed from the musicians’ point of view in Mo’ Better Blues. Summer’s Day, like the series as a whole, offers an opportunity for reflection on difficult personal and social dilemmas amid beauty, friendship, and art.