photo of the concert:
Jimmy Carter, Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach
White House Jazz Festival
Live in Washington D.C.
June 18th, 1978
Tracklist
Disc 1
01 radio intro
02 unknown title (New Tuxedo Brass Band)
03 comments about D.Ellington
04 Medal of Freedom ceremony
05 happy birthday to D.Ellington
06 Baby Face (New Tuxedo Brass Band)-President Jimmy Carter's speech
07 Boogie Woogie Beguine (E.Blake)
08 Memories Of You (E.Blake)
09 St. Louis Blues (W.C.Handy)
10 Billy Taylor' intro
11 History Of Jazz (M.L.Williams)
12 Gerry Mulligan's intro
13 In A Mellow Tone (D.Ellington)
14 Oh, Lady Be Good (George Gershwin)
15 Roy Eldridge and Sam Rivers' intros
16 Sonnymoon For Two (S.Rollins)
Disc 2
01 George Wein and radio speaker's intros
02 unknown title
03 Caravan (Juan Tizol)
04 Herbie Hancock and John Lewis's intros
05 Earth Soles-Nether (0.Coleman)
06 untitled impro (C.Taylor)
07 George Wein's intro
08 How High The Moon (Nancy Hamilton)
09 Georgia On My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael)
10 President Jimmy Carter's comments
11 Lush Life (Billy Strayhorn)
12 In The Good Old Summertime (George Evans)
13 Flying Home (Benny Goodman-Eddie DeLange-L.Hampton)
14 untitled impro (D.Gillespie-M.Roach)
15 D.Gillespie's announcement-Salt Peanuts (D.Gillespie)
Personnel: George Wein (producer)
Disc 1
tracks 7-8: Eubie Blake (piano)
track 9: Katherine Handy Lewis (vocals), Dick Hyman (piano), Doc Cheatham (trumpet)
track 11: Mary Lou Williams (piano)
tracks 13-14: Teddy Wilson (piano), Roy Eldridge (trumpet), Clarke Terry (trumpet), Illinois Jacquet (tenor sax), Benny Carter (alto sax), Milt Hinton (bass), Philly Jo Jones (drums)
track 16: Sonny Rollins (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Max Roach (drums)
Disc 2
tracks 2-3: Herbie Hancock (piano), George Benson (electric guitar), Dexter Gordon (tenor sax), Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Ron Carter (bass), Tony Williams (drums)
track 5: Ornette Coleman (tenor sax), Denardo Coleman (drums)
track 6: Cecil Taylor (piano)
tracks 8-11: Chick Corea (piano), Stan Getz (tenor sax), Zoot Sims (tenor sax), George Benson (electric guitar), Lionel Hampton (vibes), Ray Brown (bass), Louis Bellson (drums)
track 12: Pearl Bailey (vocal), Chick Corea (piano), Stan Getz (tenor sax), Zoot Sims (tenor sax), George Benson (electric guitar), Lionel Hampton (vibes), Ray Brown (bass), Louis Bellson (drums)
track 13: Pearl Bailey (vocal), Billy Taylor (piano), Lionel Hampton (vibes), Milt Hinton (bass), Louis Bellson (drums)
track 14: Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Max Roach (hit-hat cymbal)
track 15: Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Max Roach (hit-hat cymbal), Jimmy Carter (vocals)
Historical Note: Jimmy Carter's administration was responsible for creating the first large-scale jazz production on the White House's South Lawn. This event, which marked the 25th Anniversary of the Newport Jazz festival, included 800 guests and over 50 jazz musicians. Although jazz had been an important American art form for more than half a century, President Carter's public identification of jazz was deeply significant.
'Years later, toward the end of his presidency, Jimmy Carter held a jazz festival on a lawn of the White House. It wasn't one of those star performances at a state dinner, or the kind of honors ceremony at which Richard Nixon had the chutzpah to play a two-piano duet with the ever-gracious Duke Ellington.
Carter was a jazz fan. In his introduction, he told of how he had, before becoming an eminence, frequented jazz clubs, and he said something no other president had said before: jazz did not have the stature it deserved in its native land because of the racism here.
George Wein had orchestrated an intriguing sequence of performers-from Eubie Blake to Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie. At the end, Dizzy cajoled the president to sing the Salt Peanuts refrain as he and Max accompanied the chief executive on that bop anthem.
A number of cabinet members were in the front seats throughout the concert. One of them, listening impassively, was Attorney General Griffin Bell, in private life a powerful Atlanta attorney, who for years since has been a partner in one of the most successful law firms in the country, and a sometime presidential adviser.
When Cecil started his set, Bell leaned forward and became immobile, fixing his attention on the kinetic pianist. When Cecil hit the last thunderous notes, he made one of his high-speed exits, rushing into the shrubbery. The Attorney General leapt off his seat and chased Cecil until he cornered him.
Later, I asked Cecil, 'What the hell did he want?'
'He wanted,' Cecil said matter-of-factly, 'to know where he could get some of my records.'
Throughout his life in jazz, Cecil continues to spellbind or infuriate listeners. As I recalled in Jazz Is, "After a Cecil Taylor concert in California at which 3,000 people gave him standing ovations several times during the course of the performance, the distinguished [late] Los Angeles critic Leonard Feather declared that 'anyone working with a jackhammer could have achieved the same results.'
--Nat Hentoff
Technical Note: This was one of NPR's first national live broadcasts, and the reel part recorded on and old Sony reel deck. This post should be the complete version of White House Jazz Festival 1978.
