Starting tomorrow, a digital restoration of Bert Stern’s documentary
“Jazz on a Summer’s Day” will be availableas Kino-Lorber Virtual Cinema
<https://kinomarquee.com/film/venue/5f29b30089c40c0001a2e519>. It
captures the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, which at the time was one of
the most heralded venues for both jazz and non-jazz artists. Stern was
not a documentary filmmaker. His claim to fame was as a fashion and
portrait photographer, best known for his 1962 series of photos of
Marilyn Monroe that became known as The Last Sitting. Decades ago, I saw
a selection of the Monroe photos at a NY gallery with my old friend
Laura Kronenberg that left an indelible impression. What makes his 1959
documentary a classic, besides the music, was a vivid portrait of
Newport, Rhode Island at a time when the USA looked far different than
it does today.
Besides seeing handsome young people applauding the musicians and
dancing in the aisles, we see a yacht regatta that took place the same
day. While I was a bit annoyed when footage of the yachts was
superimposed over a Thelonious Monk performance at the festival, it is
easy to understand why the average film-goer might not have complained.
I’d rather have preferred seeing Monk’s fingers dancing across the
keyboard but the boats gave the film the visual variety a
straightforward concert recording might have lacked.
full: https://louisproyect.org/2020/08/11/jazz-on-a-summers-day/
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