Various artists

Anyone who has watched and enjoyed the Woodstock movie or Monterey Pop should understand that this movie set the style and the documentary format over 10 years before those great movies.

’Jazz On A Summers Day’ was made at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 picking up on the way that jazz was in transition from the big band era and into bebop and smooth jazz but also documenting the importance of Blues and the emerging rock and roll.

The movie is gorgeous, shot at Newport Rhode Island while the Americas Cup was being contested and features as much audience reaction to the music being played as the music itself but the music is at the heart of everything here.
The movie is considered so important that in 1999 the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The music is the match of the visuals as the opening credits are shown over a performance by the Jimmy Guiffre Trio doing ‘The Train And The Road’.
This is followed by Thelonius Monk playing a fairly straight Blues ‘Blue Monk’ but his trademark variations and use of octave shifts is clearly evident and the performance is a joy.
The hard bop of Sonny Stitt & Sal Salvador follows, performing ‘Loose Walk’. Stitt’s tenor is free but the star on this number is Salvador showing off his single string technique to perfection.
Anita O’Day performs two numbers (cameraman Bert Stern had come from fashion photography and O’Day was dressed like a Vogue model) but the versions of ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’, slow and sexy with an Afro/voodoo beat, and ‘Tea For Two which becomes fast and sassy, even including some fine scat singing, and utterly unlike any version you might have heard ‘straight’
A strong performance from Dinah Washington doing a fairly straight ‘All Of Me’ leads into a stunning piece by Gerry Mulligan & The Concert Jazz Band – blowing free and making one of the best performances of the day.
Big Maybelle took the sound into hard Blues as her fulsome and hard voice pounded out ‘I Ain’t Mad At You’ and got the crowd up and dancing. Great performance by her band as well on this R&B standard.
Completely gobsmaking the crowd, Chuck Berry kicked out a great ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ and part of the joy is watching the audience being utterly shocked as he broke into his duckwalk – a step too far for a jazz audience maybe but a terrific performance nonetheless.
Chico Hamilton was a veteran although mainly as a sideman but his version of ‘Blue Sands’ is mesmerizing, his drums sinuous and set against Eric Dolphy’s flute the number it makes for an intense experience.
Louis Armstrong was the most expensive of the performers and as befits a superstar he gets three numbers here. ‘Up A Lazy River’ is typical Satchmo with scat and lyrics intertwined while ‘Tiger Rag’ is from the old school with Armstrong playing a frantic trumpet against Peanuts Hucko’s clarinet. Needless to say he finished with a stirring ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’.
For my money the most stirring performance of the day (at almost midnight because of overruns) is Mahalia Jackson’s gospel. ‘Walk All Over God’s Heaven’ and a deeply emotional and beautiful ‘Lords Prayer’ to finish.

The DVD is also packaged with a CD of the whole thing and the booklet is superb with loads of information. A great movie and some magnificent jazz/Blues/R&B/Gospel – can’t be beat.