Cats by the Sea

At Newport, the weathering old mansions of the rich still brood by the sea, and outsiders half expect to meet ladies in ankle-dusting tennis skirts escorted by blades in gaily banded boaters. But last week Newport's narrow streets were thronged with loud-shirted bookie types from Broadway, young intellectuals in need of haircuts, crew-cut Ivy Leaguers, sailors, Harlem girls with extravagant hairdos and high-school girls in shorts. They were cats. From as far away as Kansas they had come to hear a two-day monster jazz festival.

The Newport wingding was further evidence that jazz is enjoying its biggest boom in years, with record sales soaring and nightclubs sprouting new jazz acts all over the country. A crowd of 6,000 fans jammed into Newport's dingy old open-air Casino for the first-night concert. There was a clear moon overhead as Oldtimer Eddie Condon, a little ill at ease in all the fresh air, stamped his foot four times and swung into Muskrat Ramble, sweeping along his bang-up Dixieland outfit, including Clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, Trumpeter Wild Bill Davison, Pianist Ralph Sutton. The music was hot, and the crowd warmed to it with shouts of "Go! Go!"

Up to the Stars. From the oldtime start, the music came gradually up to date. Things really began to hum when Bop Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie took the stage with his quintet. Looking bemused and gesturing wildly, he set his cocked trumpet* to his lips and played Gabriel-like tones that sent chills up the listeners' spines. "See, that's a square bend," he explained, pointing to the upswept angle. "Well, I get a sort of square note out of there. When you say 'Pow-w-w,' it comes out like a pounding--like a pounding of bricks.''

When Pianist Oscar Peterson and his trio gave a fast-fingered version of Tenderly sprinkled with suave dissonances, the modernist crowd was ready to call it the high point of the festival. But the younger set shrieked louder when hollow-cheeked Gerry Mulligan bellowed and coaxed The Lady Is a Tramp through his big baritone sax. The concert finally ended after midnight with a 20-man jam session that sent the strangest sounds ever heard in Newport floating up to the stars.

In the Black. Next night there was another big concert in the Casino with a few other name combos (e.g., Pianists George Shearing, Erroll Garner, Lennie Tristano) plus informal sessions that lasted till dawn. In the afternoon a slim crowd of cats had attended a forum about the origin and meaning of jazz. But the meaning of the festival itself seemed to be that jazz--whether Dixieland, bop or "modern"--more than ever has America's ear. The festival wound up tidily in the black.

*Specially constructed with its bell tilted upward at a 45-degree angle. Dizzy discovered the new twist after a party accident bent his horn. When he played it, he was amazed: "For the first time I heard myself play."

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