Saturday evening's concert was preceded in the afternoon by a program of jazz tap dancing produced by Prof. Marshall Stearns of Hunter College. Six dancers, all members of the Hoofer's Club of Harlem, demonstrated the technique of tap dancing and its relation to jazz.
Two extraordinary musical events marked Saturday nights's concert: the music of Sonny Rollins and his meeting with Coleman Hawkins, and the performance of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Rollins, a tenor saxophonist who came out of a self-imposed retirement a few years ago with a whole new set of ideas, is one of the most inventive and original musicians in jazz. His cleanly phrased solos are tightly conceived, angular little tone poems. Though he takes great liberties with rhythm, his superb sense of timing prevents him from losing the feeling of swing. Rollins' meeting with Coleman Hawkins created the kind of excitement which Thelonious Monk's meeting with Pee Wee Russell completely failed to engender. The exchange of ideas between Rollins, with his jabbing, knife-like tones, and the mellower Hawkins, was like a friendly debate between two great philosophers. Unlike Monk and Russell, the two tenor saxophonists had enough in common to make a meeting valuable.
Duke Ellington is generally regarded as one of the two or three greatest figures in the history of jazz. He showed why he deserves his reputation Saturday night. None of the usual labels apply to the Duke. He doesn't play Dixieland, he doesn't play bop; he plays a brand of music which is his own, and which has survived decades of fads. Although he uses techniques which have gone out of style, such as the wa-wa trumpet mute, Ellington never sounds dated. It is not so much that he has changed with the times; the times are out of breath trying to change with him. With such soloists as Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams and Cat Anderson, Ellington's orchestra remains the best big band in the world. The Duke closed his set by reading a charming poem, which he composed himself, spoofing racism.
Sunday night's concert was the most uniformly excellent event of the Festival. It began with the American debut of a fine French pianist, Martial Solal. Solal showed that a solid classical background can be a great asset to a jazz musician. Harmonically, he is strongly influenced by modern European classical music. Otherwise, his main influence seems to be Bud Powell, who now lives in France. Solal avoids the "funky" cliches of jazz piano, but preserves a real jazz feeling. Working out his ideas with both hands, embellishing his phrases with trills, he created some wonderfully elegant improvisations.
After excellent sets by the Herbie Mann Sextet and the Dave Brubeck Quartet--both very pleasent groups to listen to on a cool summer evening--a young man slid behind a Hammond organ and almost brought the house down. He was Jimmy Smith, the logical, beautiful extreme of the