The fourth (4th) edition of the Newport Jazz Festival took place in 1958. A sizeable bit of it was included in the film Jazz on a Summer's Day, but not all of it. If we look at the At Newport albums released by Columbia, the selection in the film is most welcome, but it is incomplete. One of the reasons is that, due to technical issues, footage from the first day was deemed unusable (last-minute reinforcements were brought and things did work from the second day onwards). Alas, one of the bands playing on the first day, July 3, was the short-lived Miles Davis sextet Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb: the Kind of Blue band.
Not long ago, some unused film from that festival resurfaced, but its still pending research and/or release, as far as I know. In any case, we do have the sound of Miles's sextet.
It is likely that Miles Davis, together with his partner at the time, Frances Taylor, spent more than one day at Newport.
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| Gerry Mulligan, Frances Taylor, Miles Davis |
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| Frances Taylor and Miles Davis (source) |
Thanks to improvements in the quality of screens and the remastering of films in HD, today it's possible to catch details that might have gone previously unnoticed (like this photo by Herman Leonard or this footage of Monk). As it happens, on Jazz on a Summer's Day, during Thelonious Monk's performance, we can see Miles Davis, Frances Taylor, possibly Symphony Sid approaching Miles and, in the bottom left corner, bassist Bill Crow, who would perform as part of Gerry Mulligan's Quartet with Art Farmer (they're on the film).
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| [1] Bill Crow [2] Miles Davis [3] Frances Taylor |
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[1] Bill Crow, [2] Miles Davis,
[3] Frances Taylor, [4] Symphony Sid(?) |
You can see this in the link (YouTube).
If you let the video run, you'll also be able to see in the audience John LaPorta, Michel Legrand, Marian McPartland, Jimmy Giuffre and Gerry Mulligan, among others.
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Diahann Carroll and Frances Taylor
(from Jazz on a Summer's Day) |
There are many more photos of Miles at Newport '58, even of his concert. These are just a few:
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Left to right: Willis Conover, Marian McPartland,
George Avakian, Miles Davis |
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| Lester Young and Miles Davis |
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Miles Davis and Sonny Stitt
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| Miles Davis |
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