In 1944, Norman Granz created a series of events called Jazz at the Philharmonic, during which a large group of jazz musicians on stage confronted and challenged each other on the common ground of virtuosic improvisation in the context of long and “fiery” jam sessions.
With JATP’s first concert in Los Angeles, in an auditorium intended for classical music, the conception of jazz as a form of mere entertainment for the consumption of nightclub-goers gives way permanently to its establishment as a form of artistic performance among large audiences from the United States to Europe.
Add to this the resounding success of the record containing the recording of the event, and it becomes even more evident how young Norman Granz’s tenacity and boundless passion for jazz enabled him to become, in a short time, a respected, dynamic and pragmatic impresario and producer of numerous names in the jazz firmament, from a simple office clerk: Art Tatum, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young, Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Ray Brown, Joe Pass, Benny Carter, Stan Getz, Roy Eldridge, Gene Krupa, to name a few.
In addition, Granz first founded the independent labels Clef Records, Norgran Records and Down Home Records to release JATP recordings, and later, in 1956, Verve Records and in 1973 Pablo Records.
As he had asserted several years earlier with some confidence in front of Billie Holiday and Lester Young, Norman Granz really did “go out of hisway for black jazz musicians,” not only hiring them for his admirable and ingenious concert and recording ventures, but, above all, protecting their rights in terms of racial integration and equal wages in an artistic, cultural and social environment with a strong discriminatory character toward the African-American community.
In order to achieve the goals he had set for himself since his youth, first and foremost to cash in on substantial earnings by lavishing audiences with high-quality music played by excellent instrumentalists, Norman Granz moved into show business with audacious arrogance and the hubris of someone who knows a lot about managing the complicated organizational machine of major concert performances and promoting the artists who have come to take refuge under his protective wing.
Such traits of his character, which do not leave insiders indifferent, forcing them to hate or love him, would often come up during the world tours of his musical creature Jazz at the Philharmonic.
The first appearance in Italy of the young American “businessman” occurred around 1951. On that occasion he met with the well-known music critic and jazz festival organizer, Arrigo Polillo, in Milan to seek an agreement on JATF’s performance.
Due to a question of Norman Granz’s overly high fees demanded, the meeting set in the office of Campania-based theater producer Remigio Paone will ultimately end in a deadlock.
In the following years, Norman Granz with JATP in tow returned to Italy several times. On one such occasion, in May 1958, the all-star group of new and old glories of American jazz performed four concerts divided between the Teatro Manzoni in Milan and the Teatro Sistina in Rome.
In the latter location, however, the audience finds itself a spectator to the neurotic as well as absurd behavior of the American producer.
It had all started with Normaz Granz’s peremptory request to suspend the afternoon concert, which was deserted by the audience; a demand, of course, sent back to sender by the Italian organizers.
Offended and annoyed at the denial and at witnessing the performance of his musicians in front of only a few people present, Granz decided to make the large audience that had arrived at the theater for the start of the evening concert wait a full fifty-five minutes over the scheduled time, and then suddenly interrupted the jam session of the musicians on stage, including saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Stan Getz, citing the end of the allotted time available to them.
The audience’s vehement reaction is not long in coming, to which the American impresario responds defiantly by sitting with folded arms on a chair in the center of the stage. Insults and throwing of objects cause him to take cover backstage.
Forced by contractual stipulations to send Dizzy Gillespie onstage, Granz does not spare the audience yet another mockery by having his aide play for only three minutes. But the battle played on nerves inexplicably triggered by the American impresario seems unwilling to end, with the audience on the opposite side determined not to leave the theater.
As reported by critic and journalist Adriano Mazzoletti, “At 3 a.m. Granz, escorted by police, managed to leave the theater from the service entrance, swearing, it seems, that he would never set foot in Rome again.”
In truth, Granz would return to Rome the following year, again at the Teatro Sistina, with his “protégés,” including Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson, still proving himself to be that determined as well as intelligent musical impresario in love with art, jazz as well as the painting of his friend Pablo Picasso.
Paolo Marra
Bibliographic sources: Billie Holiday – The Lady of the Blues (1996 – Feltrinelli), Stasera Jazz by Arrigo Polillo (2007 – Polillo Editore), Jazz in Italy by Adriano Mazzoletti (2010 – EDT)
