Saturday, August 2, 1975 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Seven Montreux: Dizzy, Ella, Maria and all that jazz By JAMES FIEBIG Special To The Daily MONTREUX, Switzerland - Seventy years ago, the few small dance bands that featured a primitive form of the distinctive, rhythmic music we now call jazz were in the midst of a seemingly hopeless battle for survival. Faced with overwhelming competition from the com- mercial clatter of Tin Pan Alley,- most of these early jazz performers could often only obtain work at extremely low wages in dingy second-class nightclubs. But today's enthusiastic international acceptance of jazz as a unique branch of popular music has changed all that. When over 55 of the world's top jazz per- formers arrived here late last month for the annual Montreux Jazz Festival, gov- ernment officials greeted them with a full red carpet treatment-a move that no doubt would have shocked ragtime pianist Scott Joplin at the turn of the century. Atthe city's luxurious Palace Hotel, veteran trumpet ace Dizzy Gillespie took to the tennis courts for a vigorous singles match with producer Norman Grant. Nearby, singer Ella Fitzgerald and band- leader Count Basie chatted about the up- coming program while munching sand- wiches and sipping French champagne. All this jet-set elegance and glamor may seem quite out of place for a nor- mally peaceful Swiss village. Yet Mon- treux's gracious hospitality - its proud reputation for making the international performer feel right at home-may well be the secret of its musical success. Because performers view the Montreux affair as a gala social occasion rather than just another stop on a grueling concert tour, the festival's management experiences little difficulty in convincing distinguished jazz artists to join the annual lineup. "It's very hard to please everyone," admits Claude Nobbs, chief festival pro- ducer. "But I try to do things with enough feeling that the festival runs in a smooth way. Then the musicians are relaxed and can perform in the best possible conditions." Almost all of the artists indeed seemed delighted with the elaborate concert ar- rangements carefully worked out by Nobbs and his staff. A minor disagree- ment between theater officials and pro- ducer Grant over positioning of photog- raphers during performances was quick- ly resolved. In fact, about the only element which stubbornly refused to cooperate during festival week was the tempermental Swiss weather. But the musicians didn't appear to be bothered by the unusual heat wave. If anything, the jazz on stage seemed to be cooking better than ever. Vibaphone master Milt Jackson ap- peared in several sets over the five nights of the jazz series. Jackson, for- merly a member of the now-disbanded Modern Jazz Quartet, brought a unique exuberance to the program with his soft yet extremely lively solo passages. Trumpeters Gillespie, Roy Eldridge and Clark Terry added energetic sparkle to each set they performed in. Gillespie, with his famous bent horn and puffed, chipmunk-like cheeks, demonstrated the legendary technical agility that has prompted some critics to name him as successor to the late Louis Armstrong. Eldridge and Terry also illustrated out- standing technical virtuosity during ses- sions with pianist Tommy Flanagan. "Because performers view. Montreux as a social event rather than just another gig, the festival management has little trouble covincing t h e best jazz artists to join the lineup." Fitzgerald's thrilling set was domi- nated by her remarkable ability to ex- press vocally musical tonalities that many excellent instrumental performers could not begin to execute. Backed by a fine trio under the direction of Flanagan, Fitzgerald brought a wide collection of jazz standards to life with a special magic touch that is all her own. On the other hand, contemporary sing- er Maria Muldaur appeared to be a victim of the more traditional jazz taste that predominates in European audi- ences. Muldaur's brief performance met with loud whistles--one of the ultimate. insults to a performer in Europe-and more than a few boos. - Nevertheless, Muldaur didn't seem at all ruffled after finishing her short set, "Listen, I think a good two-thirds of them dug it," she said between sips of wine in the casino lounge. "Man, this is a little club as far as I'm concerned. I've played for 30,000 people that all went bananas." Many of the performers, like Muldaur, seemed surprised at the unusually in- timate setting of the Montreux festival. (The casino auditorium only seats 2,000.) So far, promoters have resisted the fi- nancial temptation to greatly increase ticket sales by moving to larger facilities because of fears that bigger quarters might disrupt delicate jazz acoustics. "I've been to many of those gigantic mass productions, and I can't stand it," Nobbs explains. "After the twentieth row, you can't see or hear anything. The feeling is totally lost." Nobbs estimated that between 20 and and 30 albums would be released by distributors in Europe and the United States over the next few months from performances recorded at the festival. Roland Kirk's energetic session on three saxes, for example, will by itself easily reduce to a powerful double album. Some recordings cut during this year's jazz week in Montreux may also reach stores in a potentially huge market where contemporary jazz has only re- cently become quite popular-Japan and the Far East. To recognize the growing Oriental in- terest in the jazz idiom, festival officials programmed one entire concert featur- ing new talent developed entirely in the Far East. Most of these new players lacked the skilled artistry of the Ameri- can and European veterans, but demon- strated an impressive ability to sustain a high emotional level for an extended period of time. Other than that brief excursion into eastern music, however, m o s t artists featured last month in Montreux repre- sented the classic school of jazz that developed in America during the 1950s. Nobbs explained that the emphasis on more customary jazz resulted from the unusual availability of a large block of performers from the '50s and '60s through producer Grant. "We'd never been able to get them before," explained Nobbs. "And I'm trying to schedule through the years the largest spectrum of jazz artists that I can." The festival also featured a select series exhibiting several y o u n g -jazz groups based in Switzerland. The Wol- verine Jazz Band, a six member Dixie- land ensemble, received the most un- usual billing-a spot on a "New Orleans" jazz program that took place on a mod- ern paddlewheeler steaming through the waters of Lake-Geneva. The strong dedication to artistic excel- lence at the executive level is perhaps the most unusual aspect of the festival. Unlike so many other music promoters, the Montreux group does not operate a strictly commercial enterprise-a series with the schedules dictated solely by the cash register. At Montreux, the em- phasis is more on providing a definitive Maria Muldaur took her poor re- ception at Montreux stoically: "Lis- ten, I think a good two-thirds of them dug it," she said after a set marred by a chorus of whistles and boos. aural overview of the highly varied styles of music we loosely describe as jazz. It is this unique sense of purpose that helps m a k e Montreux a tradition of which all jazz musicians and audiences can be most proud. James Fiebig, who writes about jazz for The Daily and occasionally performs locally, has been touring Europe for the past six weeks. This article was compiled from his re- ports by David Blomquist.