JAZZ : 25 Years of High Notes : Memorable moments and the greatest gigs--reminiscing on a quarter-century as The Times’ jazz critic

Twenty five years is a sizable slice in the history of any art form. In the case of jazz, it represents one third of the music’s recorded history. Since the byline above first appeared regularly in these pages a quarter-century ago, vast changes have taken place on every level.

In 1966, the term “fusion” was all but unknown, though the first significant jazz-rock group, Blood, Sweat & Tears, was only two years away. John Coltrane’s influence was dominant, as the saxophonist explored a vast new terrain of dissonances, reaching unheard-of levels of density and intensity. He was a recipient in the first “Golden Feather Awards” column.

Duke Ellington was “Man of the Year” in that survey and Denny Zeitlin, the psychiatrist and avant-garde pianist who, then as now, was commuting between keyboard and couch, was also saluted.

Miles Davis was still playing recognizable songs (“ ‘Round Midnight,” “Stella by Starlight”); his electronic, rhythm-oriented tidal wave, still four years off, would duly win him every award short of the Davis Cup.

Jazzmen were still falling over themselves recording Beatles tunes--Gerry Mulligan even made an album called “If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em.” But if one trend stood out in the late 1960s and throughout the ‘70s, it was the globalization of jazz. A music clearly of African-American origin was taken up by artists from (or in) a dozen countries.

By 1967, Josef Zawinul from Vienna, pianist with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, had provided the group with its biggest hit, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” In the next few years, two British musicians, bassist Dave Holland and guitarist John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu), began an association with Miles Davis; the phenomenal Danish bassist Niels Henning Orsted-Pedersen toured with Bill Evans, Dexter Gordon and the Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson.

Some of the most adventurous orchestral sounds of these 25 years have been produced by European-based bands. The American drummer Kenny Clarke and the Belgian composer Francy Boland headed a multinational ensemble from 1960-73. The Swiss composer-pianist George Gruntz, director of the Berlin Jazz Festival for the past 17 years, has led a big band with American, German, Italian and Canadian sidemen that toured the United States in 1987.

Such developments are due in large measure to U.S. jazzmen who have left no country untouched by their impact, either through Voice of America radio shows or, increasingly more often, through overseas tours. Some of my most memorable recollections of this tumultuous quarter-century have been gathered during extensive travels in the U.S. and overseas.

Among the events documented in Calendar have been roughly 50 jazz festivals, from Monterey to Montreal and Montreux, as well as some 20 jazz cruises, and miscellaneous (sometimes strange) sights and sounds encountered around the globe:

WEST BERLIN, 1967: A formidable force, in Europe as at home, is the Los Angeles trumpeter Don Ellis, whose gimmicks (echoplex amplified trumpet, odd meters) earn wild applause for his band; but mixed with it are some loud boos--a reminder that Berlin is notorious for the rudeness of its jazz audiences.

In 1968 Ellis, playing a trumpet cantata written in 11/4, 5/4 and 3/4 time, again draws clapping and catcalls. Maynard Ferguson also elicits cheers and jeers; Sonny Sharrock, contorting himself into a pretzel and making his guitar sound like an amplified avant-garde banjo, draws still louder hostility. Overall, the crowd’s reactions reflect a deep concern for the upheavals that are changing the arts.

WASHINGTON, 1969: The first of three invitations to the White House, and the most memorable because of the occasion (Duke Ellington’s 70th birthday) and the way in which President Nixon has chosen to celebrate it (the maestro is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award).

Gathered in the East Room, we hear the President ask us to “raise our glasses to the greatest Duke of them all.” After an all-star jam session and a solo by Ellington, the President says: “I haven’t played piano since I’ve lived here; however, I’ll try if you’ll join me--but please, in the key of G.” We all sing along as Nixon plays “Happy Birthday.”

NEWPORT, R.I., 1969: Producer George Wein has decided that the jazz festival needs an infusion of rock. Along with Miles Davis, Red Norvo and Charles Mingus, he presents Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa and Sly & the Family Stone. During Sly’s set, a rainstorm begins, gate crashers use battering rams to break down fences, cherry bombs are hurled into the crowd, beer bottles are flung at cops and state troopers. Violinist Stephane Grappelli tries to restore order but is unheard in the uproar.

HOLLYWOOD, 1969: Calendar headline: “Tin Pan Alley Has Passed Hoagy By” and a quote from Hoagy Carmichael: “If I were an unknown, and if I brought my ‘Stardust’ or ‘Georgia’ or ‘Lazy River’ or ‘Rockin’ to a record company today, as unfamiliar material, I wouldn’t get past the front door.”

LOS ANGELES, 1970: Louis Armstrong, who was near death a few months ago, has not resumed playing his horn but is well enough to take part in a “This Is Your Life”-style birthday celebration at the Shrine Auditorium. In front of a New Orleans French Quarter backdrop, Louis joins emcee Hoagy Carmichael in a vocal duet on “Rockin’ Chair,” which they recorded in 1929. (Satch will play again, with Pearl Bailey in Las Vegas, but will live only two days beyond his next birthday.)

HONOLULU, 1970: The Royal Hawaiian Band plays its annual Christmas concert in Kapiolani Park. Kid Ory, the trombonist who in 1921 in Los Angeles made the first black jazz combo record session, retired here some years ago. Frail and no longer able to play, he is called out of the audience. “This is our tribute to Mr. Ory,” says the narrator. Ory, whose career began in New Orleans in 1907, is frail; he looks like a patriarch Indian chief. Onstage, he sings a chorus of the composition that became his social security: “Muskrat Ramble.” He recorded it with Louis Armstrong in 1926. This was his final appearance; he died here in 1973.

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO., 1971: A musical high in the foothills of the Rockies as businessman Dick Gibson presents his ninth annual jazz party (the first of 20 to be covered here). With 40 hand-picked musicians and 200 guests, Gibson offers vibrant evidence of the durability of mainstream jazz, and of the lack of any generation gap. A highlight of the Labor Day weekend is a duet in which the legendary stride pianist Willie (The Lion) Smith, 73, wearing his usual battered derby and chomping on a cigar, shows total compatibility with the drummer assigned to him--Duffy Jackson, aged 18.

VENICE, ITALY, 1972: By bus, train, plane and finally gondola, the Giants of Jazz (among them Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey) arrive at the ornate, 180-year-old Teatro La Fenice. Among the most impassioned listeners is Romano Mussolini, jazz pianist and youngest son of the late dictator. “Monk’s solo on ‘Just a Gigolo’ was a masterpiece of melodic simplicity,” he says. “I drove six hours from Rome to get here and see my old friend Dizzy, but for moments like this I would drive much longer.” Mussolini, who says his father “was a Fats Waller fan,” leads a quartet that includes the Italo-American clarinetist Tony Scott.

NICE, 1974: At the first annual Grande Parade du Jazz, held in Cimiez Park, a bust of Louis Armstrong is unveiled by Princess Grace of Monaco. James Baldwin and Josephine Baker are present to take in the swing, bop and jazz-rock sounds.

COLORADO SPRINGS, 1976: A memorable moment at Dick Gibson’s party. Eubie Blake, 93, who wrote his first tune in 1899, plays his elegant ballad “Memories of You” as a duet with the young trumpet prodigy Jon Faddis. They have never met, but it’s instant empathy. “When Jon Faddis was born,” Gibson tells us, “Eubie was 70 years old.” (Later, Blake says: “If I’d known I was going to live this long I’d have taken better care of myself.”)

TOKYO, 1977: Japan has 400 jazz coffee shops (50 are in Tokyo). They have names like Dig, Dug, Lady Day and Birdland; all are stocked with big libraries of LPs. In 1976, 1,300 jazz albums were issued in Japan--twice the U.S. figure. The cultural crosswinds that have made Japan the world’s second most active jazz center are so powerful that many Americans form groups just for tours here.

Swing Journal, the world’s biggest jazz magazine (350 pages each month, in Japanese), presents the Gold Disc Award to Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin for their “Insights,” by their Los Angeles orchestra. The Silver Award goes to bassist Charlie Haden, a prophet more honored in Nippon and Europe than at home, for an album he made with Ornette Coleman and Alice Coltrane.

HAVANA, 1977: A jazz cruise from New Orleans with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Earl Hines, David Amram and Ry Cooder brings American tourists from a U.S. to a Cuban port for the first time in 16 years. As we clear customs, a mass of fans screams: “Dee-zee!”

The Ministry of Culture stages a recital for musicians and press at which we hear Las Irakeres, a fine multicultural ensemble. (Years later two members, the saxophonist Paquito d’Rivera and trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, defect to the United States.) That evening the Americans are joined by many of the Cubans for a jam on “Manteca.” All the world loves a love-in; here is the international language at work again. Dizzy will return here several times, once to make the documentary “A Night in Havana.”

WASHINGTON, 1978: An outdoor matinee at the White House brings together dozens of world-class jazzmen to celebrate George Wein’s 25th year as a festival producer. President Carter’s speech reveals his true understanding of the music. Two unforgettable moments: Seeing Charles Mingus in the crowd (we all know he is mortally ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease), the President walks over to his wheelchair and embraces him. On a lighter note, for the finale, Gillespie and Max Roach coax the President into joining in their vocal on “Salt Peanuts.”

SYDNEY, 1980: You can’t travel far enough to find a shortage of jazz artists. Akiyoshi and Tabackin, unable to bring their own band, recruit a bunch of Australian musicians who play their music with striking competence. Dave Brubeck, Les McCann and other U.S. and Australian participants do well, but the most luminous moments of the weeklong festival are provided by Terumasa Hino--a Tokyo-born, New York-based trumpeter--in his lyrical “Blue Smiles,” a posthumous tribute to fellow-trumpeter Blue Mitchell.

LOS ANGELES, 1981: From a review of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at the Maiden Voyage Club: “Blakey’s new trumpeter has it all--the bell clear sound, perfect timing and phrasing, the passion, and, surprisingly, the maturity. Surprising, because Wynton Marsalis is all of 19 years old.”

WASHINGTON, 1981: Lionel Hampton is saluted at the White House, but with words rather than formal awards, at an afternoon ceremony presided over by President Reagan. That evening, instead of attending Hampton’s concert at the Kennedy Center, he sends Vice President Bush.

TEL AVIV, 1982: Israel is more than ready for the jazz tour by Jon Hendricks, Les McCann, Larry Coryell et al. The young people here treated Chick Corea, Stan Getz and other visitors as heroes.

The concerts are in legendary settings that inspire the artists: an oceanside amphitheatre originally built by Herod the Great; another amphitheatre near Beit Shan, said to be 6,000 years old. At the Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem, 7,500 fans jam into the site; Jon Hendricks draws a reaction with the mid-Eastern sounds of “Caravan.”

SACRAMENTO, 1986: The 13th annual Dixieland Jubilee hires 800 musicians from 14 countries. The sidemen in the Scottish Society Syncopators wear kilts. The Louisiana Jazz Band (hailing from Denmark) sings “Ace in the Hole” with a Danish accent. Also here: Custer’s Last Band, the Sons of Bix and cornetist Wild Bill Davison, 80, this year’s festival emperor.

NEW YORK, FEB. 1990: At a “Hearts for Ella” benefit for the Heart Fund, honoring Ella Fitzgerald, classical violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman surprises everyone by playing jazz with Oscar Peterson and Bobby McFerrin.

NEW YORK, JUNE 1990: In a spontaneous gesture, Pearl Bailey brings Wynton Marsalis onstage at Avery Fisher Hall for a soul-stirring duet on “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It will turn out to be her last performance.

These are just a few of the people, places and happenings that have been covered in almost 2 million words of reporting. I have omitted mention of the countless jazz books, movies and TV reviews, nor did it seem desirable to include a long necrology.

It seems wiser to focus on, say, Ryan Kisor, the astonishing 17-year-old trumpeter who ran off with top honors last November at the Thelonious Monk Trumpet Competition in Washington. Jazz has had a gloriously eventful past, but youngsters like Kisor offer hope that a challenging future may lie ahead.