NT-3350

WNET

Title Slate: The Eleventh Hour #350. Jazz in New Jersey. Rec: 4/26/90. Dir: Andrew Wilk. The words "Stereo Dolby" flashing

Funding by announcer. Charitable orgs overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.

Show opens to jazz horn musicians from The Newport Jazz Festival All-Stars performing

Host Robert Lipsyte in the studio announces tonight's program about Jazz music. He announces guests including critics plus musicians from the Newport Jazz Festival All-Stars Band.

Lipsyte talking to viewers about how there are many jazz clubs open in the area but jazz radio play is down - of the 52 all music stations, only 1 plays Jazz

African American deejay, James Brown, from Jazz Radio 88.3 FM, speaking into mic with a very smooth sounding voice

Wall clock sitting on top of WBGO 88.3 FM shelf in studio

Sound equipment, dials measuring beats and volume

Article clipping reads: Billy Eckstine Mr. B and the Band

Deejay James Brown, is seen picking through a shelf of CD's.

View of the New New Jersey skyline and river, foggy day, and crawling words across bottom of the screen read: WBGO is based in Newark and established its 24 hour jazz & news format in 1979 to support the cultural needs of the community

Exterior signage Carnegie Hall - WBGO Jazz 88 and Coca Cola Salute George Wein, A benefit Concert for WBGO - rest of poster obscured by verbiages crawling across Botton of screen : "Recently the station held a benefit concert in tribute to George Wein.

Jazz pianist, George Wein, on stage with handheld mic talking with unseen audience about how jazz musicians live to play music the way he wants to play music..

Close up jazz artist, George Benson, in red bow tie, talking with unseen unknown interviewer about jazz music

Clip George Benson performing with Jazz Singer, Joe Williams

Clip of young Jazz guitarist, Stanley Jordan, performing on two guitars simultaneously!

A peek inside narrow door opening revealing a female deejay at the controls.

Female deejay from WBGO introducing jazz guitarist Stanley Gordon.

Female Deejay interviewing Jordan live in radio station studio. Clips of Jordan playing two guitars with one hand each.

Clip of young jazz trumpeter, Terence Blanchard, performing live.

Browne interviewing young jazz musician and trumpeter, Terence Blanchard, in radio station studio.

Aerial New York City, with crawl "Unlike commercial radio stations, WBGO depends on listeners, grants and fund-raising for its annual budget of 1.5 millions dollars.

Anna Kosof, General Manager of WBOG, talking with unseen unknown interviewer about funding for the station and the struggle

Jazz Saxaphonist, Branford Marsalis, speaking casually indoors with unseen unknown interviewer.

WBOG deejay spinning album on turntable.

Back with Deejay James Browne in radio studio standing in front of rows of albums on shelves and talking with unseen interviewer about how revered Jazz is in other countries such as in Japan versus where in the "land of its birth, there is little or no interest paid to the music outside of public broadcasting outlets via radio or television.

Browne, still talking with interviewer states, jazz at this point is a universal music appealing to people of all backgrounds, " it would be great if America would open its eyes and join in on the party".

Back in The Eleventh Hour studio with Host Robert Lipsyte, he introduces his guests: Jeff Levenson, Jazz Editor of Billboard, New York Correspondent for Downbeat and co-publisher of the jazz nightlife guide Hothouse; Dan Morgenstern, Jazz Journalist, Critic & Author and Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers; Terence Blanchard, young Jazz Trumpeter and just completed the soundtrack for Spike Lee's movie, Mo Better Blues.

Dan Morgenstern 13:54
Well, in a way, that's very true. It's also been out of trouble a lot. I mean, there was a period when jazz was the popular music of this country, the so called Swing Era. And there's still a lot of people around who are old enough to have been around them and love that particular kind of music. And that brings to mind the fact that jazz is an enormously rich and varied music. And when we just say jazz, we mean a lot of different kinds of music. Some of that music is perhaps inaccessible, but a lot of it is by no means and inaccessible.

Robert Lipsyte 14:31
Terrence you are 28. When Dan talks about swing, is he making a connection for you? I mean, what you think about classical and traditional

Terrence Blanchard 14:38
Well of course, because the, the way I was introduced to the music, I mean, I grew up in New Orleans. So I heard a lot of traditional artists. From my father, I mean, he played Louis Armstrong and Sid Catlett all the time, and I heard a lot of musicians who really knew how to play different styles in New Orleans. Then Once I got to school, you know, they really exposed me to the evolution of the music. So that's what really, really made me understand that this music is constantly growing. It's it's still around, it hasn't gone anywhere. And it's something that we really need to take a serious look at. Because, I mean, there are a lot of great artists out there who are constantly developing a lot,

Robert Lipsyte 15:22
are we getting a good look at it? I mean, do you have a sense that it's being taught, and then it's growing?

Dan Morgenstern 15:27
Well, you can teach jazz, to an extent you can't teach talent, you either have it or you don't. There's a tremendous amount of jazz education going on. And I think the best it does is that it exposes a lot of young kids from high school on to the music, and many of them will never become professionals, but they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. One would hope and affection for that new

Robert Lipsyte 15:57
appreciation and appreciation, take it into the clubs. Is this a healthy time for jazz?

Jeff Leverson 16:02
I think essentially, it is healthy, because I think that many kinds of jazz are represented. I think that New York is a special case, of course, I don't believe that it's representative of all cities in the in the country where the planet, but it's essentially healthy. The thing that does concern me, however, is that because of the music that's being offered to people, that they're not going to get the kind of education that Dan alluded to. Jazz is very rich, and it's a big category. And you wouldn't always know that from seeing what's playing around town on any given night.

Robert Lipsyte 16:39
Because it's the same stuff talents that we hear over and over again, or because it's misnamed,

Terrence Blanchard 16:45
I think a lot of is because it's Miss named then some of the stuff that misnamed sounds the same, unfortunately. But I mean, because when you look at when you look at what's played on a radio, if somebody comes up with a particular sound that sells and there's going to be 100 Other artists who are going to go after that same sound, and it doesn't necessarily have to do anything with jazz, but they labeled it that so there could be a group of people who feel that they're really jazz lovers. And I think it's really it does a disservice to the to the listener because they can make an honest choice for themselves.

Robert Lipsyte 17:18
We have to we have to work at our jazz loving Yeah, Terrence, Jeff, Dan, thanks very much for being with us.

Featuring George Wein, Founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, on piano. The band performs live in The Eleventh Hour studio.

INTERVIEW - GEORGE WEIN

Robert Lipsyte:
the climate of health the jazzy Now, where do we go from here? Our kids coming up? Do you see what's going to happen?

George Wein 22:17
No, nobody can predict what's going to happen. Jazz is a music that just flows with the times and reflects what's happening in the world. The only thing that makes me sad about jazz sometimes is that young players don't realize that it's if jazz is an art form. And I, I'm not even sure it's an art form. Because Ellington Basse seen those people, they didn't think of jazz as an art, they were just playing their music. But if jazz is an art form, then there's a mainstream to the music. And no, no, a painter would learn how to paint before he would be abstract. And a lot of jazz musicians don't learn how the rudiments of the music before they play in an abstract way.

Robert Lipsyte 23:03
One of the problems for me as as a jazz lover was early on, I found not so much that the music was inaccessible, but that I was told that I wasn't smart enough or hip enough to get into it. And that was only until I learned that you can just listened to it and like it. Then I began to love it. How do you educate people to join

George Wein 23:26
I don't ever try to educate people, there's no way of educating people. Jazz is is like, all the good things in life. Everybody doesn't appreciate the good things in life. There's a lowest common denominator to a lot of things. But jazz is not the lowest common denominator, it may be the highest common denominator. So if jazz is a challenge, you meet the challenge,

Robert Lipsyte 23:49
that sounds pretty elitist, I thought jazz was something for people that kind of reached out and touched them.

George Wein 23:54
Opera is for people one time there they were they sang badly in the streets of Italy. And it's it's they can listen to jazz in the streets of New York. But that doesn't mean that jazz has to play down to you. You have to really relate to what's happening.

Robert Lipsyte 24:07
And what does that mean, you have to relate to what's happening. I mean

George Wein 24:11
You're asking me a lot of difficult questions.

Robert Lipsyte 24:13
If you're supposed to be a really smart guy, I mean, you can play and you can make money, which a lot of people can't do both at the same time. So I mean,

George Wein 24:21
what was the question?

Robert Lipsyte 24:22
The question is, George, how do you just kind of lay back and let jazz wash over you? How do you let it into yourself?

George Wein 24:29
Like anything else? knowledge helps enjoyment?

Robert Lipsyte 24:33
Where do you start?

George Wein 24:34
I guess you just start by saying, Well, who is Duke Ellington, who is Charlie Parker? Who is John Coltrane, these are more than just names. What do these names mean to you? And why are they famous? When you learn that? Then you can listen to the music and listen to other people that have followed these great people and learn to appreciate them. It's just like knowledge. Knowledge is a great thing.

Robert Lipsyte 24:58
Now knowledge also means access. ability question we posed early on was it seems surprising that the New York area had only one real 24 hour jazz station. What does that mean,

George Wein 25:09
doesn't seem surprising to me at all. The surprising thing is that, that we even have one. I think that's great. Jazz is not. You call it elitist? I don't think it's elitist. But it is not a music of the masses is even in its greatest day. Dan was talking about Benny Goodman in the swing craze, Guy Lombardo sold more records than Benny Goodman even in those days. But of course, Benny Goodman was playing for dancing. It was an extra approached the music fact that was great music was incidental to the fact that people were swinging a Jitterbug in all over the place.

Robert Lipsyte 25:44
George Wein, thank you very, very much for being with us. The Newport Jazz Festival all stars are going to play us into the weekend. That's the 11th hour I'm Robert Lipsyte

The word "Jazz" spelled out with instruments on the count of four before performance begins.

Show credits overlay the All-Stars performing.

Reel End