The 1965 Playboy All-Stars

A stormy petrel now shares the ornithological hierarchy of jazz with Bird. The explosive Charles Mingus proved a dominant figure on the 1964 jazz scene. In the spring, he ventured forth for a tumultuously successful tour of Europe. His year—and his career—reached a climax at the Monterey, California, Festival in September. There, leading both a small combo and a big band, Mingus eclipsed Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Woody Herman and other guests to receive a standing ovation from the audience as musicians backstage cheered. Meanwhile, throughout 1964, new Mingus record releases achieved consistent acclaim. After two decades of ascent as virtuoso bassist, composer and demanding bandleader, Mingus by year's end had achieved large-scale recognition.

Duke Ellington, as usual, was also pervasively active during the year. With his orchestra indisputably the most distinctive in jazz, Ellington traveled widely, including tours of Europe and Japan. He and his orchestra were the subject of television profiles by the British Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian television, and Robert Herridge for the Metromedia chain of stations in America. Also during Duke's peregrinations, CBS sent a Twentieth Century crew to document his journey through Japan. Ellington continued to compose prolifically, and by the end of 1964, he was looking forward to the mounting of his first Broadway show since the 1946 Beggar's Holiday. Titled Sugar City, it's due in March 1965, with Lilo as the star. In addition, Duke became an honorary doctor of humanities (Milton College, Wisconsin), and a full scholarship in his name was established at the Eastman School of Music.

To the delight of everyone in the jazz world, 1964 was a period of greatly renewed popularity for Louis Armstrong. By the end of April, his recording of Hello, Dolly! had displaced the long-reigning Beatles on the best-selling charts; and later, his similarly titled album was awarded a gold record by the Record Industry Association of America for having amassed more than a million dollars in sales. Satchmo ended the year with another hit—So Long, Dearie!—also from the Hello, Dolly! score.

The sudden surge of bookings changed Louis' intention of taking a sabbatical in 1965. He explained that the formidable Joe Glaser, his manager-booker, "has too many dates set." So Louis, at 64, will continue wandering next year in the Far East and Europe as well as throughout America. He may even go back home to New Orleans to play for the first time in years, now that the new Civil Rights Act has ended the Louisiana ban on integrated combos.

The ebullient Dizzy Gillespie also experienced a rewarding 12 months. Along with a string of appearances and recordings (including the sound track for the film The Cool World), the Gillespie Presidential campaign also accumulated considerable momentum. In the campaign's closing days, at a Hollywood press conference, contender Gillespie announced his putative cabinet: Duke Ellington, foreign affairs; Charles Mingus, peace; Louis Armstrong, agriculture; Malcolm X, justice; Max Roach, defense; Miles Davis, head of the CIA; and Peggy Lee, labor ("She's very nice to her musicians").

Gillespie, as were many other jazz musicians, was also active in playing at concerts for civil rights causes. The NAACP produced an unprecedentedly star-filled closed-circuit television show in May that was shown in 45 cities and included, among others, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne and Dick Gregory. In Hollywood in September, Steve Allen and a group of jazzmen raised funds for a Mississippi voter-registration drive at a session in Shelly Manne's Manne-Hole. During the same moth, there was a jazz lawn party at Jackie Robinson's home in Stamford, Connecticut, where $30,000 was contributed toward the Goodman-Chaney-Schwerner Community Center in Meridian, Mississippi, to memorialize the three young civil rights workers who were murdered in that state in the summer. A thousand dollars of that sum was contributed by Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser. On hand were Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Billy Taylor.

The year also saw the formation of a Freedom Band in San Francisco by jazz alto saxophonist-composer John Handy. Handy asserted, "We are going to devote all the time we can to promoting the civil rights cause, playing concerts or dances or benefits or fund-raising events of any kind." Included in the band's book are a number of jazz originals based on the fight for equality—from Charles Mingus' Fables of Faubus to Handy's Tears of Ole Miss.

By way of international backlash, South Africa, having already banned the Max Roach–Abbey Lincoln album, We Insist: The Freedom Now Suite, also prohibited the entry of Randy Weston's Uhuru Afrika and a new Lena Horne album which contained Now!, a sardonic song about civil rights.

Jazz became entwined with international affairs in other ways. In May, a Russian welcome to Kurt Edelhagen's West German jazz band for a month's tour was interpreted as a sign of Soviet relaxation of international tensions. (One of the vocalists in the band was a refugee from East Germany.) The next month Dimitri Shostakovich urged Soviet authorities to increase their promotion of "light music," including jazz.

Meanwhile, the Leningrad School of Jazz (student body about 200) concluded its second year; and the same city housed two jazz night clubs—the Blue Lights (neobop) and the Rovesnik (Dixieland by the St. Petersburg Stompers). Even avant-garde "new thing" groups began to emerge, among them a quartet led by alto saxophonist Boris Midney.

Earlier in the year, Midney was quoted as hoping for "those times when we will play in the philharmonic halls, when jazz will occupy a position similar (text continued on page 86) to that of so-called serious music." By August, however, Midney and a colleague—bassist Igor Barukshtis—had decided the jazz millennium was not likely to occur in the Soviet Union and, while in Tokyo with a touring Bolshoi Theater group, the two Russian jazzmen defected. ("We are musicians," they declared, "and we can play real music only if we are free to express ourselves.")

Moscow's Izvestia proclaimed that the two splitting jazz musicians would not be missed. ("Our wonderful variety, jazz and light-music orchestras will lose nothing by the loss of two such lovers of the easy life.") At the end of October, Midney and Barukshtis were brought to the United States by American Friends of Russian Freedom, Inc., to find out if there were jazz gigs here for them. There were, indeed. An Impulse recording contract and their first American nightclub date soon followed.

Back in Russia, still smarting over the defection, Izvestia charged that the Benny Goodman band which toured the Soviet Union in 1962 had included four American secret agents. "Man," said one of the veterans of that journey, "the only act of subversion we were engaged in was trying to get Benny to play more modern jazz."

Aside from occasional political dissonances, the international jazz scene was increasingly active during the past year. By contrast with the bleak economic situation at home, American avant-garde musicians, for example, discovered one place—Copenhagen—where they could work. Although the lengths of their engagements in that city are limited, Copenhagen has been a revitalizing experience for Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Walt Dickerson and other expanders of the jazz language.

Ironically, moreover, the year saw more opportunity overseas for veteran blues singers than existed for them in America. Muddy Waters, Big Joe Williams, Memphis Slim and Lonnie Johnson, among others, toured England and the Continent; and there was brisk bidding between the B.B.C. and the Granada network to sign them for a prime-time video special (Granada won).

A more sanguine development was the further opening in 1964 of Japan as a circuit for American jazz musicians. Among the visitors were Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Roland Kirk and Oscar Peterson. George Lewis, the vintage New Orleans clarinetist, enjoyed six months of steady work under the sponsorship of a Japanese labor union; and Harry James discovered that his neo-Basie big-band style was popular in Japan as well as in Las Vegas.

The major jazz event of the year in Japan was a mammoth, three-unit first World Jazz Festival troupe which toured the country for six days in July. Some 80 American musicians were involved, and the headliners included Miles Davis, Carmen McRae, Gene Krupa, Red Nichols and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Coproducer with Jimmy Lyons was George Wein. The latter solidified his position in 1964 as the most active of all international jazz entrepreneurs, succeeding Norman Granz in that role.

In addition to producing the Newport Jazz and Newport Folk festivals in this country—along with other domestic jazz events—Wein marched through Europe as well as Japan. He was in charge of the Charles Mingus tour in the spring, among other caravans, and he was instrumental in helping program jazz festivals in Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen, Dresden, Helsinki and other cities in the fall. For that autumn tour, Wein assembled a Newport Festival company that ranged from Miles Davis through Pee Wee Russell to the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band from New Orleans.

Jazz festivals proliferated throughout Europe. A September Berlin event, of which Wein's troupe was a part, attracted 10.000 enthusiasts over a four-day period to hear 100 American and European jazz musicians. There were also major international jazz festivals in Bled, Yugoslavia; Antibes, France; Molde, Norway; Warsaw, Poland; Prague, Czechoslovakia; and Comblain-la-Tour, Belgium. At the Belgian festival, an exotic import was the Zulu Swing Parade Jazz Band from South Africa. Also present was a Polish alto saxophonist, Zbigniew Namislowsky.

Various independent international jazz exchanges were an intriguing corollary movement during the year. Some American musicians—Ted Curson, the late Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin—decided to join expatriates Dexter Gordon and others in the hope of getting steadier work in Europe than here. Two renowned expatriates returned. Chet Baker, after five years abroad, came back in March, started to play clubs and recorded for Colpix. In September, Bud Powell was booked into Birdland after six years in France. His opening was covered by the major newspapers and news magazines and the consensus was that although his playing was uneven, Powell was still capable of eloquence. By November, Powell was again feeling alien in his native land, and his future place of residence was indefinite.

Among the foreign musicians who appeared here, either to stay or on tour, one of the more successful units was the Swingle Singers, a French vocal octet (led by an expatriate American, Ward Swingle). The group's visit had been preceded by swift-selling Philips albums (Bach's Greatest Hits and The Swingle Singers Going Baroque). While in the States, they appeared at a White House state dinner in honor of Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol—the first jazz vocal group ever to appear at the White House. Also making an impact was Hugh Masekela, a South African trumpeter. Here since 1961 and now the husband of Miriam Makeba, Masekela first began to be heard widely in public in 1964 and intends to continue fusing South African musical idioms with jazz.

A measure of the increasing internationalization of American jazz units was the hiring by Woody Herman of Yugoslavian trumpet player Dusko Gojkovc. Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo, now with Chico Hamilton, tied for first place in Down Beat's "Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition" division of the International Jazz Critics Poll. Co-winner was another Hungarian, Atilla Zoller, a member of Herbie Mann's unit. Stan Getz included in his repertory jazz originals by Mike Giff, a Southern Rhodesian, and the Modern Jazz Quartet programed works by Yugoslavian Miljenko Prohaska.

Economically, the jazz year, as usual, was an affluent one for proven box-office figures—Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Erroll Garner, Brubeck, Basie, Ellington, Woody Herman, Cannonball Adderley among them. There was no significant increase in the number of clubs, and one of the oldest, the Showboat in Philadelphia, folded. Birdland switched from a jazz policy for a time, but by the fall it was back in the fold. The Playboy Clubs continued to be a major employer of jazz talent. Under Musical Director Kai Winding's aegis, for instance, such respected jazz names as Milt Buckner, Les Spann, Carl Kress and George Barnes played the New York Club. Anaheim's eclectic Disneyland proved a surprising source of jazz, supplying year-round Dixieland and concerts by Harry James, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Although not consistently featured at the New York World's Fair, jazz scored heavily when given a chance. A Dave Brubeck–Duke Ellington concert there in August outdrew appearances by General Eisenhower and President Johnson. Also successful was a Louis Armstrong Day at the Fair at the end of June. Commenting on Satdimo's arrival, The New York Times observed that the most noticeable aspect of it "was the way the heat-wilted faces of onlookers at the New Amsterdam Gate broke into smiles" as soon as Louis stepped out of his bus. "Multiply this pleasure," the Times continued, "by ten for the reaction Satchmo got from the Zulu dancers at the African Pavilion."

There were no major developments on the jazz concert circuit, except for the increased involvement by the Ford Motor Company in the use of jazz and folk-music troupes as selling aids in tours of colleges. In the spring, Nina Simone, Herbie Mann and Cal Tjader were among the Ford minstrels. The October–November tour, comprising more than 40 colleges, utilized such musicians as (continued on page 96)Playboy All-Stars(continued from page 86) George Shearing and Oscar Peterson. The automobile company underwrites part of the cost of the package, thereby enabling the colleges to book concerts at relatively low fees. In the process, good will is presumably built up for Ford. If the idea spreads, jazzmen may yet find unexpected sustenance from a variety of firms with an eye on the sales potential of the young. A peripheral sign of big-business support of jazz was the decision of Henry Ford II to be one of the investors in Duke Ellington's Sugar City.

The festival wheel was active. In June in Pittsburgh, the Catholic Youth Organization, with the approval of the diocese of Pittsburgh, sponsored a jazz festival—the first time a major jazz festival has been underwritten by an official Catholic group. Coproducers were Mary Lou Williams, originally from Pittsburgh, and the ubiquitous George Wein. The festival drew over 12,000, netted a small, profit and was scheduled to be repeated in 1965. Appropriately, a feature of the event was Mary Lou Williams' Praise the Lord.

The 11th annual Newport Jazz Festival (July 2–5) was both artistically and commercially substantial. Attendance was 37,000 and among the high points were the return of Chet Baker, the brilliant trumpeting of Dizzy Gillespie and an afternoon piano summit meeting with Willie "The Lion" Smith, Dave Brubeck, Joe Sullivan, Billy Taylor, Thelonious Monk and Toshiko Mariano.

Producer George Wein's network of festive success included the third annual Ohio Valley Jazz Festival in Cincinnati (August 14–16) with 21,000 in attendance. The impresario's only major worry of the season was the decision by the Newport City Council in August to discontinue future festivals in city-owned Freebody Park. A committee was appointed, however, to find an alternate site, as Rhode Island governmental officials and businessmen were loath to lose the profits and publicity attendant to the jazz and folk festivals.

The Monterey Festival (September 18—20) upheld its reputation as the most musically prestigious of all the alfresco summer jazz rites. Even musicians not hired to play showed up and paid for seats. In addition to the triumph of Charles Mingus, the 30,000 present also reacted with enthusiasm to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Pee Wee Russell and lusty blues singer Big Mama Willie Mae Thornton.

College festivals and clinics continued to grow in importance. The National Stage Band Camps set up Summer Jazz Clinics—with such established musicians as Donald Byrd and Charlie Mariano on the faculty—at Phillips University in Oklahoma, the University of Connecticut, Western Reserve in Ohio and the University of Nevada. Intercollegiate festivals, which are becoming one of the more visible proving grounds for aspiring jazzmen, were held at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Kansas and Southern Western College near San Diego. In May, the first annual Western Regional Intercollegiate Jazz Festival took place in Tempe, Arizona.

As new players competed for recognition in the colleges and in the big cities, the jazz death toll of the year was long. The nonpareil Jack Teagarden died in New Orleans in January and the remarkably inventive Eric Dolphy died in Berlin in June. Also on the list were Artie Bernstein, long the bassist with Benny Goodman; New Orleans—born reed man Frank "Big Boy" Goodie; former bandleader Willie Bryant; clarinetist–tenor saxophonist Cecil Scott; boogiewoogie pianist Meade Lux Lewis; pianist Buddy Cole; veteran bassist Ernest "Bass" Hill; Don Redman, one of the first of the major jazz arrangers; trumpeters Doug Mettome, Nick Travis and Conrad Gozzo; trumpeter-arranger Russ Case; alto saxophonist Joe Maini; bass saxist Joe Rushton; New Orleans trombonist "Wild Bill" Matthews; ragtime pianist Glover Compton; and Teddy Napoleon, for many years pianist with Gene Krupa. A valued jazz critic, Wilder Hobson (author of American Jazz Music, and jazz columnist for the Saturday Review), died during the year, as did Moe Gale, owner of the legendary Savoy Ballroom and at one time a major booker and manager of jazz talent.

In jazz recording in 1964, the hit makers were Louis Armstrong (Hello, Dolly!) and Stan Getz (The Girl from Ipanema). Besides Armstrong and Getz, Ray Charles, organist Jimmy Smith and Dave Brubeck were effective album sellers. Sinatra and the Basie band made the charts with their first collaboration (It Might As Well Be Swing on Reprise).

The year's major disaster in the record field was the demise of Riverside, one of the largest of the independents. Cannonball Adderley, that label's best-selling artist, switched to Capitol and announced his intention to go for as large an audience as he can attract through a variety of settings.

There were no jazz break-throughs in prime-time commercial television, although Steve Allen, during the period he hosted a late-night show for Westing-house TV, featured a sizable number of jazzmen. Allen's successor on the Westinghouse series, Regis Philbin, hired Terry Gibbs to lead a resident sextet on the program. Skitch Henderson's Tonight Show orchestra spotlighted trumpeters Clark Terry and Doc Severinsen. An important single event was Robert Herridge's hourlong profile of Duke Ellington for the Metromedia stations. A minor jazz inroad in television was the commissioning of Dave Brubeck to write the theme music for the new CBS-TV series Mr. Broadway. The third series of Ralph Gleason's superior Jazz Casual shows was seen on the National Educational Television network, bringing the total of Jazz Casuals to 24. Also shown on NET's network were 8 historical half-hour programs on New Orleans jazz.

In radio, jazz disc jockeys continued to abound on FM, and the success of ex-Ellington trumpeter Rex Stewart in that role on KNOB in Hollywood gave a small amount of hope to other older jazzmen looking for ways to remain connected with the music when demand for their playing diminishes. A loss on the AM radio scene was the decision of WNEW in New York to end the knowledgeable Billy Taylor's program.

In films, Ray Charles starred in Light in Darkness, shot in Europe, and plans were nearly completed for a film version of John Williams' novel of the jazz life, Night Song. The latter will now be called The Bird and Dick Gregory is likely to play the leading role, which is patterned after Charlie Parker. Striking jazz singer Abbey Lincoln scored as an actress in Nothing but a Man, which won an award at the Venice Film Festival and was also well received at the New York Film Festival. Miss Lincoln was also signed to a costarring role in another film, Duff Anderson. Her husband, drummer Max Roach, wrote the score for a Japanese film, The Black Sun, while on a tour of that country. The most important movie scoring assignment of the year for a jazzman was Quincy Jones' for The Pawnbroker.

Dizzy Gillespie was in the cast of the 1963 Academy Award–winning animated short, The Hole, produced by John and Faidi Hubley. The same team—with the addition of British jazz pianist Dudley Moore—was responsible this past year for The Hat, which made its Chicago debut at the new Playboy Theater. The current short, with dialog by Gillespie and Moore, is a mordantly witty exploration of the stubbornly human causes of international tensions, and Gillespie again proves his expertness at improvising spoken as well as musical lines.

There were two important jazz books in 1964. In A Jazz Lexicon (Knopf), Robert S. Gold compiled the first authoritative dictionary of jazz terms and usages. In Music on My Mind: The Memoirs of an American Pianist (Doubleday), Willie "The Lion" Smith, in collaboration with jazz historian George Hoefer, produced one of the most beguiling of all jazz autobiographies. Also on the lists were The Jazz Story (Prentice-Hall), a history by Dave Dexter; and Improvising Jazz (Prentice-Hall), a clear, concise introduction to the techniques (continued on page 144)Playboy All-Stars(continued from page 96) of jazz by Jerry Coker, formerly with Woody Herman.

The intermittent interplay between jazz and religion continued in 1964. A new jazz setting of the Eucharist, The Whole World in His Hands, by Bruce Prince-Joseph was performed at All Saints Episcopal Church in New York in May with Thad Jones and Melba Liston among the jazz celebrants. Pianist-composer Randy Weston took part in several church services in New York, including one appearance at 8:30 on a Sunday morning at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. The occasion was, Down Beat noted, "one of the earliest jazz gigs since the days of the breakfast dance."

Father Norman O'Connor, the Paulist priest long associated with jazz, continued to press for the introduction of jazz into Roman Catholic services. "The music now being written for the Mass," Father O'Connor observed during the year, "should be related to our day, just as the Gregorian chants and the music of Palestrina were to theirs. I think that the church composers of 1964 should be more concerned with Duke Ellington than with Bach." (For Fadier O'Connor's comments on contemporary morals, see this month's Playboy Philosophy.)

As for developments within jazz itself, the big-band arena remained small. Ellington, as noted, towered over the rest; but Woody Herman's orchestra, spurred by the enlistment of tenor saxophonist Andy McGhee and singer Joe Carroll, was a powerhouse of swing. The Basie band continued to sound more like a highly efficient machine than a spontaneous jazz unit. The year's major composers remained Ellington, Monk, Mingus, Gil Evans, George Russell and John Lewis, with Gary McFarland adding to his rising reputation.

Among the combos, Miles Davis strengthened his group by bringing in Wayne Shorter on tenor; Horace Silver fielded an entirely new combo; John Coltrane plunged ever more deeply into swirling improvisations that sometimes lasted as long as an hour apiece; and Bill Evans led the most absorbing and resourceful trio in jazz. The Modern Jazz Quartet became even more polished with an increasingly internationalized repertory, and the aforementioned Charles Mingus headed an instantly inflammable crew.

There were no startling "new stars," although 18-year-old Tony Williams with Miles Davis continued to startle audiences and other drummers with his wide-ranging imagination, wit and power. Long-delayed recognition was given gnarled clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, who discovered that audiences in America and Europe were according him a quality of response reserved for jazz titans.

Musicians on the way up included Albert Ayler, a demoniacally intense, avant-garde tenor saxophonist. Also on the ascent were tenor men Booker Ervin and Archie Shepp; alto saxophonists Jimmy Woods and John Tchicai; trombonist Grachan Moncur III; vibists Bobby Hutcherson and Gary Burton; pianists Don Friedman, Paul Bley and Andrew Hill; bassists Steve Swallow, Ron Carter, Richard Davis and David Izenson; and drummer Sonny Murray.

Although jobs for relatively unknown jazzmen were in scarce supply, there was no diminution of creative experimentation in jazz during the past year. The work of the musicians already cited underlined the basic changes that were taking place in the jazz language—a greater withdrawal from conventional chord structures and, for that matter, from any chord structures; an emphasis on a more flexible, subtle and sometimes never explicitly stated jazz beat; and a growing interest in materials from other folk traditions, including the Hindu and the African.

Nonetheless, Stan Kenton, long identified as a searcher after the new in jazz, proclaimed during a panel discussion at the University of California at Los Angeles in the spring that "jazz is finished." The prophet explained that "jazz as we've known it is losing its individual identity because so many of its qualities have been taken over by musicians in other areas. Jazz stars," Kenton predicted dourly, "will simply not rise as they have in the past. We've seen our last Ellington. There are no more contributions to make."

Nowhere in the jazz community did Kenton receive any support for his Cassandralike keening. By the fall, Kenton himself had established a permanent orchestra in Los Angeles to perform "exceptionally exciting" modern works by American and foreign composers. Its name: the Los Angeles Neophonic Orchestra.

Instead of paying heed to Kenton's prognosis, a group of young jazzmen at the end of the year asserted that not only is the music more alive and distinctive than it ever was, but that a growing audience does exist for the avant-garde—if the musicians can reach it. Following a successful four-day exposure of the avant-garde in a series called The October Revolution in Jazz at a club on New York's Upper West Side, a nucleus of players formed a cooperative movement in late October. Included were trumpeter Bill Dixon, pianist-composer Cecil Taylor, leader-composer Sun Ra, alto saxophonist John Tchicai, trombonist Roswell Rudd and tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp. The jazz co-op members planned to establish a playing and rehearsal headquarters in New York and also intended to form their own record company. Eventually other musicians will be invited to join under the provision that they work only through the cooperative. "We are trying," said a spokesman for the new organization, "for a new American revolution—the abolition of the middleman in jazz." Another illustration of the nascent self-help movement among jazz musicians was Charles Mingus' announcement that he himself would sell recordings by mail of his wildly received Monterey Festival performances.

Even Dizzy Gillespie, who has no problems in finding work, was also thinking in terms of an association of jazz musicians. His plan, which he had already discussed with Max Roach and others by the fall, calls for a kind of cooperative which might in time function as a musician-owned booking office and which would also produce concerts as well as act as a spokesman for jazz players in establishing policies in night clubs and with record companies.

A different trend toward jazzmen's becoming involved in communal action was the enlistment of jazz musicians in HARYOU-ACT (Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited and the Associated Community Teams), a massive project, financed by the Federal Government and the city of New York, to stimulate the youth of central Harlem to find and act on their capacities. The project is involved in a wide range of stimuli—from participation in the arts to organizing neighborhoods for social change. Jazz bassist Julian Euell is a key staff member, and trumpeter Kenny Dorham helps coach the large HARYOU jazz band. A number of established musicians—Clifford Jordan, Barry Harris and Walter Bishop among them—have also played for and advised the Harlem youngsters. In 1965 more bands, including a number of combos, will be formed as part of HARYOU-ACT.

Meanwhile, there are indications that other such social-action centers around the country are beginning to plan the enlistment of jazz musicians as staff members to reach the "alienated" young and spur them to express themselves through music. At the end of the year, therefore, signs were more and more clear that jazz is not only far from dead, but is starting to extend its influence into wider areas of activity—both internationally and in terms of such community-organization projects as HARYOU-ACT. Said one young experimental jazzman in New York: "We may have to go back into the streets—where jazz started—to find our audiences. But we are going to find them. And if we get them young enough, we're going to train them to become the hippest audiences jazz has ever had."

• • •

While 1964's last bars were being played, Playboy's readers and the magazine's 1964 All-Stars' All-Stars were casting their votes in the ninth annual Playboy Jazz Poll. The readers were deciding who would make up the 1965 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band; the musicians were asked to choose this year's All-Stars' All-Stars. There were large areas of agreement between musicians and readers but, as in the past, differences of opinion were conspicuously in evidence. Those 1964 Playboy Jazz Medal winners eligible to vote in their own poll were: Cannonball Adderley, Louis Armstrong, Bob Brookmeyer, Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Charlie Byrd, John Coltrane, Bill Comstock (Four Freshmen), Miles Davis, Buddy DeFranco, Paul Desmond, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Pete Fountain, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Al Hirt, Milt Jackson, J. J. Johnson, Philly Joe Jones, Henry Mancini, Wes Montgomery, Joe Morello, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Peterson, Frank Sinatra, Kai Winding, Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul & Mary) and Si Zentner.

All-Stars' All-Star Leader: The only change from last year's top five rankings was Maynard Ferguson moving up to fourth while Stan Kenton dropped to fifth. 1. Duke Ellington; 2. Count Basie; 3. Woody Herman; 4. Maynard Ferguson; 5. Stan Kenton.

All-Stars' All-Star Trumpet: The first three trumpet slots remained the same, but Freddie Hubbard edged up to fourth, with Art Farmer taking over fifth place. 1. Diny Gillespie; 2. Miles Davis; 3. Clark Terry; 4. Freddie Hubbard; 5. Art Farmer.

All-Stars' All-star Trombone: J. J. again had no competition; all the changes occurred in the lower echelons, as three bone men tied for fifth. 1. J. J. Johnson; 2. Bob Brookmeyer; 3. Kai Winding; 4. Urbie Green; 5. Carl Fontana, Tyree Glenn, Frank Rosolino.

All-Stars' All-Star Alto Sax: The Cannonball Express moved back into first place, unseating last year's winner, Paul Desmond. Phil Woods edged up to exchange fourth for third with Sonny Stitt. 1. Cannonball Adderley; 2. Paul Desmond; 3. Phil Woods: 4. Sonny Stitt; 5. Johnny Hodges.

All-Stars' All-Star Tenor Sax: Last year's top three remained the same, but Sonny Stitt managed to finish fourth on what for him was a secondary instrument. 1. Stan Geti; 2. John Coltrane; 3. Zoot Sims; 4. Sonny Stitt; 5. James Moody, Sonny Rollins.

All-Stars' All-Star Baritone Sax: Gerry Mulligan again led all the rest as the only change in the baritone front-runners found Charlie Davis displacing Cecil Payne for fourth place. 1. Gerry Mulligan; 2. Harry Carney; 3. Pepper Adams; 4. Charlie Davis; 5. Cecil Payne.

All-Stars' All-Star Clarinet: The only "new" faces in the clarinet listings showed up in the fourth and fifth slots as Pete Fountain won the former while Bill Smith ranked number five. 1. Buddy DeFranco; 2. Benny Goodman; 3. Jimmy Giuffre; 4. Pete Fountain; 5. Bill Smith.

All-Stars' All-Star Piano: Only Hank Jones' tying Thelonious Monk for fourth position changed the order of last year's top finishers. 1. Oscar Peterson; 2. Bill Evans; 3. Dave Brubeck; 4. Hank Jones, Thelonious Monk.

All-Stars' All-Star Guitar: The shake-up among last year's top five was considerable; Herb Ellis took over third, Jimmy Raney, fourth, while Kenny Burrell dropped to fifth. 1. Wes Montgomery; 2. Jim Hall; 3. Herb Ellis; 4. Jimmy Raney; 5. Kenny Burrell.

All-Stars' All-star Bass: Only champ Ray Brown was status quo this go-round. Red Mitchell moved up a notch to second, while Ron Carter took over his spot. Percy Heath and Milt Hinton, unplaced last year, tied for fourth. 1. Ray Brown; 2. Red Mitchell; 3. Ron Carter; 4. Percy Headi, Milt Hinton.

All-Stars' All-Star Drums: One of the Jones boys is again number-one skin man, but this year it's Elvin, as Philly Joe slipped badly to fifth position. 1. Elvin Jones; 2. Art Blakey; 3. Shelly Manne; 4. Joe Morello; 5. Philly Joe Jones.

All-Stars' All-Star Miscellaneous Instrument: Except for Milt Jackson's continued domination of this category, there was much activity in the ranks, with Roland Kirk, unplaced last year, finishing second and Yusef Lateef putting in an appearance for the first time. 1. Milt Jackson, vibes; 2. Roland Kirk, manzello, stritch; 3. Jimmy Smith, organ; 4. Yusef Lateef, flute; 5. Jean Thielemans, harmonica.

All-Stars' All-Star Male Vocalist: Last year's one-two finish of Sinatra and Charles was reprised for '65, but Mel Tormé edged back into the finishers along with Nat Cole. 1. Frank Sinatra; 2. Ray Charles; 3. Tony Bennett; 4. Nat "King" Cole, Mel Tormé.

All-Stars' All-Star Female Vocalist: Among musicians, Ella was the most popular figure in jazzdom. Carmen McRae came from out of nowhere this year to tie the Divine Sarah for second place, dropping Nancy Wilson to fourth and Peggy Lee to fifth. 1. Ella Fitzgerald; 2. Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan; 4. Nancy Wilson; 5. Peggy Lee.

All-Stars' All-Star Instrumental Combo: Dave Brubeck's foursome once more shaded the Peterson three as the MJQ moved up to a third-place tie with Cannonball's contingent. 1. Dave Brubeck Quartet; 2. Oscar Peterson Trio; 3. Cannonball Adderley Sextet, Modern Jazz Quartet; 5. Miles Davis Quintet, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet.

All-Stars' All-Star Vocal Group: This year's top five had a decidedly Gallic flavor as the Double Six of Paris carried off the winner's laurels while the Swingle Singers rocketed to fourth. 1. Double Six of Paris; 2. Four Freshmen; 3. Hi-Lo's; 4. Swingle Singers; 5. Peter, Paul & Mary.

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Our readers' choices in the poll, a deluge of ballots, returned a flock of old favorites to their thrones, but there were longtime idols shattered.

Henry Mancini widened the gap between himself and the also-rans for leader of the Playboy All-Star Jazz Band. Stan Kenton, who was edged out by Mancini last year, dropped to fourth behind Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Maynard Ferguson repeated last year's fifth-place finish, while Herdsman Herman slipped past Quincy Jones into sixth.

Playboy's trumpet section continues last year's personnel with Gillespie and Armstrong changing chairs; Louis is now third, Diz fourth. Worthy of mention is Chet Baker's reappearance in the listings, having achieved a highly respectable (after so long a hiatus) tenth-place finish.

The trombone section changed not at all in either personnel or position. Jack Teagarden's passing removed a formidable contender from the race as Slide Hampton moved up to fill the Big T's vacant fifth slot.

Cannonball Adderley as first alto sax, and Paul Desmond as second, repeated last year's conquests, with third through fifth finishers also status quo. Art Pepper, long absent from the jazz ranks, returned to finish tenth.

As with the altos, the tenor sax one-two finish of 1964 was encored, with Stan Getz, via his Girl from Ipanema, more popular than ever (and the most popular musician in the readers' poll). Lined up in back of runner-up John Coltrane were a number of chaps who finished in much the same order as last year.

The baritone-sax stew seems always to wind up Mulligan. The rest of the troops finished far behind in the balloting.

The clarinetists strung out in back of winner Pete Fountain did very little leapfrogging this year. Woody Herman went two rungs higher to fourth, while Acker Bilk displaced the Swing King for second.

While Dave Brubeck again won piano honors handily, there were upheavals among the contenders, with Peter Nero moving up to second from fourth and the Monk zooming to third from eighth.

Charlie Byrd, repeating his guitar win of last year, again had Nashville's pride, Chet Atkins, hard on his heels. The rest of the field trailed in the distance.

For the first time since its inception, the Playboy Jazz Poll has a new people's choice on bass. Charles Mingus, who really came into his own this past year, also came into a Playboy Jazz Medal, just edging out bass titan Ray Brown. The next three were dittoed from 1964.

There was almost no movement up or down in the skin trade as Brubeck man Morello again dominated his drumming confreres. Ageless Gene Krupa did manage to edge out almost-as-ageless Shelly Manne for the runner-up slot.

Vibist Lionel Hampton, Krupa's old-time Goodman partner, again drew the hosannas of vox populi in the miscellaneous-instrument category, as the next six places changed very little from 1964.

Frank Sinatra once more made a runaway of the male-vocalist voting, but there were interesting carryings-on farther down the list. Johnny Mathis dropped from third to sixth and young Jack Jones, in a first-year showing, came in an incredible fourth. Sammy Davis Jr., who seemed to be everywhere this past year, soared from ninth to fifth.

The big explosion was in the distaff-vocalist balloting. Perennial winner Ella was toppled at last as Funny Girl Barbra Streisand came up with a handful of votes more than second-place finisher Nancy Wilson. Miss Fitz had to be satisfied with third. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Although the Dave Brubeck Quartet again made a shambles of the instrumental-combo results, the natives were restless below them. The great leap forward was taken by the Stan Getz Quartet, which advanced from fourteenth to third. Al Hirt's Bourbon Street bunch jumped to second from fifth.

Peter, Paul & Mary had the vocal-group voting all to themselves as the breakup of the Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan trio eliminated their strongest competition. The Swingle Singers made their mark on the standings in fine fashion, finishing fifth, while their compatriots, the Double Six of Paris, advanced from thirteenth to sixth.

The following is a tabulation of the many thousands of votes cast in this biggest of all jazz polls. The names of the jazzmen who won places on the 1965 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band are in boldface type. In some categories, there are two or more winners in order to make up a full-scale jazz orchestra. Artists polling fewer than 100 votes are not listed; in categories where two choices were allowed, those receiving fewer than 200 votes are not listed: in categories where four votes were allowed, no one with under 400 votes is listed.

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Leader

Trumpet

Trombone

Alto Sax

Tenor Sax

Baritone Sax

Clarinet

Piano

Guitar

Bass

Drums

Miscellaneous Instrument

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Instrumental Combo

Vocal Group

The 1965 Playboy All-Stars' All-Stars

The 1965 Playboy All-Stars Jazz Band