Newport in New York '72 vol 5, The Jimmy Smith Jam

A look at the pictures on the cover would lead one to believe that this was a lovely outdoor event with everyone in good spirits and grooving on this dynamite band eh? Yeah, well that is not exactly how it went down; things may well have been pleasant and relaxed when these guys played that day but hardly ANYONE would have seen it!

Here is what happened: My buddy and I had popped the whole $7 for the floor of the stadium (see ticket ad below) and we arrived around 6:00 (as you can see it was scheduled for 7:00) only to find the doors already open and to our horror the music already started! We rushed in only to manage to catch the last 5 minutes of this set which ENDED at 6:25!!!!! When we and the others now filling the stadium realized what was happening we protested loudly - This Sucked! How could they possibly justify opening the doors and hour and a half to two hours early and have this act play for about 1000 people?

As more and more people poured in and were informed what had been done the mood turned ugly - people were shrieking obscenities at George Wein who made some lame apologies and a vague promise to bring them back later in the show (THAT never happened!). One particularly loud New Yorker must have harangued Wein for 2 hours minimum, following him everywhere, calling him a fat toad and demanding his money back. It got so bad Wein couldn't continue as MC over the waves of booing.

Sadly for us and seemingly everyone around us the evening had been poisoned beyond repair and the bad vibes continued, tempers were short, things got too crowded and the whole thing continued to go badly. Bad vibes, fights, Police taking on the bad mood too, it was a mess! I remember a few nice moments during Nina Simone but little else. We actually ended up leaving early and junking our plans to go back the following day; my first and last stadium show and only time in Yankee Stadium was an unmitigated disaster and we fled New York entirely the next morning. I went back the next year but nothing could ever temp me into a stadium show ever again.

Listening to this set now 40 years later, it is a shame that they couldn't have played for all of us because it is a lovely set and I'm sure that had it started at the proper time, the whole evening would have gone much better and some of the other music would be on these records too. You will notice that NOTHING else played that day has ever been published despite the big names - Hopefully the second day went a little better, it couldn't have been much worse.