Word: jazzes
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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They were all there-Cab Calloway, Earl ("Fatha") Hines, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, J. J. Johnson, Gerry Mulligan and scores of others. It was not a Bourbon Street reunion of the jazz giants, nor were they stompin' at the Savoy. The man tinkling out Happy Birthday on the piano-with authority-was none other than a fellow named Dick Nixon, President of the U.S. "I've never seen the place like this," exclaimed a venerable White House butler as he distributed glasses of champagne from a silver tray. "It sure has lots of soul tonight...
What else could be expected when the President throws a party in the White House for one of the greatest figures of American jazz, Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington? Presenting Ellington with the Medal of Freedom on his 70th birthday-the first such award in the new Administration-Nixon said: "In the royalty of American music, no man swings more or stands higher than the Duke." The Duke responded by bussing the startled President twice on each cheek...
Cynics, of course, would say that Nixon's aim was to win black support in just such a manner. The chances are that they would be wrong in this case. The idea for the party was suggested by Nixon's old New York associate Charles McWhorter, a jazz buff, and Nixon, no jazz fan but the first piano-playing President since Harry Truman, enthusiastically endorsed it. Ellington did not participate in anyone's campaign and, in fact, had not even met Nixon until the day of the party. The traditional political types were not invited...
Last week, at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, the Royal celebrated the 20th anniversary of its first U.S. tour with the American premieres of two works that admirably displayed its body-English mode of dance. Jazz Calendar, the slighter piece, is a light-hearted series of variations on the old nursery rhyme that begins, "Monday's child is fair of face." Wednesday's child, who is "full of woe," is portrayed by Svetlana Beriosova as a studiously mournful, black-clad wraith, pursued by a clutching quartet of mottled, mock-serious snakes. Friday's children love...
...there's more. Sunday afternoon a jazz groups will play Dixieland stuff. One awed student, Tommy Harris '70, said yesterday, "Kirby's the best thing to hit Quincy House since the fire four years...