A Look Back: SUNY Albany’s Jazz Festival (1968)

Much promise, some disappointment with Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Mann, and others

By Mike Stampalia.

58 years ago today (May 3, 1968), SUNY Albany presented their second annual jazz festival. A two-day event, with Day One (Friday, May 3) featuring Clark Terry and Herbie Mann, while Day Two (Saturday, May 4) headlined Dizzy Gillespie, with Charles Lloyd and Cavril Payne preceding him.

Anticipation was high heading into the show:

This week five of the nation’s finest jazz musicians will perform in Jazz Festival II as a part of Explosion 68 festivities. Leading off in the series of three concerts was the Gary Burton Quartet. Hailed as the greatest influence on vibes since Milt Jackson, young Burton’s music is a unique juxtaposition of rock and jazz elements. Burton’s current group has two L. P.’s on the RCA Victor label: “The Time Machine,” and “Duster.” They appeared in the Campus Center garden on May 2.

Tonight, in the new gym, flutist Herbie Mann’s septet will play opposite Clark Terry’s big band. Mann is most well known for his fiery Afro-Latin percussive effects combined with the sound of a variety of exotic flutes. Following Mann, trumpeter Clark Terry’s big band will hold forth for the second half of the concert. In the short time since the band’s inception, it has generated excitement from musicians and critics alike. Clark Terry will probably be familiar to late-evening television viewers because he is a regular member of the “Tonight Show” orchestra where he occasionally displays his humorous talent for mumbling song lyrics.

Charles Lloyd and Dizzy Gillespie will be the attractions for the Saturday evening concert, the final in the festival. Charles Lloyd’s quartet won national fame last summer, after a series of highly acclaimed appearances at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, where his best-selling album “Love-In” was recorded in concert. A second wave of publicity showered Lloyd’s group early in November when they cheered by thousands in Moscow despite adverse preperformance announcements by government officials regarding Lloyd’s performance.

Rounding out the Festival’s roster for Saturday night is an appearance by Dizzy Gillespie’s quintet. Little can be said about Gillesple to add to the acclaim has inspired for the past twenty years except to mention that he continues to lead a volitile combination of superb musicians in a
remarkably cohesive unit.

Tickets for the Friday and Saturday evening concerts may be obtained today in the Campus Center. Tickets will also be sold each night at the door. The prices are: $3.50 for a combination ticket for both Friday and Saturday nights; student tax only. For either night the price is $2.50 with student tax; and $4.00 each night without student tax.

(Albany Student Press, May 3, 1968)

But things don’t always go as planned:

Last Saturday night’s concert, the last of three jazz shows, was an artistic success but a failure for several reasons. The concert was not geared for the many parents who attended. Not only did parents complain about the “Noise” (Charles Lloyd and his quartet played for over an hour), but parents also complained about the uncomfortable bleechers (there were no backs on them) and the unbearable heat in the gymnasium.

When singer Cavril Payne, a good jazz vocalist with an Ella Fitzgerald type style, appeared, the parents finally came alive. However, the entire microphone system went dead and not one note could be heard. Obviously disgruntled, many parents left.

The parents who remained greeted Dizzy Gillespie, who first performed two hours after the concert began, with an I-don’t-care attitude. As the parents started to file out of the gymnasium, sons and daughters were hastily apologizing. “Gee, Dad. I’m sorry, but there was nothing else to do. Next year I’ll come home on Parent’s Weekend.”

(Gary Gelt for the Albany Student Press, May 10, 1968)