As valuable as the actual content of the lectures and discussions were,
they also afforded the rare opportunity for musicians, critics and scholars
to live together -- this was an inn, after all -- in a casual atmosphere
where music and discussion flowed freely.
"It was really in some respects like being on shipboard," says
Nat Hentoff, who attended many of the sessions as editor of the jazz monthly
Downbeat, "because there were really no delimitations as to hours or
place in terms of when you could talk to musicians and when they could talk
to each other. It was a continuous flow, extraordinarily relaxed, and that's
what made it different."
Jazz pianist Randy Weston returned year after year to Music Inn, where
he wrote "Berkshire Blues." He calls its impact on him "tremendous."
"I got a lot of my inspiration for African music by being at Music
Inn, meeting people like Jeffrey Holder, Baba Olatunji, Langston Hughes
and Dr. Willis James," says Weston, whose work draws heavily on African
elements. "They were all explaining the African-American experience
in a global perspective, which was unusual at the time."
WARREN FOWLER
RIGHT: SARAH VAUGHAN GRACES THE 1959 PROGRAM
COVER.
LEFT: PHILIP AND STEPHANIE BARBER WITH ELLA FITZGERALD
As participation in the annual roundtables grew, the Barbers decided
to let the outside world in on the secret of what was going on at Music
Inn -- attendance at the workshops was by invitation only -- by presenting
a concert series. "We thought it was a just a shame that you couldn't
hear wonderful jazz unless you went to some smoke-filled dive on 52nd Street
or in the Village," says Stephanie Barber. "The only jobs they
could get were in cellars or nightclubs full of smoke and lots of talk,
where they got paid very little. We thought it would be marvelous for them
to have a concert hall where they could present their music, their own Carnegie
Hall."
By the mid-'50s, concerts were regularly held under a tent in the courtyard
of the renovated stables, and thus was born the Berkshire Music Barn, featuring
performers like Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Count
Basie, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, the Modern Jazz Quartet
and Jimmy Giuffre, who grew so fond of the surroundings that he never left.
"There was no other place like it," says Giuffre, who still calls
West Stockbridge home. "It's why I moved up here."
By 1957, the success of the roundtables and the concert series led to
the creation of the School of Jazz at Music Inn, with MJQ pianist John Lewis
as director. For three weeks in August, famous pros like Lewis, Gillespie,
Giuffre, Lennie Tristano, and Max Roach trained a new generation of jazz
players in the first formal effort of its kind. Both Arif Mardin, whose
credits as a record producer include Aretha
Next Column |
WARREN FOWLER
STEPHANIE BARBER WITH LOUIS ARMSTRONG ON
OPENING NIGHT 1960.
Franklin and the Bee Gees, and Ornette Coleman, who pushed jazz to the
limits of abstraction in the 1960s, were graduates of the School of Jazz.
With the concerts at the Music Barn going full steam and the school blazing
new trails in jazz education, Music Inn became known throughout the country
as a great place to hear and play jazz. Among the numerous live albums recorded
there were two by the MJQ and one by saxophonist Sonny Rollins. By the end
of the decade, Music Inn was synonymous with the best in jazz.
"Jazz has often been associated with a city, like New Orleans style,
Kansas City style, Chicago style," says Dave Brubeck, who liked the
place so much he brought his family there to stay one summer. "But
it can happen wherever the right guys get together. And a lot was happening
up in Lenox. I don't think a style came out of there, but many styles were
being examined, and the boundaries of jazz were being stretched up there."
In 1957, the Barbers bought and moved into Wheatleigh, the main house
of the original estate, and began converting it into the palatial inn it
remains today. After a few years, the demands of running both places grew
burdensome, so they decided to sell Music Inn. And although the place still
had two decades of life left in it, a particular era came to an end, as
did a small but vital chapter in the history of jazz in America. Continues...
CLEMENS KALISCHER
CONCERTGOERS AT THE
POTTING SHED IN THE 1950'S
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