JATP – Jazz at the Philharmonic – are the four mythical letters representing a series of concerts that helped the world fall in love with jazz. Norman Granz was behind the project, the man known as the "most successful impresario in the history of jazz." He worked with the likes of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker ... the list goes on and on. The JATP series was shot between the 40s and the 60s, aiming to showcase the world's best jazz artists and, from 1958-60, the series went to Paris. Here, before a crowd of established jazz lovers (the post-war years saw an explosion of the genre in France), the Pleyel arena played host to a music vibrating with the innovation of previous decades, capturing the vivacious zeitgeist of an increasingly developed, progressive and complex world.
Part one featured Stan Getz, one of the most accomplished and enduring saxophonists of all time, who would go on to popularize "The Girl From Ipanema" only a few years later. His signature "warm sound" was already present, a wispy, mellow timbre that simultaneously elevated and injected a touch of melancholia into proceedings. Other notable performers include the great Adderley brothers, firstly Cannonball, the legendary saxophonist so-named for his voracious appetite as a child, and secondly Nat, a trumpeter known for penning the standard, "Work Song."
