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 and 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.
For the third edition of the series, the Pleyel Arena hosted a supreme cast of musicians, all of whom recognised as top tier leaders and sidemen. Dizzy Gillespie returned to the stage with his trademark bent trumpet (he'd always played a normal trumpet until the dancers Stump and Stumpy fell on it at a party in 1953 and distorted its shape). The Adderley Brothers – Nat and Cannonball – threw their hats in the ring, as well as the iconic Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge and Don Byas. Noteworthy appearances also include a young Lalo Schifrin, the Argentine virtuoso pianist and music director who was on the brink of an enormously successful career as a film composer. On sprawling themes that champion solos and freedom, the top musicians of the moment grapple with each other and push each other upwards.
