This incomplete set was recorded by Columbia at the Newport Jazz Festival. Wayne
Shorter missed this date because of traffic into Newport, so the group performed
as a quartet. This is the earliest extant recording of "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down";
the studio version was recorded a couple months later at the August 20 Bitches
Brew session.
The 1969 Newport Festival featured several rock acts -- Led Zeppelin, Ten Years
After, Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention -- and rhythm and blues
acts like James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone. Things didn't work out as George
Wein had hoped, so he later returned to the more conservative format.
The Quintet was busy throughout the first half of 1969: Club Baron, New York (January
25-February 16); Cellar Door, Washington (March 10-15); Duffy's Backstage, Rochester
(unknown dates, March); Village Gate, New York (April 25-26, May 23-24, and July
29-August 10);Spectrum, Philadelphia (May 11); Plugged Nickel Club, Chicago (June
4-14); Blue Coronet Club, Brooklyn (June 21-29); Morgan State Jazz Festival, Baltimore
(June 22); Newport Festival (July 5); Central Park, New York (July 7); Memorial Auditorium, Dallas (July 18); Juan-les-Pins
Festival, Antibes (July 25-26); Rutgers University Stadium, New Brunswick (July
27); Sheraton Park Hotel, French Lick (French Lick Jazz Festival) (July 31); The
Spectrum, Philadelphia (August 15); Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis (August 16); Grant
Park Theater, Chicago (August 22); Crosley Field, Cincinnati (Ohio Jazz Festival)
(August 23).
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