Live from the Kennedy Center
Reprising the anti-communist jazz tour of 1958
“The Trump administration has been threatening to clear out all the ‘woke’ shows at the Kennedy Center,” Mark Judge reported last month, “and several artists have canceled shows just to spite the Republicans. For example, “Hamilton and the Gay Men’s Chorus walked,” and Yasmin Williams told Kennedy Center interim director Richard Grenell the president was degrading the “formerly prestigious institution.” Grenell shot back that “we didn’t fire a single show. We don’t cancel a single show.”
Trump plans to attend the June 11 opening of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center. Judge expects “a lot of virtue signaling and protests from the left” and offers a suggestion Grenell and the president might take to heart:
In a sense, jazz concerts at the Kennedy Center under the Trump administration could be like the anti-communist jazz tour that occurred in 1958. That year jazz musician Dave Brubeck played a series of concerts in Poland, which at the time was under the boot of a communist regime. In 1948 the Soviet Union annexed most of the territories it had invaded in 1939, and Stalin subsequently banned jazz, which only existed in secret underground concerts. But by 1955 the ban had been lifted. One Polish journalist called Brubeck’s concert “a breath of fresh air to local music lovers and jazz aficionados, hungry for live performances of original American jazz.” Crowds flocked to Brubeck and followed him and his band around the country. It’s not an exaggeration to say that jazz helped bring down communism.
A Kennedy Center lineup could start with Arturo Sandoval (trumpet) and Paquito D’Rivera (saxophone), exiles from Communist Cuba who really love America. Add Wynton Marsalis on trumpet and in the sax section Branford Marsalis and Ernie Watts. Eddie Daniels on clarinet, Herbie Hancock on piano, maybe John Pattitucci on bass. Jack DeJohnette, Roy Haynes or Terri Lyne Carrington on drums. George Benson or Pat Metheny on guitar, Diana Krall on vocals, and so on. If any artist declines to participate, many alternates would doubtless step up.
President Trump could also host concerts at the White House, perhaps with artists now being discovered by a new generation of fans. Guitarist Elvin Bishop could again team up with Mickey Thomas on “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” which Trump has done just a few times. The great Bobby Hatfield passed away in 2003 but Righteous Brother Bill Medley carries on at 84, same age as Tom Jones. By some accounts he can still bring it, but back in the day Tom swore he was never going to fall in love again.
Burt Bacharach left us in 2023 but Dionne Warwick might be persuaded to sing “Don’t Make Me Over” just one more time. David Sanborn has departed but perhaps Eric Clapton could sing about “hard times,” as he did on David’s show back in 1989. Many possibilities surely come to mind. Could get some decent ratings.
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Don't know much about jazz but since you mention the saxophone, were you aware that Castro banned the use of the sax because--ready for this?--it was invented by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian, and the Belgians were still running the Belgian Congo at the time of the Cuban Revolution!
You can't make this stuff up.
But modern commies "got no kick against modern jazz."