Federal offices, including local Federal courts and the Postal Service, will be closed today (January 9, 2025). It’s a national day of mourning for President Jimmy Carter, whose state funeral and private burial are scheduled for today.
Carter was a well-documented lover of music. His affinity for classical performance and friendships in the country-rock world are well known. He also expressed his appreciation of jazz, and understood its place in American history. At the star-studded White House Jazz Festival he organized along with Newport Jazz Festival impresario George Wein, the 39th President spoke in specifics about his relationship to jazz music and his feelings about its place in the culture. At the June 18, 1978 festival, Carter said:
“You are welcome to the first White House jazz festival. I hope we have some more in the future. This is an honor for me—to walk through this crowd and meet famous jazz musicians and the families of those who are no longer with us, but whose work and whose spirit and whose beautiful music will live forever in our country. If there ever was an indigenous art form, one that is special and peculiar to the United States and represents what we are as a country, I would say that it’s jazz. Starting late in the last century, there was a unique combination of two characteristics that have made America what it is: individuality and a free expression of one’s inner spirit. In an almost unconstrained way, vivid, alive, aggressive, innovative on the one hand, and the severest form of self-discipline on the other, never compromising quality as the human spirit bursts forward in an expression of song.
At first, this jazz form was not well accepted in respectable circles. I think there was an element of racism perhaps at the beginning, because most of the famous early performers were black. And particularly in the South to have black and white musicians playing together was not a normal thing. And I believe that this particular form of music—of art—has done as much as anything to break down those barriers and to let us live and work and play and make beautiful music together.
And the other thing that kind of separated jazz musicians from the upper levels of society was the reputation jazz musicians had. Some people thought they stayed up late at night, drank a lot, and did a lot of carousing around. And it took a few years for society to come together. I don’t know. I’m not going to say, as President, whether the jazz musicians became better behaved or the rest of society caught up with them in drinking, carousing around, and staying up late at night. But the fact is that over a period of years the quality of jazz could not be constrained. It could not be unrecognized. And it swept not only our country, but is perhaps the favorite export product of the United States to Europe and in other parts of the world.
I began listening to jazz when I was quite young—on the radio, listening to performances broadcast from New Orleans. And later when I was a young officer in the navy, in the early ’40s, I would go to Greenwich Village to listen to the jazz performers who came there. And with my wife later on, we’d go down to New Orleans and listen to individual performances on Sunday afternoon on Royal Street, sit in on the jam sessions that lasted for hours and hours. And then later, of course, we began to learn the individual performers through the phonograph records and also on the radio itself. This has had a very beneficial effect on my life. And I’m very grateful for what all these remarkable performers have done.
Twenty-five years ago, the first Newport Jazz Festival was held. So this is a celebration of an anniversary and a recognition of what it meant to bring together such a wide diversity of performers and different elements of jazz in its broader definition that collectively is even a much more profound accomplishment than the superb musicians and the individual types of jazz standing alone. And it’s with a great deal of pleasure that I—as president of the United States—welcome tonight superb representatives of this music form. Having performers here who represent the history of music throughout this century, some quite old in years, still young at heart, others newcomers to jazz who have brought an increasing dynamism to it, and a constantly evolving, striving for perfection as the new elements of jazz are explored.
George Wein has put together this program, and I’d like to welcome him and all the superb performers whom I met individually earlier today. And I know that we all have in store for us a wonderful treat as some of the best musicians of our country—of the world—show us what it means to be an American and to join in the pride that we feel for those who’ve made jazz such a wonderful part of our lives. Thank you very much.”
The White House Jazz Festival in 1978 included the talents of about 40 of the biggest names in jazz at the time, in front of about 800 guests on the South Lawn. Nearly the entire sweep of the music’s evolution to that point was represented: from 90-year old pianist Eubie Blake, to bebop icons like Max Roach & Sonny Rollins, to the fusion innovators Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, and avant-garde players like Ornette Coleman. An iconic photograph from that day shows President Carter consoling an emotional Charles Mingus, the bassist and composer who was in attendance but too ill to perform. Carter had complimented Mingus on his body of work and its value to American culture and to Carter personally. That White House event turned out to be Mingus’ final public appearance – he passed away the following winter after a battle with ALS.
The event also included a performance by Max Roach on the hi-hat, trumpet from Dizzy Gillespie, and the onetime peanut farmer-turned-President on the vocal part to Diz’s “Salt Peanuts.”
39th President James Earl Carter, Jr. died December 29, 2024 at the age of 100. He’ll be laid to rest in a private interment in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
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