The Messengers made their most memorable trip abroad when they toured Japan in January 1961, the first modern jazz group invited there by Japanese promoters. Previous jazz tours, such as Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic production or those organized by the U.S. State Department, had featured primarily big- band musicians and singers. The Messengers were a unified front with the look and sound of a progressive bop band, and the Japanese greeted them like hipster royalty. They were met at the airport by hundreds of screaming Japanese girls in kimonos, as ecstatic as the U.S. fans who would greet the Beatles three years later. “I never saw anything like it,” Art said. “When we first went to Japan, they had Lee Morgan shirts, Wayne Shorter overcoats, all that kind of stuff, in the department stores. The same kind of publicity the Beatles got in the U.S., we got in Japan, and plus. I think we’re the only American artists that had an audience with the emperor. But this country [the U.S.] never said a word about it, never a word.” On tour, musicians were typically responsible for covering the costs of their own accommodations. “We stayed in some hole- in- the- wall hotels over the years,” Wayne said. Japanese promoters provided each Jazz Messenger with a princely hotel room and limo, complete with a deferential driver in white cap and gloves. Gliding down highways to gigs, the musicians saw large roadside advertisements for Messengers shows alongside toothpaste ads. In the United States, the group usually played for club audiences of around a hundred people, who mostly sat in sedate appreciation of the music. In Japan, auditoriums were packed with thousands of dancing fans, heads bobbing in unison, humming along to every note of the band’s performance. “The night after our first concert at Sankei Hall, we signed autographs until two in the morning,” Wayne said. “But we didn’t mind, because we went to carry the message of our jazz, the freedom of jazz. Art said that Japan was our second home.” The youthful performances of Wayne and Lee stirred up a special fever of excitement among Japanese girls. youtu.be/9YH175fH2jo
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 16:20:07 +0000
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