Jazz fans in the 21st century enjoy jazz primarily by listening to recordings on LPs, CDs, music streaming services, and by attending live performances in cozy clubs, concert halls, or outdoor settings. But beginning in the early 1950s, there was another way to enjoy jazz, if only sporadically. And that was television.
When it comes to finding jazz performances on TV, it’s never been an easy thing to do, and it’s also a bit of a head-scratcher to figure out why jazz has been played and celebrated so rarely on the tube in the past 60 years or so. But there was a time when there were far more opportunities to see the all-time greats performing jazz classics on television. Today, unfortunately, it’s a different story.
Going back to the beginning, we can start with The Ed Sullivan Show, a variety program that ran for 23 years and had many jazz legends as guests (as well as every other entertainment act you can think of). The series first aired in 1948 as The Toast of the Town, and throughout its more than two decades on the air, Sullivan invited the likes of Louie Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Nat “King” Cole, Dave Brubeck, Harry James, Illinois Jacquet, Stan Kenton, Astrud Gilberto, and many more to perform on the show. Of course, these were pretty much random appearances, and hardcore jazz fans couldn’t rely on seeing a favorite musician or singer like those above on a regular basis. Still, Sullivan provided the opportunity for younger generations to perhaps get their first exposure to jazz veterans and the music they played.
In 1954, The Tonight Show debuted with its first host, the multi-talented comedian/musician/author Steve Allen, who claimed to have written over 5,000 songs in his career. He loved jazz (and even portrayed Benny Goodman in The Benny Goodman Story) and used his program, with the help of his bandleader, Skitch Henderson, to introduce millions of viewers to the same sounds and musicians previously known only to jazz aficionados.
Allen also began hosting a prime-time Sunday night program in 1956, and on July 22 of that year, arranged to have a remote camera follow him into the famous Birdland Club in New York to air a live segment featuring Count Basie and his orchestra. The band played “One O’clock Jump,” “April in Paris,” and “Bleep Blop Blues.” If only Allen could have done something like that more often…Ah, but he did, several years later.
A new program at the time did devote each of its episodes to jazz. Stars of Jazz debuted in 1956, featuring performances and interviews with many leading jazz performers of the time. It began as a local program in Los Angeles, produced by Jimmie Baker and skillfully hosted by Bobby Troup (composer of “Route 66” and others). The show’s popularity led to ABC broadcasting it nationally in 1958. Some of the musicians who appeared to play in the studio included Oscar Peterson, Billie Holiday, Dave Brubeck, Jack Teagarden, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, Chet Baker, and Troup’s wife, singer Julie London.
Rather than merely introducing each guest star or band before turning the spotlight to their performances, Troup provided a bit of history and historic images with his commentary. He said of the show, “We present the musicians as men of stature. We try to enlighten our audience about the history and techniques of jazz. If we take the music of a certain period or a certain performer, we do our best to show all sides of it.” The show filmed 130 episodes as kinescopes, but only 45 exist today, and are being restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Later in 1956, jazz gained additional exposure on TV with the premiere of The Nat “King” Cole Show on November 5 on NBC. Cole had led his trio since the late 1930s and became Capitol Records top-selling act in the ’40s. He achieved more widespread popularity as a singer of hits such as “Nature Boy,” “Unforgettable,” and “Smile,” “Mona Lisa, and “Too Young,” which enabled him to land his own variety program on NBC, the first nationally broadcast television show hosted by an African American. The program ran only fifteen minutes at first, but became a half-hour show in July of 1957.
Despite having regional sponsors, the series could not find a national sponsor, and suffered financially because of it, despite having guest stars including Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mel Torme. The last episode aired in December of ’57.
Just as Cole ended his program, jazz found a new chance to shine on TV, if only for one glorious hour, on a special called The Sound of Jazz. It aired live on CBS from the Town Theater in New York on December 8, 1957, as part of the series called The Seven Lively Arts. This particular hour featured a head-spinning line-up of legends, including Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, and others. Newspaper critic John Crosby hosted, with jazz writers Nat Hentoff and Whitney Balliett serving as consultants.
The show’s performance of “Fine and Mellow” reunited Holiday with her longtime friend and collaborator Lester Young for the final time. Hentoff recalled that Young was not in good health at the time, and was advised to skip the big band section of the show so he could concentrate on playing in the group with Holiday. The result remains one of the classic moments of jazz in television history.
Just a few weeks later on December 30, The Timex All-Star Jazz Show aired its first of one-hour live specials on NBC. The debut broadcast was hosted by Steve Allen (naturally) and showcased the likes of Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, and masses of other guest musicians. The specials ran occasionally until early 1959 and were produced by Lawrence White and Dwight Hemion (who directed), with George T. Simon as consultant. Jackie Gleason and Garry Moore served as hosts as well. Each special was an especially high-energy affair and moved at a brisk pace, creating an excitement that practically reached through the TV screen to grab viewers in.
Jazz returned in a significant way in 1961 with the series Jazz Casual on NET (before it evolved into PBS). Hosted by music critic Ralph Gleason, the show was produced by KQED in San Francisco, with thirty-one episodes broadcast on an irregular basis between 1961 and ’68. Most episodes included short interviews with the musicians (including Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Rushing, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, B.B. King, John Coltrane, and many others) which afforded viewers rare opportunities to hear their favorites speak and offer some insight into their work.
Perhaps a less likely place to find jazz on TV, as the 1950s rolled into the 1960s, was Playboy’s Penthouse, a syndicated variety show created and hosted by Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy magazine. The program first aired on October 24, 1959, from the studios of WBKB in Chicago. The set was designed to represent Hefner’s apartment, with each episode featuring nondescript “guests” and Playboy bunnies mingling in the background as the chronically smug Hefner casually addressed the camera in his tux with pipe in hand and chatted with his celebrity guests. The first episode alone featured Ella Fitzerald, Nat King Cole, and composer Cy Coleman (along with controversial comedy legend Lenny Bruce), and the list of jazz musicians and singers who later appeared during the show’s run included Sammy Davis Jr, Sarah Vaughn, and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.
Next came a more earnest attempt to heighten the jazz profile on television, Jazz Scene USA — the brainchild of Steve Allen, which broadcast 26 half-hour episodes in 1962. Originating from Hollywood, Allen financed it through his own production company, Meadowlane Productions. Stars of Jazz producer Jimmie Baker served as producer. Genial singer-songwriter Oscar Brown Jr. hosted most of the episodes, spotlighting the best in the business at the time, such as Barney Kessel, Cannonball Adderley and his sextet, Jimmy Smith, and Nancy Wilson.
After Jazz Scene USA ended its run, American viewers saw precious little jazz on the tube, with the exception of the guest musicians and singers on Johnny Carson’s incarnation of The Tonight Show (beginning in 1962), aided by the big band led by Doc Severinson.
One particularly bright exception to the overall shortage of jazz on TV came in December of 1975, from PBS again (the ratings-conscious major networks had long-since developed a chronic fear of airing jazz in prime time). The network aired, as part of its Soundstage series, a three-hour tribute to longtime promoter and record producer John Hammond, titled The World of John Hammond. Presented in front of a studio audience, the event featured greats including Benny Goodman (Hammond’s brother-in-law), Red Norvo, Milt Hinton, Teddy Wilson, Jo Jones, and a guitarist who was just beginning to make a name for himself, George Benson.
The program was a mix of conversation between Hammond, co-hosts, and guests, and musical performances by those whose careers were greatly boosted by the impresario (even Bob Dylan made a rare appearance). One of the many highlights came with Goodman and Benson jamming on a red-hot version of “Seven Come Eleven” that nearly brought the house down (and can be enjoyed on YouTube).
In 1984, The tireless Steve Allen returned to TV with Steve Allen’s Music Room on the then-new Disney Channel. It was basically a talk show with the emphasis on music performances by jazz greats, and boasted a studio band of experienced pros led by vibraphonist Terry Gibbs. Guests during the program’s two-year run included Joe Willians, Burt Bacharach, Rosemary Clooney, Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme, Henry Mancini, and Sarah Vaughn.
But the truly landmark American series devoted to jazz came in 2001, with Ken Burns’ epic ten-part documentary, Jazz. The history of the art form, presented chronologically, assigned a theme to each episode, told in the well-known Burns style of mixing rare photos and films, voiceovers of quotes from the greats, and over 75 interviews interspersed throughout.
The bulk of the series covered the jazz years from the early 1900s onward as it delved into Ragtime, “hot” jazz, the birth of big band swing, the encroachment of bebop, and other trends. Only the final episode reviewed jazz after 1961. Naturally, the towering influence of giants such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington permeated most episodes, but Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and other innovators were featured as well. The series was produced by Florentine Films in association with the BBC and PBS affiliate WETA in Washington.
Such a massive undertaking first graced our screens over two decades ago, but jazz has not been able to find a secure home on television since. There have been a number of well-made, stand-alone documentaries, of course, some of which can be found on streaming services. But today, these require some effort to seek out. A selected few include Art Pepper: Notes from a Jazz Survivor (1982), Chet Baker — Let’s Get Lost(1988), A Great Day in Harlem(1994), What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), Chasing Trane (2017), Birth of the Cool (2019), and in more recent years, Quincy (2021) on Netflix.
As for a regular, reliable presence of jazz on TV, however, that day might not come again. So, it looks as though it’s back to the recordings and live gigs for fans eager to keep this invaluable art form alive. But don’t forget that the older, long-gone jazz television programs mentioned throughout this piece can be viewed, in whole or in part, on YouTube. So, we can take comfort in knowing that we have the means to re-visit some of the all-time classic TV jazz performances of the past.
