Various Artists - Newport Jazz Festival, Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY, 7-8-1973

Here's something interesting and a little different that what I usually post. Also, this is unreleased and barely even mentioned on the Internet. In one concert in 1973, there were sets by Ttto Puente, Duke Ellington, Donny Hathaway, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin. What a collection of talent! Each of them played about 30 to 35 minutes. And while the recordings aren't perfect, they're all soundboards.

I've had a hard time finding out much about this concert, because this great event has mostly disappeared down the memory hole. But I did find one New York Times article from the day after the concert, which you can read here:

Roaring Newport Finish A Fervent Gospel Shout - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

It doesn't reveal that much. But from various sources, I gather that, by 1973, the Newport Jazz Festival had grown increasingly ambitious. Although mainly based in Newport, Rhode Island, it began putting on concerts in New York City in order to draw bigger crowds. It also began booking musical acts that weren't really jazz, which helped bring in those bigger crowds. This would continue after 1973, with "Newport Jazz Festival" concerts being held all over, even as far away as Japan. This concert was on the last day out of about a week of music. Others who played in festival included Stevie Wonder, the Staple Singers, War, and Roberta Flack. But I don't have any music except what's here.

Probably the most surprising thing about this concert is the involvement of jazz pianist and band leader Duke Ellington, because his heyday was in a much earlier era. In fact, he was born in the 1800s! (1899, to be precise.) That meant he was 74 years old at the time of this concert. Despite his age, he was still going strong musically, putting out new albums and regularly playing concerts. But he didn't last much longer, dying less than a year later. Much of Ellington's set is instrumental, with an orchestra. There is a female vocalist, Anita Moore, on some of the songs near the end.

Tito Puente might be the most famous Latin jazz musician. I don't know that much about him or his music. However, I already posted an album here where he collaborated with Steve Winwood in the 1990s. Much of his set also is instrumental.

The rest of the concert was much more about soul than jazz. Donny Hathaway was a great singer and musician, but he suffered mental health issues and committed suicide in the late 1970s. There are very few live recordings by him, so I'm glad to see this one get more exposure.

Ray Charles, of course, is a musical legend. I've been wanting to post more of his music, but there isn't a lot of great worth that hasn't already been officially released. So it's also good to give his set here more exposure. The same goes for another musical legend, Aretha Franklin. I'd guess there are less than 10 concert recordings from her late 1960s and early 1970s peak years, so it's also nice to have this reach more listeners.

I'm not sure of the exact order of the sets. I do know Tito Puente went first, since that's mentioned in the first track. And the New York Times article mentioned that Aretha Franklin went last. I'm guessing with the other three. If anyone knows the correct order for sure, please let me know and I'll fix it. It's too bad none of these musical greats played with each other on this day, but you can't have everything.

This album is two hours and 43 minutes long.

01 talk (Tito Puente)
02 Ritual Fire Dance [Instrumental] (Tito Puente)
03 Oye Como Va (Tito Puente)
04 talk (Tito Puente)
05 110th Street and 5th Avenue [Instrumental] (Tito Puente)
06 talk (Tito Puente)
07 Nina y Se (Tito Puente)
08 El Rey del Timbal [Instrumental] (Tito Puente)
09 C Jam Blues [Instrumental] (Duke Ellington)
10 Sophisticated Lady [Instrumental] (Duke Ellington)
11 Up Jump [Instrumental] (Duke Ellington)
12 Things Ain't What They Used to Be [Instrumental] (Duke Ellington)
13 Take the 'A' Train [Instrumental] (Duke Ellington)
14 New York. New York (Duke Ellington)
15 I Got It Bad [And That Ain't Good] (Duke Ellington)
16 Scat Spectacular (Duke Ellington)
17 Satin Doll (Duke Ellington)
18 One More Time for the People (Duke Ellington)
19 What's Going On (Donny Hathaway)
20 You've Got a Friend (Donny Hathaway)
21 Little Ghetto Boy (Donny Hathaway)
22 Valdez in the Country (Donny Hathaway)
23 Love, Love, Love (Donny Hathaway)
24 The Ghetto [Instrumental] (Donny Hathaway)
25 talk (Ray Charles)
26 Let the Good Times Roll (Ray Charles)
27 Georgia on My Mind (Ray Charles)
28 The Long and Winding Road (Ray Charles)
29 Look What They've Done to My Song Ma (Ray Charles)
30 Don't Change on Me (Ray Charles)
31 talk (Ray Charles)
32 I Can't Stop Loving You (Ray Charles)
33 Eleanor Rigby (Ray Charles)
34 I Can Make It Thru the Day [But Oh Those Lonely Nights] (Ray Charles)
35 Shake (Ray Charles)
36 Rock Steady (Aretha Franklin)
37 Oh Me Oh My [I'm a Fool for You Baby] (Aretha Franklin)
38 Angel (Aretha Franklin)
39 Day Dreaming (Aretha Franklin)
40 Spanish Harlem (Aretha Franklin)
41 Brand New Me (Aretha Franklin)
42 talk (Aretha Franklin)
43 Dr. Feelgood [Love Is a Serious Business] (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/prPnV26E

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/CLQX63ZkIKVuKC8/file

I didn't find much written about this concert, but I got luckier when it came to photos. I found some pictures of Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin from this exact concert, so I picked the best of both. I couldn't find any photos of the other three, so that determined who I had on the cover. 

However, I also found a promotional advert for the concert. I cut that up and rearranged it a bit, but what you see at the top is all from that. I didn't change any of the text for the portions that I did include.

Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway - WPLJ Radio, A & R Studios, New York City, 11-24-1971

Here's something I just discovered the other day. So it went to the top of my ever-growing pile of albums to post.

I've posted a few albums by female soul singer Roberta Flack, but this is the first with soul singer and songwriter Donny Hathaway. Hathaway is considered a soul legend these days, but his music career was rather short and troubled. He started to hit it big with the hit single "The Ghetto" in 1969. But he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1971. Mental illness wreaked havoc on his life and his career after that, and he had to be hospitalized multiple times. He committed suicide in 1979.

Here's his Wikipedia page, for more info about him:

Donny Hathaway - Wikipedia

One bright spot in his musical career was his frequent duets with Roberta Flack. They put out a duet album in 1972, "Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway," and had some hit singles together in the late 1970s. That said, it seems they didn't perform in concert together much, since Hathaway didn't perform concerts that often after his mental health issues got worse. There are no official live recordings of them together that I know of, and virtually no such bootlegs either.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find the bootleg I'm sharing here on YouTube. I converted it into mp3 format and divided it into individual tracks. This show was recorded in front of a small studio audience for a live radio broadcast. The sound quality is excellent, just as good as an official live album from the time period.

Their 1972 album didn't come out until May of that year. This concert is from November 1971. However, most of the songs here are ones on that 1972 album. I'm guessing most or all of that album was recorded roughly around the time of this concert. Two singles from the album were released in late 1971.

The last two songs come from a different source, a US TV special broadcast in 1972 called "Double Exposure." The sound quality of those is significantly worse. The music even wobbles at a couple of points. So you might consider those bonus tracks of sorts. I included them mostly because Flack had a massive hit in 1972 with the song "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face," and I thought it would be good to include a version of that.

Note that on a lot of these songs the vocals are dominated more by Flack than Hathaway. But I believe Hathaway at least played keyboards on all the songs. Although Hathaway was a talented songwriter, he wasn't prolific and most of the songs are covers.

This album is 49 minutes long without the last two songs, and 58 minutes long if you include those too.

01 talk (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
02 Where Is the Love (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
03 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
04 talk (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
05 When Love Has Grown (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
06 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
07 You've Got a Friend (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
08 For All We Know (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
09 Baby I Love You (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
10 I [Who Have Nothing] (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
11 talk (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
12 Little Ghetto Boy (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
13 Be Real Black for Me (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
14 Someday (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
15 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15218635/RobertaFlDonnyH_1971_WPLJRadioARStdiosNYC__11-24-1971_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a concert that took place at UCLA in Los Angeles in September 1972. It was the only good color photo of the two of them on stage that I could find.