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| Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie headlined the French Lick Jazz Festival in 1958 and 1959, when more than 14,000 visitors flocked here for a weekend-long party and a lineup of the biggest names in jazz. |
Before Coachella, Bonnaroo
and Lollapalooza — before Woodstock, even — there was French Lick.
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| The cover of the 1959 festival, along with the full lineup below. (click to enlarge) |
With our Jazz
Under the Dome coming up next weekend, this is a perfect time to do it.
Jazz and French Lick have a deep connection to each other, dating back to these
two summers 60 years ago when French Lick hosted the first major jazz festival
held in the Midwest.
For just two dollars and twenty
cents (or $4.80 for the good seats), you got a ticket into one of the hottest
music festivals and biggest parties in the country. That was back in the day
when French Lick Springs Hotel was owned by Sheraton, and newspapers from
Boston to New York to Chicago reported on the festival with accounts like this:
French Lick, Indiana, has made itself into a
flourishing music festival almost overnight. With imagination and boldness, the
Hotel Sheraton people have transformed this sleepy little Hoosier town into
something that is being talked about all over the United States.
How exactly did that happen?
Well the ball got rolling a year earlier in 1957, when the hotel hosted a
smaller event with regional musicians. It ran for five days and exceeded
expectations, drawing 8,000 guests from all over. And that was enough to sell
George Wein on directing another huge jazz festival. Wein was the brains behind
the famed Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and he next zeroed in on
French Lick — with plenty of hype to go with it.
“Without qualification, there never has been anything
like this French Lick Jazz Festival in the Midwest – and that means everywhere
west of Newport,” he touted.
He wasn’t lying. The first
gala was spread out over four straight weekends in August of 1958, and while
jazz was the star of the show, each weekend brought a different note. The first
weekend warmed up with a choral program and contest, including barbershop
quartet competition. Then came the main jazz festival from August 15-17, featuring
other big-name acts like Stan Kenton, Errol Gardner, Dave Brubeck and Bobby
Hackett. The following weekend was a country and folk music session including hoedown
groups from the South. The last weekend wrapped up with a final “Classic Galaxy”
featuring the Louisville Orchestra and Indianapolis Symphony.
The hillside bowl on the lawn
of the hotel made a natural amphitheater that could seat 5,000 spectators. They
filled every seat, and then some. Sunday night attendance for the jazz festival
was 5,300, and many had to stand until folding chairs could be placed out.
All told, the head count for
the whole weekend was 14,000 visitors. And for a town of 2,000, it might things
a bit crowded.
The local newspaper describes
the chaos: Never before has French Lick seen
so many cars parked here. Even in the heydays of the gambling resort which drew
many here the Derby weekend was it comparable with last Sunday, as at that time
many came by train.
The liquor stores in town completely
sold out of whiskey one day into the festival. Dozens of state police were
called in to monitor the crowds. More than 100 media outlets came here to cover
it. The hotel had to send away as far as St. Louis for extra food and staff to
accommodate the crowds.
If you couldn’t get a room in
the hotel (rooms were a minimum of $16 a night back then, and all 700 rooms
were sold out a few months in advance), no worries.
Room-less guests were allowed
to camp out in tents on the hotel grounds. Some slept in cots set up around the
hotel pool. The hotel even made a deal with the Monon Railroad to bring in a
couple rail cars to set up as impromptu living quarters for the weekend.
From another news clipping: Thousands of people jammed the halls of the
huge French Lick Sheraton resort hotel looking for parties to crash. And two University
of Cincinnati boys failed in a good attempt to sneak into the festival attired
in busboy outfits.
It was expected that in this
part of rural southern Indiana, the country music weekend that followed jazz
weekend would be the popular of the two. But by a 4-to-1 margin, the jazz
festival goers easily outnumbered the country fans.
Star power surely boosted the
jazz festival’s profile with performances like this:
Duke Ellington’s band played a number entitled “Hi-Fi-Fo-Fum”
that was built around a drum solo. This sounded like a combination of a train
wreck, a thunderstorm and a machine-gun battle.
After mega shows in 1958 and ’59,
the fest was supposed to return to French Lick in 1960. But violence and riots
at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1960 caused the approaching French Lick
festival to be scrapped.
The festival never returned
to French Lick — but for jazz fans of today, the good news is the spirit of
jazz at neighboring West Baden Springs Hotel. Our biannual Jazz Under the Dome
Weekend is back August 15-17, with 23 hours of live jazz from top regional
musicians. No cover charge to enjoy. (And you don’t have to camp out, either.)