Birds of Fire

Abstract

Contemporary music has absorbed the whole thing called rock or rock and roll and what's coming out right now is a wide variety of creative efforts by people with both jazz and rock backgrounds.It's not classifiable as either jazz or rock, it's just music that is as good as the people doing it.-LarryCoryell For Christ's sake, I wish somebody would make up a name for this kind of music, 'cause it ain't jazz and it ain't rock.It's got overtones of both, but it's really got no name of its own.-JeffBeckIn 1969 the jazz impresario George Wein decided to book rock acts for the first time at the Newport Jazz Festival as a way to attract young people and, more important, to reap greater ticket sales.He would not be entirely disappointed.Large crowds of young rock fans converged on the small Connecticut town that gave the festival its name to hear Jeff Beck, Jethro Tull, Sly and the Family Stone, and Led Zeppelin.Unfortunately, the inadequate facilities and security forces were overwhelmed by the thousands of fans, many of whom expressed their disappointment in the lack of tickets by simply forcing their way into the festival during Sly and the Family Stone's set.Rolling Stone described the scenario: Everything went off.The rain.The crowds.Firecrackers.And, above all, establishment paranoia. . . .To prevent more damage to the fence, the gates were opened and bands of wild hippies, lsD on their breath, swarmed through, pushing the bleacher audience forward, vaulting over the viP box seats, shoving into the press section, slamming the customers into the stage, all the while Sly, monarch of his own fascist jungle, urging everyone higher!Higher!Higher! . . .[Wein] stalked the stage, crying, "Alright you kids, be cool, be cool, we don't want any riots," as

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