Excerpts from the Press (The Hartford Courant and The New York Times) “Hartford Jazz Society: At 25, Silver and Swinging,” Owen McNally, The Hartford Courant, October 6, 1985: Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Hartford Jazz Society can trace its roots back to the all-night jam sessions in the living room of Art Fine’s hilltop manse in Bloomfield – bashes that featured many world-famous figures, such as trumpeter Roy Eldridge and pianist Willie “the Lion” Smith. Over the years – including some painfully lean ones – the Jazz Society has not only brought countless luminaries to Hartford, but has also presented jazz in area public school systems, sponsored concerts in prisons, parks, hospitals and rest homes, and awarded scholarships to young students. As the 1950s were turning into the 60s, Fine’s home became a mecca for local jazz aficionados as well as for the many celebrated musicians who played the lounges of the old Heublein Hotel, which was then Hartford’s poshest jazz spa. Fine and many jazz lovers, including future founders of the Jazz Society, flocked to the Heublein, which brought a steady parade of talent to Hartford, including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Teddy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley. Fine’s home became the unofficial suburban branch of the Heublein, an after-hours jazz salon where many basked in the music, partied and formed long-lasting friendships and alliances that led to the creation of the Jazz Society. “When it became apparent that the Heublein was going to be torn down, that’s when many of us began talking about setting up a Jazz Society to keep jazz alive in Hartford,” Fine recalls. “I think that the Jazz Society’s most important accomplishment wasn’t just the music, so much as the fact that it was one of the first totally integrated social organizations in the area. Blacks and whites socialized naturally, with no strain, no pretensions,” Fine says. “The Jazz Society provided a framework for amicable integration, and in that sense it was way ahead of its time. Back then when we were just getting started, the musicians’ union was still segregated. There was a white union for white musicians and a black union for black musicians – a sociological and historical fact that gives you an indication of the tenor of the times. With the Jazz Society, however, color was never and still isn’t of any importance. There were mixed couples at our earliest concerts and meetings, and it made no difference to anyone. It was love for the music that brought us together and has kept us together. Jazz was the social catalyst that created so much comradeship,” he says. “History of Jazz Brought to Life at Wadsworth Atheneum,” Owen McNally, The Hartford Courant, July 29, 1983: Adrianne Baughns, a former anchorwoman for WFSB-TV, delivered the historical narrative that set up the evening’s musical framework. Pianist Emery Smith and his sextet then created many illustrative sketches in tribute to such Old Masters as Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton. If Baughns and the band had their act together, it really wasn’t too surprising. They’ve been presenting this educational lecture-performance series throughout the Hartford school system over the past three years. Wednesday night’s performance – one of a four-part weekly series in the Atheneum’s Avery Theater – was sponsored by a non-profit educational group called Jazz Incorporated. Created four years ago by Gloria Cantor, Jazz Incorporated has sponsored a jazz education program in the school system which has exposed more than 8,000 youngsters in the area to the music. Besides the lecture-performance, Jazz Incorporated has also set up one-on-one teaching programs in the schools. Last year, it put together a Hartford City School Jazz Ensemble – a first for the Hartford school system, according to Cantor. “Tapping Musical Roots,” Owen McNally, The Hartford Courant, January 31, 1982: [Bill Lowe] can plot his strategy for his latest music and education project as the head of the Jazz Society’s bring-jazz-to-the-schools program, which is flourishing now in the city’s three high schools, Bulkeley, Weaver and Hartford, and in two middle schools, Quirk and Fox. Lowe took over the ambitious project at the request of Gloria Cantor, a former Hartford Jazz Society president who has waged a hard campaign to raise funds from private and corporate contributors for her brainchild project. In that first year, the Jazz Society sent ensembles into the schools, where they presented what might well have been the first jazz that some black youngsters had ever heard. Since the jazz-in-the-schools program started two years ago, Cantor has received 350 fan letters from youngsters expressing their appreciation at having had the chance to participate. In one typical letter, a black Weaver High School graduate said the program had helped him to “feel really good” about himself, and that he was glad to discover “that the music really belonged to us.” Another black student regretted that he hadn’t experienced the program until he got to high schools, and suggested that it be started in elementary schools so that “kids could get a better sense of themselves.” Besides their teaching assignments, Lowe and his colleagues have presented concerts in the schools, demonstrating changes in various jazz styles from the turn of the century to contemporary forms. … the jazz-in-the-schools project for this school year was underwritten by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Connecticut General, Connecticut Mutual and the Aetna Foundation. “Hartford Festival Brings Jazz Greats to Lincoln Theater,” Owen McNally, The Hartford Courant, October 17, 1980: On Sunday afternoon at 2 "Jazz Festival '80" moves into the "new music" of the 1970s and 80s with a double bill which features the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton. ... This is the Jazz Society's biggest venture into the "new music," the vital cutting edge of the art form's expanding frontier. Even before the civil rights movement got really rolling, the Jazz Society was known as a group in which one’s color was totally irrelevant. “There really wasn’t any other place in Hartford back in the early 60s where whites and blacks were not just integrated but also socialized,” says [Art] Fine. “It was the music that brought everybody together. That was the real catalyst. And just that sort of thing is really what I consider to be the most significant thing that the Society accomplished in 20 years – that element of bringing people together, that sort of brotherhood that jazz really stands for,” Fine said. “Musicians Run School Concerts To Explore Jazz,” The Hartford Courant, March 31, 1972: The roots of jazz and the present state of the art are being explored in a series of concerts in Greater Hartford public schools, sponsored by the Hartford Jazz Society. Bassist Paul Brown, a local musician, and his quintet play at the concerts, which are financed by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and matching funds from the jazz society. Jackie McLean, a jazz alto saxophonist and an instructor at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, is the narrator. Mrs. Janet Fine of Bloomfield is coordinator of the concerts for the non-profit jazz society. “City Jazz Group To Attend Parley,” The Hartford Courant, September 22, 1967: The Hartford Jazz Society will participate in a three-day jazz conference centered at the Fine Arts Center of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Lexington Avenue, New York City, the weekend of Sept.29. The conference will be conducted by Jazz Interactions, Inc. of New York, the Jazz at Home Club of Philadelphia and the Hartford group. Duke Ellington will serve as chairman. Arthur Fine and George Malcom-Smith of Hartford will conduct a panel discussion on Sept. 30. Information concerning a chartered bus trip to the Sept. 30 session of the conference may be obtained by calling the Hartford Jazz Society, 242-6886. "3-Day Jazz Talks Strike Grim Note," The New York Times, October 1, 1967: A three-day conference of jazz societies, called to consider "The Many Positive Faces of Jazz," had difficulty in finding anything positive about the current state of jazz yesterday. Panelists in a discussion moderated by Billy Taylor said jazz was suffering from a dwindling number of outlets for live performances, inadequate promotion of recordings, bickering among factions of fans and musicians, and the popularity of rock 'n' roll among teen-agers. The panel was made up of Art D'Lugoff, owner of the Village Gate, a nightclub; Ira Gitler, New York editor of the jazz magazine Down Beat; Al Fisher, jazz columnist for the Long Island Entertainer, and Burton Greene, a jazz pianist. … More than 400 persons had registered at the conference by yesterday afternoon, its second day. Among them were representatives of jazz societies in Hartford, Philadelphia, Washington, Trenton, Warren, Ohio; Nashville and New Orleans. … The conference is sponsored by the Jazz at Home Club of Philadelphia, Jazz Interactions of New York City and the Hartford Jazz Society. It was suggested by the Rev. John G. Gensel, the Lutheran Church's pastor to the jazz community. "Cruising Along the Scenic Connecticut River," The New York Times, September 4, 1966: Leaving from the Middletown municipal dock at noon on Sept. 18 is a cruise sponsored by the Hartford Jazz Society, a five-year-old non-profit organization whose members are, naturally, avid jazz fans. Top musicians from New York and elsewhere help revive on the Connecticut River the rousing jazz music that brought fans to the Mississippi in the heyday of the riverboats on that great river. A $10 fee includes dinner. “Dedication, Education ... and all that JAZZ,” Herbert J. Stoeckel, The Hartford Courant, July 12, 1964: … HJS, swinging into action, staged three concerts during its first or 1961-62 season. The first concert, freee to the public and with Hartford Local 400, American Federation of Musicians, loyally cooperating, drew a capacity audience of 800 at the Student Center, Trinity College. Featured were Al Lepak’s Orchestra of 16 pieces, the Dave MacKay Trio, the Cliff Gunn Septet and the Lenny LaCroix Quartet. The TV “Broadway Open House” star, Fletcher Peck, was master of ceremonies. The second concert, given in January, 1962, at the Conard High School, West Hartford, whose theme was “The Evolution of Jazz in Music and Dance,” featured such Hartford talent as the Randy Weston Trio, with Booker Irvin, alto sax, and the jazz dancers, Al Mimms and Leon Ames. The third, held in March, 1962, at the King Philip School, West Hartford, brought back Al Lepak’s Orchestra, which included Chick Chicetti, Eddie Miller, Bobby Johnson, Al Forte and Bob Foster, plus Ray Casserino’s Trio and Cliff Gunn’s Quartet. To meet expenses, there was a moderate admission charge to the latter two concerts. “Harmony Puts Spotlight On a Japanese Jazzman,” The Hartford Courant, November 27, 1962: He was a Japanese jazzman and he wanted to wail in the U.S.A. But Sadao Watanabe, a young alto saxophonist and flutist in Tokyo, didn’t have the right tune for immigration authorities. He had bread, it was said. Money wasn’t the problem. In short, he needed an American sponsor. Jazz pianist Toshiko dug her countryman’s problem and passed it on to the Rev. John Gensill, New York’s “Jazz Minister.” On one of his trips here, the minister suggested that members of Hartford Jazz Society might let Sadao sit in. They were hip. They adopted him. With 120 sponsors on his side, Sadao has started studying at Berklee School of Music in Boston. The sponsors will get their first look at their adopted woodwind Sunday night. Sadao’s coming to the Masonic Temple at 10 South Main St. in West Hartford for the jazz society’s monthly meeting at 8.