Monocled Alchemist

Article published in Jazz & Pop, August 1967

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival | The first Monterey International Pop Festival was, for all practical purposes, an unqualified success. There were hang-ups, cancellations, frightful press facilities, rotten weather, unlikely scheduling, a few acts that bombed . . . but so what?

So probably 40,000 individuals came to Monterey, about 7500 crammed themselves into the County Fairgrounds Arena during four of five performances (Ravi Shankar drew 5000 on a soggy foggy afternoon) and there was a festive atmosphere and congenial feeling about the Pop Music Festival which neither Newport (Jazz and Folk) or Monterey’s own jazz festival have ever achieved.

The hippies, authentic or just passing, are less demanding, far more accommodating, warm and responsive, and perhaps most important: compared to the jazz festival fan, they came to Monterey to hear the music and get with one another, not to drink and show off.

There was absolutely no difficulty with the huge crowds, no arrests, nothing unruly. Local officials from the police chief on down to motel operators were unanimous in. their enthusiasm for the whole event.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

The Monterey Pop Festival was organized in a few weeks by Lou Adler, John Phillips, Andrew Oldham and a couple of dozen members of the pop-rock industry. It was directed from Los Angeles, and most of the participants were those whose schedules made it possible to perform (without pay) at the mid-California coastal location.

All profits will be distributed according to action taken by the Board of Governors, which includes the Directors (above), many of the participating artists, and such others as Donovan, Jagger and McCartney. The Festival’s funds will also include $250,000 which ABC Television paid for exclusive rights to film the event for a fall spectacular. The format of the festival (and the location) followed that of the jazz festival: Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, and Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

There were dozens of brightly decorated booths selling all manner of art goods of interest to the pop-rock set, hippie or otherwise: beads and boots and incense; flowers and bells; posters and underground press . . . a meditation room, and mobiles. Plans called for seminars about the music industry, and demonstrations, but (as usual) they didn’t come off, other than one at which a representative of ASCAP and Malvina Reynolds (there’s a combination!) answered questions.

Shifting Rock Scene

But the music on stage at Monterey (all 22 hours of it) had a fascination significantly lacking in much of the recent jazz festival material this reporter has attended, on both coasts.

The whole rock scene is shifting, or perhaps dividing into many branches, and Monterey had representatives of many of the limbs. Clearly, however, this was far more a rock festival than pop.

It was evident, for instance, that the British pop world is currently off on a kick for kicks’ sake phase: The Who ended by breaking up a prop guitar against a prop amplifier, with prop smoke belching from the stage; Jimi Hendrix, after a vulgar masterbatory sequence with his guitar, ends by sitting astride the instrument (his guitar) on stage, squirting lighter fluid on it and setting it ablaze. Pretty subtle. It’s also very old-hat (Chuck Berry, among others, was doing most of this stuff, better, 15 years ago) but it grabs the crowd, and it’s made the Seattle Negro Hendrix a big thing in Britain.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

There was a definitive difference between the Southern California and the San Francisco rock bands; a difference which will eventually lead, I am sure, to a battle similar to the East Coast-West Coast jazz disputes of the early 50s. The Byrds, the Association, Canned Heat, Buffalo Springfield and (of course) the Mamas and Papas are far more showbiz than are the hard-roil blues oriented groups from the San Francisco area like Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the best two of this genre at the Festival: the Grateful Dead and the Steve Miller Blues Band.

Even the Jefferson Airplane, commercially the hottest such group going, are a harder stronger-beated band than their L.A. counterparts, such as, perhaps the Buffalo Springfield (who are very very good in their own field). Mike Bloomfield‘s new Electric Flash and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with some variations, are working the same blues-con-variations bag as the Northern Californians. The Blues Project, as has always been their wont, is committed to a jazz sound, especially when Andy Kulberg plays flute.

Magnificent Form

Of what might be called the pop-rock-blues groups the Airplane and Eric Burdon and the Animals were outstanding, with Burdon’s blues vocals and the violin of John Wheeler quite impressive; everything the Airplane tried came off well: they were in magnificent form, and more about them later.

Otis Redding squeezed into 25 minutes, most of which were after 1 a.m., came out stomping, kicked off four beats and had the crowd screaming; we’ve all seen Otis do it a dozen times, but each new instance is only a reminder of the commanding presence he assumes on stage.

Lou Rawls did a slick road show set, within the structure he’s been working for the past couple of years. Interestingly Rawls was the only performer who presented the sort of stuff which most older Americans would think of as “pop” music—Shadow of Your Smile, On A Clear Day, etc. Mixed in were some of the Rawls soul songs and his monotonous chatter.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

For those who didn’t quite remember where most of the current rock stuff started, Johnny Rivers did a half hour which might as well have been titled “down memory lane”. A Beatles number, and Seventh Son, Memphis (which Rivers still does in an Elvis, scooby-dooby fashion) . . . a few others . . . and Secret Agent Man. Rivers is a bit out of it now, by Monterey standards, but it was a neat performance.

The important parts of the Monterey festival need not be capsulized like an annotated program. The important things, really, were the spirit in the audience (and all over the festival) and the interesting new sounds and attitudes of many of the artists.

Jazz festival fans

The crowd became exuberant only when the artistry deserved it. It was refreshing NOT to have standing ovations (a la Newport and Monterey jazz) after most performances. It was delightful not to have an atmosphere of alcohol, or people running in and out of the arena all night. I saw a few cans of beer (none was sold on the grounds) and some wine. None of the flasks and martini thermoses which have helped to artificialize the response and numb the senses of too many jazz festival fans.

The crowd, it seemed to me, was about 60% Southern California: i.e. a group more pop-rock-Hollywood oriented than the hard-core-blues-oriented San Francisco hippies. There were a great many younger kids there (in the 12-16 bracket) who seemed to enjoy everything, although they were the most distressed group when it became obvious that the Beatles would not be there.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

Some radio stations and the Festival officials themselves had kept the Beatle rumour alive for weeks.

There was a feeling of love, comradery, good fun, without any artificiality. When girls tossed hundreds of Hawaiian miniature orchids around over the heads of the crowd it was a pretty sight, not a cynical promotional stunt (and I never did find out where the orchids came from all weekend, but there must have been 10,000 of them.)

When Ravi Shankar finished his long afternoon sitar performance the audience applauded for about five minutes. Shankar tossed a few flowers to them, took there encore-bows, and everyone felt good.

Shankar had said in the course of his performance that he “loved the idea of his music being ‘pop’ music, even though it really wasn’t at all; and he loved the crowd for loving him, and his music.”

Shankar’s work held the audience mesmerized throughout three hours and his gentle explanations of his songs and his instruments provided just the right touch.

Cornflakes

In the same emotional plane was the performance of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Well after midnight this unassuming pair relaxed the audience, sang some new ones and old ones exquisitely and wound up with a 16th Century Benedictus, acapella. Beat that for programming at a pop festival!! They encored with the frivolous Punky’s Dilemma which involves a cornflake in a bowl of milk taking movies; the world of an English muffin . . . and more of Simon’s distinctive little glimpses at life. Simon and Garfunkel are, essentially, folk singers for the rock-times; their stage presence is remarkable.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

The Who, other than in their guitar-smashing, also have some fine and provocative lyric content and an impressive lead vocalist in Roger Daltry. Their imagery, like Simon’s (and, of course Dylan), has a pertinency far removed from the moon and spoon days of song writing.

It was interesting to note the presence of Negro-blues derived rhythms, styles, and lyrics and yet the absence of any strong R&B contingent, except the astonishing Otis Redding.

The best of the girl vocalists were the two San Franciscans Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane.

Miss Joplin, a Texan in her mid 20s, has been a part of the S.F. rock world for a couple of years but her singing lately has become the most powerful voice in the business; I am not one to exaggerate — Miss Joplin is the best white blues singer I have ever heard, and certainly also the most powerful.

Rougher

When the Big Brother rhythm gets churning behind her (and it’s a dandy band) she clenches her fists by her side, closes her eyes, rears back shaking her head and just lets fly. Magnificent!

She has a timbre like old Ida Cox (a bit nasal), and some of Bessie Smith’s rhythmic devices, especially on the stop-time stuff. But her demeanour is rougher than either of those old gals (sometimes she’s rough like Ma Rainey) . . . and anyway, Janis Joplin is no mouldy fig: she’s on top of today’s world.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

Grace Slick, of the Airplane crew, has a more sultry voice with more musical quality and less guts than Miss Joplin. She is particularly effective in the contrapuntal second part with Marty Balin’s lead voice; often Miss Slick and Balin switch parts, and solo . . . it’s an effective team and an excellent band.

Miss Slick is also an accomplished composer and musician, and working in the context of the impeccable professionalism of the Jefferson Airplane she has plenty of room to demonstrate her talents.

The Airplane is one of the few rock groups to have emerged in the last year and understands that the way to avoid the monotony of a hard two or four beat, running forever, is through syncopation. Their bassist, Jack Casady, sets up a furious undercurrent of runs and stop-time accented riffs which keeps the Airplane’s sound always changing no matter how straight the front line or lyric sound.

Attention to detail

Their Monterey performance was marked by two electronic accomplishments which help to explain the Airplane’s success, and also the new approach to performance which most of the rock groups take.

They travel only with their own sound man and equipment; and that engineer (David Freese, once of KPFA, Berkeley) also supervises the Airplane’s recorded sounds. Attention to detail, never a strong trait in American popular music or jazz, is obviously paying off for many rock groups.

In addition, at Monterey, the visual stimulation (light show) which went on behind the Airplane was the finest ever seem in this area, where all light shows are already superior to the rest of the nation. The Monterey stage had translucent backdrop walls (screens) onto which the Head Lights company of San Francisco threw images from about 10 slide, movie, and overhead projectors. The centre screen was based on the liquids, with other subjects coming and going, and the side screens had everything from phosphorescent flower patterns to what looked like transparencies of prayer rugs overlayed on one another.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

It is harder to describe moving visual abstractions than it is to portray music, in print; but the combinations of fine electronic music and the Head Lights visuals at Monterey was astonishing . . . in fact you might say psychedelic.

Another vocalist of particular interest to the jazz fan is Eric Burdon with the new Animals. Burdon learned a lot from American records by the old gals (he sings Bessie’s Gin House Blues) and he understands rhythm. He patterns his material like a jazz vocalist, singing 12 or 24 then laying off for a couple of choruses of instrumental, then coming back for more vocal . . . and back and forth.

San Francisco’s Grateful Dead are working in a whole new area of sound. They play continuously for 30-40 minutes varying theme and rhythm at will, developing a mood, singing, soloing . . . using feedback; it is an electronic musical circus. Jerry Garcia, lead guitar and vocalist, is the best guitar I heard the whole weekend, and Pigpen McKernan plays a fine mouth harp. The Dead are close to being an experimental jazz group right now.

Refreshing breeze

There were a number of things which I hoped would appear at Monterey, but I’ll have to wait until next year (if there is one.) One good sign of maturity and assurance would be more informal humour by the various groups. Not slapstick, not campfire stuff, just something other than furrowed-brow dedication. When Berkeley’s irrepressible Country Joe and The Fish came on it was like a refreshing breeze.

Joe McDonald wears paint on his face, flamboyant rainbow colours in shirt and pants, beads, and an American flag (on stick) protruding from his belt. Don’t Drop That Bomb On Me, Fixin’ To Die Rag, (done to the middle strain of Muskrat Ramble) and various other reflections of the Berkeley scene make CJ&F an unusual group, even if their vocal and instrumental balance doesn’t have the strength of many of the others.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

Another missing feature at Monterey was a chance for artists to mix it up a little. Everyone comes out and does their thing but there is no crossing of group lines, yet, in rock. I would like, for instance, to hear the Miller Blues Band, the Bloomfield Electric Flash (and how Bloomfield can play!), and the Butterfield Band, all jam together . . . or at least segments of each play together. I suspect that this is the next step, and of course, it is about the only thing missing before the contemporary popular music scene, by way of the blues, becomes a contemporary jazz scene.

The principal people noticeably absent at the Monterey Pop Festival were the jazz fans and writers. I think Ralph Gleason and I were the only reviewers from the “jazz field.” This is a good indication of what is wrong in jazz: those who write about it too often also define it. And their definitions usually are as limited as their own interests.

I heard more improvisation and individual creativity at the Pop Festival (alas!) than I have heard at many recent jazz events.

I have left out a number of groups. Most of them were good but not as im-pressive or interesting as those noted. The British singer Beverly, for instance, a kind of folk-rock type with long hair and her own guitar accompaniment, didn’t get together; nice voice, some style, and exhilarating looks . . . she’ll make it, some day.

Highlights from the Monterey International Pop Festival

Laura Nyro was just awful, trying to do a Motown kind of thing with two embarrassed coloured girls named Dolores and Juliet. All that saved Miss Nyro’s dreary performance, in retrospect, was that on the same program there had been something worse: 55 minutes of Hugh Masekela and his current band, featuring conga star Big Black (who was magnificent in his solos) and trombonist Wayne Henderson (who seems to have fallen under Masekela’s spell.)

Masekela pranced around the stage, blew frightful noises on his trumpet, sang even worse, and (typically) was the longest act of the whole festival. Ralph Gleason, in the S.F. Chronicle, said, “Masekela gave an object lesson in boredom.”; the S. F. Examiner called it “Masekela’s nothing-music.”

The fact that this festival was, in truth, a selective rock festival with little nodding toward pop, may mean that all pop is rock, but I think not. I think creative pop is rock, just as creative pop 30 years ago was jazz (or swing?). And it seems to me that if folk festivals are now including electronic music (and they are) and jazz festivals are now including electronic music (and they are) and pop festivals are now including electronic music, then some of the jazz stuffed shirts had better awaken to the realization that it is their narrow definitions and not the music itself that have stifled “jazz” in recent years.

With all its limitations and faults, the Monterey Pop Festival broke ground for a whole new area of musical expression in America. And it made it quite clear that today’s younger generation are not just going to create their own music—they are going to teach an older generation a few things about how to appreciate it, besides. (By PHILIP ELWOOD)