Simanaitis Says
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NORMAN GRANZ—JAZZ IMPRESARIO, CAR NUT
BACK 60 years ago, jazz was a big deal. Musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck made the cover of Time magazine. And, in no small part because of Norman Granz, these first two—who were African Americans—could perform before the same audiences as this other jazz great.
Norman Granz was more than impresario; he was a humanist at the forefront of a budding civil rights movement with jazz as his instrument.
Granz was the guiding light of Jazz at the Philharmonic, bringing jazz to concert halls throughout the country from 1944 through 1957. What’s more, he was instrumental in breaking the color barrier of these venues.
This announcement ran in 1956 in the Cleveland Call And Post, a “Negro” newspaper of the era; today’s Call & Post is an award-winning African-American newspaper.
A telling story: In 1955 Houston, Granz removed “white” and “Negro” signs from the auditorium’s seating areas. Police retaliated by raiding the musicians’ traditional poker game between concerts; they took the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet to the station house.
Granz told officials, “I’m going to go out on stage and tell them the concert is cancelled. And then I’m going to tell them why it’s cancelled.”
More than 3000 jazz fans enjoyed the second concert. Charges were dismissed.
From the exuberance of Granz’s 1954 Cadillac Pinin Farina Cabriolet, we can also deduce that he was a car nut. It’s said the Italian carrozzeria accepted the Grantz commission in exchange for the cost of materials and a complete collection of his record production.
The 1954 Cadillac Pinin Farina Cabriolet, as exhibited at the 2002 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
The starting point was a Cadillac Series 62 convertible. The resulting two-seater is a joyously unrestrained and enthusiastic assemblage of jazz riffs representing the era.
There’s a neat mini-documentary of the car at www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbL-6Z73UiQ. Now owned by renowned collector Harry Yeaggy, the Cadillac Pinin Farina Cabriolet took first in class at the 2012 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.
I like to imagine the presentation of its trophy was accompanied by jazz of the 50s. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2012
Simanaitis Says 
Cars and Jazz, a wonderful combination! One wonders why the automobile doesn’t seem to have been a popular “subject” of many jazz compositions? Dizzy Gillespie recorded a song titled “Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac”, and later Hank Mobley recorded “A Caddy For Daddy”. Is anyone aware of other jazz songs that reference cars?