The Hyde Park Jazz Festival turns twenty on Chicago's South Side, free, with a stage named for Willie Pickens at half past twelve and Joshua Redman playing solo saxophone in Rockefeller Chapel at ten. Today's record is "In the Mood," which the Library of Congress keeps in the National Recording Registry, and then Sekou takes us to England in December 1944, where Glenn Miller takes a seat on a small plane that he has no authorization for. | The Lead: The Hyde Park Jazz Festival turns twenty today, and day one opens with a ceremony instead of a set: at half past twelve the festival names its Midway Plaisance stage after the Chicago pianist Willie Pickens, and his daughter's band plays that same stage at two thirty. Thirty eight free performances over two days, most of today indoors, and at ten Joshua Redman plays solo saxophone in Rockefeller Chapel. Listen to This: "In the Mood," Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, cut August 1st, 1939, and in the National Recording Registry since 2004. Joe Garland wrote it, Artie Shaw owned it and never recorded it, and Eddie Durham helped cut it to three minutes so it would fit one side of a seventy eight. The Bridge: England, December 1944. Glenn Miller takes a seat he has no authorization for, on a small plane bound for France, and for seventy-two hours no one in his chain of command realizes he is gone. On the Road: Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia marks its thirty seventh anniversary with Lucy Yeghiazaryan and Grant Stewart at seven thirty and nine thirty. Plus four sets and a solo at Mezzrow in New York, Jeff Newell's New Trad Octet at the Green Mill in Chicago, DICHI twice at Cliff Bell's in Detroit, and The Brew at the Elephant Room in Austin. One More Note: September 26th, 1937, on Highway 61 north of Clarksdale, Mississippi: Bessie Smith is in a car crash. The Blues Trail marker says she died that day and the Park Service says the next morning. The sources split, so the script says so. | The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you hear came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
