Bert Stern‘s Jazz on a Summer’s Day is a warm, colorful capture of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Not just a medley of performances but a portrait of an era and a cultural mood that was primarily defined by complacency and amber shadings and waiting for whatever the next thing might be.

Stern’s 85-minute film “is largely without dialogue or narration…it mixes images of glistening sea water and the America’s Cup yacht race… architecture, backstage footage, folding chairs, sunshine, people’s faces….trombonist Roswell Rudd driving around Newport in a convertible jalopy and playing Dixieland,” etc.

Performances by Jimmy Giuffre, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Stitt, Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington, Gerry Mulligan, Chuck Berry (allegedly delivering a “scandalous” set), Chico Hamilton, Louis Armstrong, Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Armando Peraza, etc.