As President Trump scrambles to salvage his Freedom 250 celebration after a wave of performer cancellations, it’s worth recalling a presidential concert that played out very differently: On June 18, 1978, Jimmy Carter transformed the White House South Lawn into America’s biggest jazz club, hosting more than 40 musicians to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival. The lineup included Herbie Hancock, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Mary Lou Williams, Chick Corea and, most memorably, the legendary Dizzy Gillespie.
The event reflected more than Carter’s well-known love of music. “A large part of his ethos as president was driven by a commitment to civil rights and to elevate Black Americans,” presidential historian Trevor Parry-Giles, co-author of The Prime-Time Presidency, tells THR. At a time when jazz rarely occupied center stage in Washington, Carter gave it the country’s most prestigious platform.
The evening ended with Gillespie persuading the peanut-farmer president to join him in singing the bebop classic “Salt Peanuts.” “That was one of the happiest moments of an often-unhappy presidency,” says biographer Jonathan Alter, author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life. At a time when he was battling the Iran hostage crisis, inflation and sinking approval ratings, the image of Carter giddily trading lines with Gillespie became a rare, enduring snapshot of the president at ease.
Nearly half a century later, the contrast is striking. Organizers of Trump’s Freedom 250 concerts, commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary, have struggled in vain to secure performers, with even friendly acts spurning invitations. The president has instead shifted focus to a July 4 rally featuring luminaries like country singer Lee Greenwood, tenor Christopher Macchio and, naturally, himself.
Carter, of course, faced political problems of his own (as Trump has often pointed out). Booking talent wasn’t one of them.
This story appeared in the June 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.