Time made it a cover story. "The event marked not only the turning point in one concert," reported the magazine. "It confirmed a turning point in a career."

Historian Mark Tucker depicted it as "a high point in his performing career - comparable in some ways to the opening at London's Palladium in 1933 and the Carnegie Hall debut in 1943."

The event, of course, is Duke Ellington's historic triumph at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956. One of the true "Ellington Milestones," Newport '56 will be the theme of this meetin, featuring the recording-industry legend responsible for enshrining it on disk: George Avakian.

A founder of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, George produced the first jazz album ever recorded (Decca 1939). At Columbia Records, he produced virtually all of Ellington's albums made between 1948 and 1957, including Ellington at Newport. He was knighted by the government of Malta in 1984 for his lifetime service to American music and was the recipient of the Soviet Union's highest honor (the Order of Lenin) in 1990 for his 30-year devotion to cultural exchanges.

George's appearance is especially timely, because Columbia is about to release The Complete Ellington at Newport, a two-CD set including the renowned concert in its entirety (and in stereo), as well as the beloved studio recreations issued on the original Ellington at Newport album - and additional studio material supervised by George.

In the liner notes he wrote for that classic record, George Avakian noted, "All were also agreed that it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

He was writing about Ellington, of course, but the same is equally true of George Avakian.

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