Troubled Waters

There isn't space here to rehearse the reasons why one of the musical geniuses of the last century and his Famous Orchestra found themselves accompanying Billy Rose's Aquacade, but this particular 'gig' in 1955 has always held a fascination for me. It is generally held to have been  a difficult period for Duke Ellington artistically and this particular engagement, the nadir.

Nevertheless, a programme from the engagement turned up today on Ebay USA. Had the vendor not confined himself to shipping only domestically, I'd have snapped it up.

As it is, here are the pages previewed on the auction site for the scrap book. One day, I'd like to do some proper research into this particular residency...

Time and Again

"You can spend a lifetime exploring Ellington’s music — between official recordings and informally captured performances there are thousands of hours of what has come to be called Ellingtonia — and it would be a worthy and joyous existence."

Steve Futterman, Time magazine.

You can read the full text of the article here.

First Footage

Whilst our previous post was given over to our customary picture of Duke celebrating his birthday, today we can give proper space to the news which broke yesterday of  Ellington scholar Ken Steiner's discovery of Duke Ellington's debut on film. The full details are here.

Happy Birthday, Duke!

Many Happy returns!

Kinda Dukish

On the eve of Duke Ellington's 114th birthday, a heads up to Ehsan Koshbakht's fascinating blog, Take The A Train. 

Ehsan is a film historian, jazz scholar and architect from north eastern Iran. He has been a great supporter of my blog here, through all its various and frustrating permutations of name and domain address (I recently moved the blog back to its original address, villesville.blog.co.uk - sorry Ehsan!).

Ehsan blogs on a wide range of subjects connected to jazz and film. Now, however, he has tabulated all the posts relevant to Duke. Click on the tab at the top of his blog, Kinda Dukish. I've put the link at the top of my blog here also. There is a rich archive of material to enjoy and, of course, it is always well worth dropping by Take The A Train itself.

As Duke would say: Thank you for Ehsan Koshbakht!

Miro Image

When Miró met the Duke: Jazz Performance from Yorkshire Sculpture Park on Vimeo.

You Shall Go To The Bal...

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

       We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

       We wear the mask!

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1895

More on Terry Teachout's forthcoming biography Duke to follow...