Villes Ville

C'est la vie!

2012-01-28T05:45:00.001-08:00

Click through on the picture below to watch the video of delights for the winter season in paris, 1958. This is one of several clips from British Pathe featuring Duke Ellington, all of which may be viewed here.

All the fun...

2012-01-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

Here are what the poet called 'Kodak-distant' memories - some home cine footage uploaded recently to Youtube. The film was taken at the New York State Exposition, Empire Court, Syracuse, 1963 between 28 August and 2 September, a week long engagement for Duke Ellington and his Orchestra who feature in the early shots...

Happy New Year, The Blue Note 1958

2012-01-01T06:05:00.000-08:00

2011-12-26T11:11:00.001-08:00

Fleurette Africaine

2011-12-23T14:09:00.001-08:00

Perchance to dream...

2011-10-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

The time: 30 January, 1966; the place: the stage of the Theatro Lirico, Milano.

Classical actor Vittorio Gassman recites the famous soliloquy from Hamlet whilst Ellington plays in accompaniment the opening piece from his Shakespearean suite, Such Sweet Thunder.

It is a consummate performance...

Suites to the sweet

2011-07-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

Students of literary and classical influence on the work of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn have much to look forward to in the coming months.

Anna Harwell Celenza Thomas E. Caestecker Professor of Music at Georgetown University, Washington DC, is currently finishing work on a study entitled Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and the Adventures of Peer Gynt in America which will be published in the journal Music and Politics. News of its publication and links to a copy as soon as we have them.

And October 1, 2011 sees the publication of Professor Celenza’s book for children, Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker, illustrated by Don Tate. The charming cover is reproduced below. The book is available for pre-ordering here.

Quite by coincidence, idling away a couple of hours on the internet yesterday as I am wont to do, I chanced upon this video from the CBS series Playback.

I like to think I am familiar with most of the catalogue available of Ellington on video but this little promotional film came as a complete surprise. The quality is splendid and the opportunity to see Ellington in his post-Newport renaissance (the quintessential period of the Ellington Strayhorn collaboration for me)at work in the studio with his band is priceless!

Eastern promise

2011-06-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

I can happily lose a couple of hours to the internet simply following lines of enquiry: one interesting reference will lead to a hyperlink or a Google search and, before you know it, an evening has gone by…

In this way, I recently happened upon precious footage of Duke Ellington in India which was filmed during his State Department sponsored tour of the Middle and Far East in 1963.

The tour inspired, of course, The Far East Suite – amongst the most iridescent works in the Ellington/ Strayhorn canon. Had I but time…

Anyway… The video is embedded in a blog called Blue Rhythm the main purpose of which is to raise funds for a proposed documentary, Finding Carlton: Uncovering The Story of Jazz in India. There are untold riches to explore there. A particular jumping off point for Ellingtonia is here.

This is an extract from Finding Carlton with some precious footage from the National Archive of the Ellington band's appearance.

The Blue Rhythm blog may be found here.

Proust One of Those Things...

2011-06-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

The creation of Ellington’s extended work was recently celebrated as one of fifty Great Moments in Jazz by John Fordham of The Guardian. His piece begins…

"The death of Duke Ellington's beloved mother in 1935 drew from the great composer a work that provided the first serious indication that his gifts could not be confined to the glittering multifaceted miniatures with which he had made his name.

"Reminiscing in Tempo, 12 minutes long, reflected the state of contemplative melancholy into which Ellington, then aged 36, had fallen following his bereavement. Given the technical limitations of the day, it had to be spread over all four sides of a pair of 10-inch 78rpm discs, and perhaps the inevitable discontinuity of the listening experience lay behind the mixed critical response it provoked in usually sympathetic quarters. With the benefit of subsequent developments, we can, of course, listen to it as a single unbroken piece and can therefore appreciate the subtle fluctuations of mood as it flows gently, and with a purposeful absence of rhetorical flourishes, through a sequence of carefully supported solos by Ellington's great soloists, including the trumpeter Rex Stewart, the trombonist Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, the clarinetist Barney Bigard, the alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges and the baritone saxophonist Harry Carney.

"Ellington was on the road, undertaking a series of one-nighters, when he heard the news of his mother's demise, and he stayed up all night in his Pullman car, "all caught up in the rhythm and motion of the train dashing through the south", to lay the foundations of his musical tribute. The interlude for Ellington's unaccompanied piano allows the composer to evoke the sensation of a mind gently slipping in and out of grief. With this piece, he articulated the extent of an ambition that ranged far beyond his reputation as the leader of a popular big band."

More…

The idea that, in fact, this piece can be incorporated by dint of its conception amongst Ellington’s locomotive pieces is fascinating and testament to how Proust-like the composer drew incessantly upon the memory and direct experience of everything about him.

The more I listen to this piece, the more I am moved by it, that sweet, cupped cry of Cootie Williams – is it? – articulating plaintively the word ‘momma’ like a motherless child.

here is the piece. It will more than reward twelve minutes of your time.

John Fordham’s 50 Great Moments in Jazz has reached number forty nine. You can find the entire series – which comprises a wonderful primer for those new to jazz or a bone of contention, perhaps, in talk over dinner for more experienced hands – here.

And for more on Ellington and Proust, there is a lovely piece from one of my favourite blogs here.

About Timme

2011-06-26T01:27:00.000-07:00

Jazz attracted not only passion but patronage from Europe. The support given to Thelonious Monk by Pannonica de Koenigswarter is well known. A new book, Nica’s Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness was published just last week. My copy is winging its way across the Atlantic as I write these words, I hope.

And another book is to be published shortly, too: this, a translation of the memoirs of the ‘Jazz Baron’, Timme Rosenkrantz the centenary of whose birth we celebrate this year. Rosenkrantz came from Denmark and said he could trace his lineage all the way back to the Rosenkrantz of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Timme went to the United States in search of jazz in 1934 and became an habitué of the Harlem speakeasies, of dance clubs, recording studios and theatres. He was a spectacularly unsuccessful entrepreneur: a magazine he began called Swing Music lasted only a single issue, his record shop closed after only twelve months and the two jazz clubs he founded Chez Inez (named for the love of his life, vocalist Inez Cavanaugh) and Timme’s Club soon folded. The tragedy of Rosenkrantz and guilders, perhaps...

He was, perhaps, an amateur in the best and truest sense of the word – he did what he did for the love of the music.

In Music Is My Mistress, Duke Ellington wrote of him:

“Baron Timme Rosenkrantz was of noble Danish blood, but he was not known to us by his formal title in Harlem, on Broadway, the Champs Élysées, State Street, or Central Avenue. To us he was known simply as Timme.

Although he was an artist in his own right, a writer, a poet, and a wit extraordinaire, you will not find volumes of his works that are truly representative of his literary stature. The reason for that is that he was a very unselfish man who dedicated himself to the great musicians he loved and to the music they played.

There is therefore no way now of properly evaluating this man’s potential, because his patronage of music consumed most of his time.”

Timme’s greatest legacy, in many ways, is as the Boswell of the big bands, as it were, chronicling the lives of the musicians through his writing for such journals as Down Beat and Metronome and in his photographs, collected in the book poignantly entitled Is This To Be My Souvenir?

Now, Fradley Garner, International Editor of Jersey Jazz, the journal of the New Jersey Jazz Society, has translated the memoirs of Timme Rosenkrantz. dus med Jazzen: mine Jazz memoirer was published originally in Copenhagen by Chr. Erichsens Forlag in 1964. The English translation will be published in the Autumn by Scarecrow Press as part of their Studies in Jazz series. You can read more about Timme Rosenkrantz and the forthcoming book at the website devoted to its publication here.

In 1938, Timme persuaded the president of RCA Victor Records to let him cherry pick the cream of session players to make a record. In the event, two 78 rpm records were issued which introduced vocalist Inez Cavanaugh, tenor player Don Byas and trombonist Tyree Glenn.

The full recording details are as follows:

Timme Rosenkrantz And His Barrelhouse Barons, recorded in New York 27 May, 1938

Pers.: Rex Stewart, Billy Hicks (tp); Tyree Glenn (tb,vib), Rudy Williams, Russell Procope (as); Don Byas (ts); Billy Kyle (p), Brick Fleagle (g), Walther Page (b), Jo Jones (dm).

And to celebrate the occasion, for your listening pleasure, here are those four sides. Happy Birthday, Timme Rosenkrantz!

A Rose by any other name

2011-06-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

Like fine wine, much can be deduced about jazz from the label.

And the label is the clue to the kind of jazz you’re likely to find.

My own favourite, Columbia, is a case in point. It came to prominence – along with the other two of the ‘big three’ record companies, RCA and Decca – during the period when jazz and popular music meant pretty much the same thing. And despite the signs after the war, that jazz was beginning to grow up and take itself a little more seriously – when smaller independent labels sprang up which existed for jazz and jazz alone, such as HRS, Commodore, Blue Note, later Prestige and Fantasy – the big three labels continued to promote jazz in the mix – along with classical, light music, ‘pop’ and folk – as part of the mainstream.

Uniquely, though, there were artists recording for Columbia in the fifties and sixties who had been there in the thirties – Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington. These artists were no longer at the cutting edge of modern jazz, perhaps – newer members of the stable such as Dave Brubeck or Miles Davis took up the vanguard, there. But during the fifties, Columbia was able to issue both the latest recordings of these great, mainstream artists and, thanks to far-sighted producers such as George Avakian who understood the importance of cherishing – and re-issuing- the music’s heritage - their earlier pioneering work from the swing era.

On one occasion, whilst Ellington was in the studios recording music for his latest album, the Columbia engineers were re-mastering a side his band had cut twenty years before. And this re-mastering effort actually appeared on the same charge sheet as the newly recorded work!

In 1957, Columbia issued an album entitled The Jazz Makers which was a compilation of sides recorded, largely, in the thirties. The album contained the following numbers:

Savoy Blues by Louis Armstrong
Lonesome Miss Pretty by Count Basie
Christopher Columbus by Fletcher Henderson
Soft Winds by Benny Goodman and Charlie Christian
The Sergeant Was Shy by Duke Ellington

Foolish Man Blues by Bessie Smith
Shoe Shine Boy by Jones - Smith Inc.
57 Varieties by Earl Hines
Back in Your Own Back Yard by Bille Holiday
Blues in C-Sharp Minor by Teddy Wilson and Roy Eldridge
Basin Street Blues by Louis Prima and Pee Wee Russell
I Can't Get Started by Dizzy Gillespie

Columbia, however, could not at that time trace the original metal part for Ellington's The Sergeant Was Shy.Writing in the bulletin of the Duke Ellington Music Society in 1983, Ellington authority Jerry Valburn explained:

“At the time this record was being produced, Columbia could not find metal parts for this item. The record was borrowed (78 copy) from none other than Boris Rose and it was transferred during an actual Ellington recording session at the Columbia Studios. It is from the New York session of 9September 1957 and this is exactly how the recording ledger reads:

Job # 34715 - 9 September, 1957

CO59716 COMMERCIAL TIME (B. Rose, use of recordings, $60.00
CO59717 (SM41526) TENDERLY (Jimmy Grissom)

CO 59718 AUTUMN LEAVES (Ozzie Bailey) (Remade October 1, 1957)

CO 59719 MOOD INDIGO

So not only was Rose’s material transferred at this session, but the time and payment to Rose were charged to Ellington’s session and even assigned a Master Number!”

The entire contents of this particular bulletin from the estimable DEMS is available as adownloadable PDF here and you can access the whole archive of this amazing Society here.

Boris Rose was legendary - an omnivorous collector of jazz recordings which he cut to disc himself from radio remote broadcasts and live performances, some of which he bootlegged on vinyl issues in the sixties and seventies. He died in 1999 and his vast collection was bequeathed to his daughter. You can read more about his collection and its fate here.

And here is an excerpt of film showing writer and historian Will Friedwald visiting the archive:

Sketches of Mex

2011-06-04T05:46:00.000-07:00

Sketches by Paul Gonsalves are currently up for auction by one of the sons of Joe Castro.

The lot comprises eight studies. The listing reads:

“These are the only drawings (sketches) by Paul Gonsalves (Mex), one of the greats, created in 1967 when my Dad was with Duke Ellington and the whole band.

"He drew these for my father Joe Castro. My father was very close with Duke. I have many things over the years he sent my father and many pictures.

“These are very special and are known as the only sketches or drawings by Paul Gonsalves. They are 100% genuine with a COA and if you need more references for authenticity. I have already asked two very prominent people in the jazz community who knew Paul and my father's life. If you wiki his name it will give you an outline of who he is.

“I'm selling these to finish a body of jazz created in the 50's to 60's at Doris Duke and my father's home's Falcon Lair and Duke Farms. The transfer of the masters has taken 11 years 500+ masters never heard soon to be released all very high quality. Zoot-Getz-Mulligan, Gene Ammons, Teddy Edwards, Leroy Vinnegar, Lucky Thompson, Oscar Pettiford, Dexter Gordon, everyone. The only master I sold was to Fantasy called Zoot Sims and The Joe Castro Trio (Live at Falcon Lair). My Father was very close with many prominent people in every area of Life.

“These are once again 100% genuine.... money back no questions. They’re 13x6 on blue ink. Mex wanted to become an Artist and studied. His famous signature is very hard to find and with a self portrait! It's the one and only self portrait with the famous sig with a sax. The Duke Loves Me Sketch is to me historic. If it doesn't sell I will be giving them or donating them to a Museum Of Art, because they are historic. My friend who is a sax player knows everything about Mex. He told me for sure they are the only ones. There is one LP with Duke he has supposedly with a tiny sketch but it's not original, it's a reprint of a doodle he did, and it's not anywhere to be found…

“I'm selling these way under what I think they should be worth. They are completely the only drawing sketches in existence and with the complete rarity I'm sure I don't even know what there really worth. My collector friend said with the condition they are in, and the unique appeal and overall rarest of rare - could fetch anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 from the right buyer. I'm starting them at 10,000 for 8 Original Drawing/Sketches from The Master Mex, Paul Gonsalves.

Sketch 1757 is The Self Portrait of Paul with his sig with the sax.

Sketch 1760 is an Abstract Picassoesque Render (I love this one)

Sketch 1761 is an Abstract Sketch of Duke Ellington (Reading Duke Loves Me) Very Endearing

Sketch 1759 is a drawing of my father (Paul calling him Maestro) With a JC and P and a drunk attempted G. He used to say to my father Maestro Castro Castro Maestro.

Sketch 1763 is a sketch of my mom, she said he always flirted with her, but what girl didn't he flirt with ;)

Sketch 1762 is a Render of Sketch of Paul Sleeping after he drank the whole bar. My dad said it has him passed out in the bed with the zzzzz there is an ashtray and a bottle and what appears to be just his feet coming out of the bed.;)

Sketch 1765 is a sketch of when they were jamming my father at the piano with cig, Duke in the front and paul just squashed drunk as my dad said with the xx's for his eye's from being way bombed.

Sketch 1766 is the House my dad was renting in Reno where they were Duke and all the cats, I asked my dad about these, and asked why he would draw the cabin house where they partied, he told me Mex would get so loaded he would just walk outside and sit across the street and blow the horn. So I assume he was just doing a perspective drawing of the place.

Maestro Castro Castro Maestro.”

The auction page is here.

These lines are particularly interesting:

"I'm selling these to finish a body of Jazz created in the 50's to 60's at Doris Duke and my father's home's Falcon Lair and Duke Farms. The transfer of the Masters has taken 11 years 500+ masters never heard soon to be released all very high quality. Zoot-Getz-Mulligan. Gene Ammons, Teddy Edwards, Leroy Vinnegar, Lucky Thompson, Oscar Pettiford, Dexter Gordon, everyone."

I have contacted the vendor for details of the release of these live recordings and will update if I receive any information. Certainly Zoot Sims And The Joe Castro Trio Live at Falcon Lair is available here.

I must admit to having heard neither of Falcon Lair nor of Doris Duke. A little research, however, opens a vista upon a fascinating world of tobacco heiresses, silent movie stars and, of course, Duke Ellington, pictured here with Doris Duke.

I shall look for a copy of Joe Castro’s Lush Life album – the sole release on the Clover Records label. It may be a long search…

Madness in great ones...

2011-05-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Would that I had chanced upon this excerpt in time for Duke Ellington's birthday last month. Better late than never, I suppose.

This is from Duke Ellington... We Love You Madly a television special from the early seventies produced by Quincy Jones who assembled a stellar cast, including Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Peggy Lee to celebrate the Duke.

And here, Quincy Jones discusses the impulse behind creating this television spectacular...

Beyond Catalogue

2011-05-07T01:36:00.001-07:00

On May 11, Skinner Auctioneers and Appraisers are auctioning memorabilia from the collection of Al Celley, Duke Ellington’s friend and manager from 1942 to 1964.

Their site says:

"Composer of iconic jazz standards like Sophisticated Lady and Mood Indigo, Duke Ellington is widely considered to be one of the most influential figures in American jazz. Ellington represented the epitome of elegance, style, and cool during his times. Today his music is a staple of the Great American Songbook and is loved by millions around the world. His legacy transcends his role as musician and band leader, placing him squarely in the category of an American legend.

For Duke Ellington fans and jazz lovers, the chance to own a piece of jazz history is coming up on May 11th when Skinner will be offering memorabilia from the collection of Al Celley, Ellington’s friend and manager from 1942 to 1964.

Al Celley handled every aspect of the band’s business for those 22 years, and his collection of Duke Ellington memorabilia includes unpublished personal photos, letters, publicity materials, 78s and LP records spanning a large portion of Ellington’s recording career. Celley even kept Duke Ellington’s 1933 and 1939 U.S. Passports with stamps from his world travels.

Other interesting items in Celley’s collection include a collection of Christmas cards, a concert poster from a tour in Italy, a recording of an early live performance on TV, and a charcoal portrait of Duke Ellington by Los Angeles artist Cal Bailey, a prominent member of the black L.A. arts scene. The image depicts the intersection between art and jazz in this era.

Photographer Don Bronstein, famous for his 1963 Grammy for the cover of Barbara Streisand’s album “People” and the original staff photographer at Playboy, spent some time photographing Duke Ellington and his band in the recording studio. A collection of Bronstein’s photographic contact sheets will be available at auction, along with many other images of the band that have never been seen by the public before.

Duke Ellington’s ambitious jazz symphony, Black, Brown and Beige, was his first performance at Carnegie Hall in 1943, and he introduced the piece as “a tone parallel to the history of the Negro in America.” His handwritten narrative for the Beige movement of the symphony is included in the auction.

Auction estimates for pieces in the Celley collection range from $75 to $2,500. Material like this, offered in our monthly Discovery auctions in Massachusetts, affords anyone the opportunity to own a piece of history. The recordings, letters, photos and publicity materials capture singular moments of this legendary jazz master’s life and times. We’re really honored to be able to bring this collection to auction."

The catalogue is here...

Open publication - Free publishing - More al celley

Happy Birthday, Duke!

2011-04-29T01:33:00.000-07:00

Nous vous aime aux folle!

Sonnet for Sister Kate

In honour of Duke's birthday and other sundry celebrations happening today, here is a little present: a half hour broadcast over NBC from Ravinia Park Festival, Highland Park, 1 July, 1957, premiering Ellington's Shakespearean suite Such Sweet Thunder. Enjoy the day!

Going Dutch

2011-02-24T09:28:00.000-08:00

“You're young and growing and I'm old and going. So have your fun while you can…”

Added recently to the Roll of Honour, opposite is the weblog Keep Swinging – a bilingual affair in English and Dutch edited by Hans Koert.

There is a fascinating piece there at present about Ben Webster’s final performance which took place in Lieden, South Holland on Thursday the 6th of September 1973 at De Twee Spieghels.

From Keep Swinging:

"On the 6th of September 2010, thirty seven years after Ben's last concert, four "aged" men joined for a concert at the Twee Spieghels in Leiden to play a tribute to Ben Webster: Bob Rigter, who played at the 1973 concert on Ben's original tenor saxophone; Rob Agerbeek at the piano and the original 1973 rhythm section with Peter Ypma on drums and Henk Haverhoek, on double bass."

Film director Flore Deroose made a recording of the concert which forms the centrepiece of her new film Tribute to Ben Webster.

The first twenty minutes of the film, with subtitles in English, have been posted at the blog. You can read all about the documentary and watch this first part here.

I don’t know if there are plans to post the rest of the film with subtitles but you can see Part Two at the First Flore Production’s own Youtube channel here.

More about Ben’s last years from the excellent Keep Swinging blog can be found here.

Ben’s final performance was captured, fortuitously, by a student on cassette. It has since been made available commercially on EMI/ Blue Note.

I’ve included a picture of the original LP issue here. The susurrant (from Webster’s Dictionary!)tones of Ben’s tenor are invariably experienced best in this medium – but the double album is next to impossible to find.

Copies of the compact disc version – called Ben Webster Holland Sessions -were legion until a few years ago but that, too, is now out of print and has disappeared from sale at the usual online retailers. It can be downloaded, however, from here.

Tenor saxophonist on the tribute concert was Bob Rigter. He was also present at Ben’s last performance. At his own website here, Rigter recounts the experience of being asked to play ‘Betsy’, Webster’s tenor saxophone, for the penultimate number of the night.

Ben Webster died two weeks later on 20 September, 1973. On the same day, Bob Rigter’s son Simon was born.

A professional musician himself, now, Simon’s site can be found here.

And here is the saxophonist with the Dutch jazz Orchestra performing Day Dream.

Ever up and onward…

Serenade to Sweden

2011-02-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

Another leaf for the pages of this virtual scrapbook: Sven Lindahl interviews Duke Ellington for Swedish television in 1963. I have not seen this footage before. Brief sodium flashes on the celluloid aside, picture quality is excellent; Ellington's golden feathers as unruffled as ever...

Hi Fi Fo Fum

2011-02-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

The search for quality music inevitably gets bound up in the search for quality sound.

I do not have the budget to indulge my hi-fi tastes to the limit, but I do have a proper ‘separates’ system and a turntable. Whilst I don’t have the specialist knowledge either to build a perfect system, I do appreciate the language of the hi-fi enthusiast which often borders on the poetic.

So, audio engineer Steve Hoffman’s discussion board (here) is one of my favourite stop overs on the old information super highway. It was a discussion thread which led me to this article by Henry Rollins about the supremacy of vinyl over compact disc and download.

My favourite lines read:

Sitting in a room, alone, listening to a CD is to be lonely. Sitting in a room alone with an LP crackling away, or sitting next to the turntable listening to a song at a time via 7-inch single, is enjoying the sublime state of solitude.

And Solitude is the most tenuous of links to this: part of a report by David W. Robinson from the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2007: The Audio Oasis! complete with photograph of one mean hi-fi rig and a couple of choice Ellington albums:

USA's Dan Meinwald demonstrated the playback of some choice mono LPs that he had brought with him.

"My personal favorite was the original 1950(!) pressing of Duke Ellington's Masterpieces by Ellington. Via the Dynavector mono, the sound was incredibly immediate, very clean, and spilling over with real presence. Not only that, but I got to hear a performance of "Mood Indigo" that went on for some eleven minutes, allowing Ellington and company to really explore some variations that were new to me. To say that this session was the personal highlight of the show for me is an understatement. It was an exceptional experience, one that furthered my audio education."

Dan Meinwald with a monoraul pressing of Ellington Indigos (left) and the marvelous 1950 monoraul Masterpieces by Ellington (ML 4418). Sublime! Many thanks, Dan.

"It was also a revelation of the glories that great performances on mono can have: layering (you don't need stereo for that, surprisingly enough), texture, rich enveloping tone, and atmosphere by the ton. Dan was sharing with anyone who has EARs to hear (not everyone does!) how good such mono LPs can be, properly played back. Dan even did a comparison of mono playback via mono vs. stereo cartridges. The Dynavector stereo did a good job, but the noise floor was noticeably increased (more tics/pops) with a stereo MC. This demonstration made it clear to me that if you're serious about mono, invest in a good mono setup. In the case of the Disc Master, getting a second tonearm is quite feasible …just the thing for the serious collector."

Interested parties can read the full report here.

Only Connect

2011-02-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

January 23 last, a couple of weeks ago saw the sixty eighth anniversary of Duke Ellington’s first concert at Carnegie Hall. Centre piece of this event was the performance of a piece written specifically with this occasion in mind – Black, Brown and Beige.

Whilst the work was previewed the night before at Rye High School, Westchester County, New York the previous evening, Carnegie was the occasion, effectively, of its world premier.

A further performance of the work took place at Boston’s Symphony Hall on January 28 and then Ellington never performed the work in its entirety in concert ever again.

Listening to that first Carnegie Hall concert from the original vinyl issue (the transfer to CD is not done well –vinyl is the way to go to hear these recordings), B, B and B occupies both sides of the second of the three discs. It comprises, then, an entirely self-contained experience. I know that over the next few weeks I shall be returning to these sides again and again to reflect on the significance the composition – perhaps the major work of his career - certainly had on Ellington himself.

It is interesting to reflect, too, on the life the work enjoyed beyond these initial performances. There is the 1958 Columbia album, for example and the way certain pieces from the work would recur throughout Ellington’s work, the sublime Come Sunday, signally, which is featured both in Ellington’s 1963 My People and the Sacred concerts. These matters of heritage and faith run deep.

I was particularly gratified to receive a comment following the recent, brief piece on the passing of Barrie Lee Hall Junior posted here. The comment was signed Maurice. A little research on line confirmed me in my thoughts that its author was Maurice Peress who amongst his many accomplishments through his work with the Aaron Copland School of Music, is the author of Living with American Music: From Dvorak to Duke Ellington and who worked with Ellington himself on orchestrating Black, Brown and Beige in the sixties.

Thank you, Mr Peress for your comments. As with all the support, interest and kindness I receive here, they are very much appreciated.

Barrie Lee Hall Junior

2011-01-25T11:46:00.000-08:00

Barrie Lee Hall, trumpet player invited whilst still a college to join Duke Ellington's orchestra, has died at the age of sixty one years.

From Barrie Lee Hall Junior’s own site:

“My interest in jazz got started in high school where I was in the school's big band under the direction of Sammy D. Harris whose insight pointed a few of us in the direction of jazz. I studied music with trumpet being my principal instrument and piano second at Texas Southern University and after winning a few soloist awards in national big band college jazz festival competitions around the country, Duke Ellington came to Houston.

Arnett Cobb, a jazz legend, call to ask me if I would take him to see Duke and in the process I would get a chance to meet Duke. Arnett introduces me as, "This is Barrie Lee Hall a trumpeter in the Texas Southern University Jazz Ensemble ". And Duke's reply was, " Ah, how come you're not playing in my band?" After waiting and calling around the US, I joined the Duke Ellington Orchestra June 8, 1973. I am at the present still a member of that organization. Mercer Ellington died February 8, 1996. Barrie Lee Hall Junior conducted the Duke Ellington Orchestra for one year after and he is the director of the orchestra sometimes in Paul Mercer Ellington’s stead.”

Ellington signed Barrie Lee Hall Junior in 1973, when the composer was most particularly involved in performances of his sacred works. Barrie Lee Hall Junior had a particular affinity for Duke’s spiritual writing which makes his association all the sweeter, his passing all the more poignant.

In tribute, here is Barrie Lee Hall Junior performing one of those works – The Shepherd.

Thank you for Barrie Lee Hall Junior.

In Dino Veritas

2011-01-19T15:26:00.000-08:00

A recent hard drive crash has meant the temporary loss - amongst other things - of a cache of photographs and documents I intended to publish here. They await some sort of replevin - when I have sufficient funds.

Before I suffered any further losses, I thought I had better publish copies of these images - for sale, recently, at a notable on-line auction house - without further ado.

It doesn't surprise me that the paths of Duke Ellington and Dean Martin (however mazy the latter) should have crossed at some point. Here is the evidence in this merry gathering. I have no details of the occasion, nor indeed the identities of the other parties. I treasure the association, however.

Bespoke here

2011-01-04T03:54:00.000-08:00

I could wish for a happier reason to share this film of Dr Billy Taylor, playing Perdido in conjunction with Willie 'The Lion' Smith and Duke Ellington, than recent news of his passing. This performance is forever joyous, however.

Many Happy Returns, Clark Terry!

2010-12-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

Clark Terry! Clark Terry!

Thank you for Clark Terry, the ninetieth anniversary of whose birth falls today.

Birthday wishes can be left at Mr Terry’s blog here.

Freedom of expression...

2010-08-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

A fascinating discussion rehearsing the debate about what-is-and-isn't-jazz in a generally civil exchange is taking place at A Blog Supreme and this post here.

One of the contributors linked to a superb interview with Duke Ellington conducted in Sweden in 1973. The Duke speaks eloquently on the vexed issue of 'jazz' but also on 'music', 'taste' and 'money', his perceived relationship between the three drawing some flint. Here is the film:

Blues in new print

2010-08-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

Googling the 45 rpm version of EKE’s Blues in Orbit album recently, against an on-line auction in which I was interested, I happened across this clip on Youtube.

It is film of bassist Pierre Boussaguet and pianist Alain Boussaguet, recorded in 2009, laying down tracks for their album Still Dukish.

Despite the title Youtube have given to the piece, the composition is, in fact, Blues in Blueprint. A rare composition, not often performed, this recording is a treat! Their album is available here.

Stomping at the Savory

2010-08-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

Writing a blog is often like chairing a séance. Occasionally one feels the need to look up from the table cloth, address the heavens and ask “Is anyone there?” I’m sorry to see Bop and Beyond has gone. The redoubtable Ed Leimbacher had a bit of a Quo Vadis moment a few weeks ago. I sometimes think I’ll just hang up the old Th-th-th-that’s all folks... sign myself some days.

Howsoever… there is always something exciting happening somewhere in the wonderful world wide web of jazz reportage. Whether I have (m)any readers or not (and – if you’re there- I thank you heartily), I will always maintain Villes Ville if nothing else as a digital scrapbook, a virtual aide memoire.

So, here is a link to The New York Times and the most marvelous piece of breaking news.

Howard Carter could not have been more excited by the prospect of excavating untold treasures than Loren Schoenberg must be auditing, at last, the collection of jazz recordings made by William Savory which have been donated to the National Jazz Museum, Harlem.

It seems no exaggeration to say that these recordings may well make a shift in the geography of the landscape of classic jazz of seismic proportions, allowing us to look afresh at the work of relatively unacknowledged masters like Herschel Evans.

And, here, too – another page in the scrap book, a video of the processes through which the sounds are being coaxed from these venerable aluminium platters which could not find a happier home commercially than on the Mosaic label, on which point, more breaking news here.

Fit for the Queen

2010-08-11T01:41:00.000-07:00

This is it. This is everything I would hope jazz in the twenty-first century might be: the classical forms of the music, the charts themselves even, an inspiration for new generations of young musicians, a departure point from which they can then make their own way.

I read some while ago on Sebastian Scotney’s excellent London Jazz site that Peter Edwards, Musical Director of The Tomorrow’s Warriors Jazz Orchestra has the ambition to perform Duke Ellington’s Queen Suite for Queen Elizabeth II herself. It was written for HM The Queen fifty years ago last year (my earlier post on the subject is here). Ellington had the recording pressed privately and sent as a gift to the Queen. He never performed the suite for her. The ambitions of Tomorrow’s Warriors – should they be realized – means the circle will be completed.

Updates on the project can be received from the site dedicated to this new incarnation of The Queen’s Suite here.

There is an appeal at the moment for funds to complete a film by Corine Dhondee about the project. This is the trailer for that film. It has made my day.

Clothes maketh...

2010-07-18T02:41:00.001-07:00

A little piano recital for a Sunday afternoon: here is the rare alternate take of The Clothed Woman, (Co38671-e), recorded 30 December, 1947: Shorty Baker, t; Johnny Hodges, as; Harry Carney, bs; Duke Ellington, p; Junior Raglin, b; Sonny Greer, d.

Got it taped

2010-07-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

Richard Nixon's White House had a less than happy history with reels of magnetic tape. Here's one cropped up on E bay in the small hours which seems to have got away without much fuss, though. It's the original - or so the vendor claims - recording of the tribute to Duke Ellington held on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. The vendor describes the contents of the tape thus:

April 29th, 1969 "Tribute To Duke Ellington" East Room Of The White House.

The First Generation Reel to Reel Tape recorded by The White House Communications Agency in 3 3/4 IPS.
This is the full concert with speeches by Richard Nixon including the President playing piano and leading the audience in singing "Happy Birthday".

Track listing: Take the 'A' Train; Medley: I Got it Bad / Chelsea Bridge / Satin Doll / Sophisticated Lady / Just Squeeze Me / I Let a Song Go Out of my Heart / Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me / Don't Get Around Much Anymore / In a Mellotone; In a Sentimental Mood; Prelude to a Kiss; Ring Dem Bells; medley: Drop Me Off in Harlem / All Too Soon / It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing); Things Ain't What They Used To Be; Perdido; Warm Valley; Caravan; Mood Indigo; medley: Prelude to a Kiss / I Didn't Know About You; Praise God and Dance; Come Sunday; Heritage; Jump for Joy; Pat.
Personnel: Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Earl Hines, Hank Jones, Billy Taylor- piano; Paul Desmond- alto saxophone; Gerry Mulligan- baritone saxophone; Jim Hall- guitar; Urbie Green, J.J. Johnson- trombone; Bill Berry, Clark Terry- trumpet; Milt Hinton- bass; Louie Bellson- drums; Joe Williams, Mary Mayo- vocal.

Until a few years ago all that was available of this historic event was a cassette tape and more recently the VOA (Voice of

America) tape has surfaced. I believe the reel to reel up for auction is the first generation tape from which all others were made.

The quality of the recording is simply outstanding. The tape has been carefully stored and no deterioration of sound quality has occurred. Side by side comparison to the available CD marks this tape as far and away superior in sound quality, crispness, content, and overall feeling that the listener is "in the room".

This is a one of a kind item. The length of the event on tape is 91 minutes, starting with R.M. Nixon speaking about Duke Ellington, and ending 90 minutes later with Duke performing a piano solo simply entitled "Pat".

If you have $3,700 to spare with which to start the bidding, brother, full details are here.

Many Happy Returns

2010-07-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Paul Gonsalves! Paul Gonsalves! Thank you for Paul Gonsalves...

on the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of his birth.

More Joya

2010-07-04T05:10:00.000-07:00

Sunlit is the only word to describe the life and career of Joya Sherrill as these further pictures from a cache of copyrighted Life photographs illustrate.

Whether it was returning to school after her first tour of duty with the Ellington band in the early forties, stopping the show with her rendition of Katusha on Benny Goodman’s mission to Moscow in 1962 or her numerous returns to the Ellington fold to participate in the album My People or to appear at The Rainbow Grill, hers is a rich legacy.

Anyone about my age now but who grew up in New York, may well remember the children’s shows she presented, Time for Joya and Fun School. In the era, I suppose of Sesame Street, Joya’s programmes were syndicated locally. Typically, tapes of these programmes apparently no longer exist but on this page, there are links through to the only surviving sound recordings of the shows and they comprise a guest appearance by Duke Ellington. The recordings are priceless.

Here is a brief reminiscence of some of her finest early work - from standards she created during her first stay with the Ellington band such as I'm Beginning To See The Light and I Didn't Know About You delivered with malted milk smoothness to fine, rare work with Rex Stewart at Capitol and her appearance at Carnegie Hall in January 1946, singing The Blues from Black, Brown and Beige.

Joya Sherrill

2010-06-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

I learned this evening of the passing of Joya Sherrill on 28 June. Her contributions to Duke Ellington's imperishable legacy will never be forgotten but how much more, of course, will she be remembered by her loved ones.

The Noon Crowd

2010-06-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

Driving home from work this afternoon, I was listening to one of several CDs I had burned of Duke Ellington's thirties big band recordings on the History label, against the day (soon, I hope) when Mosiac do the job properly.

The track was Billy Strayhorn's Something to Live For with Jean Eldridge, vocalist and I was struck, as I am always struck, by the immediacy, the power of the imagery in the lines:

My eye is watching the noon crowd
Searching the promenade
Seeking a clue...

So struck was I, in fact, that when I got home, I googled the phrase, the noon crowd on Images. One of the first hits it turned up was the photograph from Life I include above. The caption reads:

A view showing the noon lunch hour crowds streaming to the Bata Stores.
Photo: John Phillips./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Jan 1, 1938

Ellington's recording was made on the first day of Spring, 1939. Whilst Strayhorn probably composed the song some years earlier as a teenager (hence the truth and immediacy of the words, I suppose), it pleases me to think that the words were inspired by a very similar view.

Sole Responsiblity

2010-06-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

Here’s a follow up to the video I posted last night, Duke Ellington – Model of Leadership.

I have no idea of the provenance of much of this portmanteau of moving pictures but it illuminates brilliantly, if briefly, Ellington’s unique way of keeping that juggernaut of a band of his on the road all those years.

Bandleaders often get a bad press and, perhaps, with some justification but I have always had a sneaking regard for even the most authoritarian of them. Ellington – who was a martinet by no stretch of the imagination – in concert always talked about the ‘solo responsibilities’ of the men in the band. It was in discharging those responsibilities that he would often punish any indiscipline – so a musician high on drink or drugs would have to take chorus after chorus. The leader’s, however, is the sole responsibility – a different kettle of fish altogether. It is, by enlarge, his name on the marquee which brings the punters in, his personality, in the absence of any particular musical talent in some instances – which holds the whole show together. How long did any of these bands survive in the immediate aftermath of their leader’s departure? How many ‘ghost’ bands eclipse the achievements of the name on the monogrammed music stands?

Bandleaders, generally speaking, seem to fall into two categories: the libertarian or the martinet. Woody Herman, for example or Charlie Barnet, the former; Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman the latter. To Russia Without Love by bassist Bill Crow who testifies to his experiences touring the Soviet Union under the Benny Goodman regime. The essay can be found here.

Two battling brothers famously covered all bases in the attitude to being leader of the band: Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Fortunately, they finally found common ground and recorded what, for my money, was amongst the finest work they ever did. The music which comprises their last hurrah has just been released, some of it for the first time on compact disc. More in the next post…

This is not piano...

2010-06-15T15:19:00.001-07:00

I can’t help but think that anyone who asks an artist “Where do you get your ideas from?” really deserves all they get.

With characteristic charm and grace, in this classic example of Ellingtonian flim-flam teased from the cathode ray tube, Duke gives the interviewer – and us – much more than he - or we - deserve.

The po-faced silent film style caption imported by the Ken Burns team to preface this clip, moreover, invests this put on with more significance - and less irony - than Ellington would have intended, I think.

I don’t remember who described Ellington’s as a “bandit smile” but the phrase conjures brilliantly that dissembling side to his persona – less Liberian Suite than Liberace: the ‘piano player’s’ ultimate in keeping the world at arm’s length.

It is a wonderful rejoinder, its cumulonimbus character almost as enchanting as the evanescent music Ellington goes on – apparently spontaneously – to create…

Enjoy and thanks for the comments posted.

Jazzhus Montmartre lives...

2010-05-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

The legendary Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen has re-opened its doors today. In the past, the club has been host to performances from the likes of Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon and Stan Getz.

From the club's website:

"After 34 years of silence Copenhagen's legendary Jazzhus Montmartre re-opened May 1st in its original premises in Store Regnegade 19A with world class jazz on the stage and a jazz café run by the Michelin awarded team behind Era Ora and Acquamarina.

… The historic re-opening is initiated by the Danish jazz pianist Niels Lan Doky and his friend and entrepreneur Rune Bech. They operate the club on a non-profit basis with the help of donations and volunteers."

Apart from the rosta of gods who blew there, the club was also famous for the wall of sculpted masks designed by Mogens Gylling.

The masks "became an iconic symbol of Jazzhus Montmartre in the 1960's and 70's. For many years the ten masks with the strong expressions looked down from the wall at life in the club. Mogens Gylling, now 74, has been re-creating the art piece for the new Jazzhus Montmartre. They will be unveiled at a reception at Jazzhus Montmartre, Store Regnegade 19A, Copenhagen, on July 2nd at 2pm " as part of The Copenhagen Jazz Festival which runs from 2-11 July.

The first gig at the re-opened club - which is sold out - starts tonight at 8:00pm, a Danish/ Swedish All Star Band (Anders Bergcrantz, trumpet; Tomas Franck, tenor sax; Vincent Nilsson, trombone; Morten Ramsbøl, bass;Jacob Christoffersen, piano) led by US drummer Jeff 'Tain' Watts in a programme of the drummer's own compositions arranged by Laura Kahle.

I wish all concerned every success.

Happy Birthday, Duke!

2010-04-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

We do love you madly...

Play on...

2010-04-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

To conclude our reflections on The Stratford Shakespearean Festival, 1956, here is a selection of the music recorded during the Festival, dedicated to the memory of Herb Ellis.

The programme is as follows:

Harlem Air Shaft with Clark Terry, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra
Nuages The Oscar Peterson Trio, Herb Ellis and Ray Brown
Shreveport Stomp, Wilbur De Paris
Zig Zag,Willie 'The Lion' Smith, guest with Wilbur De Paris
I Want A Little Girl, Jimmy Rushing, vocal, with Wilbur De Paris
La Virgen de La Macarena, Cat Anderson, Duke Ellington and his orchestra
Gypsy in My Soul, The Oscar Peterson Trio
Pilgrim's Progress, Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Joe Dodge, drums, Norman Bates, bass.

De Paris Hot Club

2010-04-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

I spent a very pleasant hour yesterday afternoon listening to the last of the music I have which was recorded in Stratford, Ontario 1956 as part of the Shakespeare Festival.

The music of Wilbur De Paris, Live in Canada 1956 is suited perfectly to a sunlit afternoon in early April. It is light, joyous music in the tradition of New Orleans.

The urge to preserve the music of New Orleans seems to have set in early. A delicate bloom, its most ardent admirers seemed to fear it would be flattened by the Swing Era – hence the founding of the Hot Record Society.

I must admit this kind of music is largely off my radar partly perhaps because I fear it had all but disappeared by the time recorded music began. There are no records by Buddy Bolden. Its greatest outpouring is, I suppose, in those records of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens – and how they were used in evidence and held against him down the years; how quickly they said Louis had ‘sold out’. Evolved, rather, I would have said – the Promethean fire of his horn setting first the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra ablaze and then on to those great big band sides of the thirties…

That’s what jazz does: moves on. And part of my resistance to the kind of music purveyed by the De Paris group is that in some ways it represents a quite deliberate step backwards. Perhaps De Paris was the Wynton Marsalis of his day.

The waters are muddied further by the music’s adoption in the ration book Britain of the fifties where it became known as ‘Trad’. In my opinion, the music of New Orleans is like fine wine – it doesn’t travel well. Transplanted across the Atlantic and played by the likes of Humphrey Lyttleton and Kenny Ball, it makes no sense whatsoever. What is the music of Louisiana doing in Luton?

I do find the music presented in this set as much about preservation as improvisation (‘jam yesterday’ as it were) and this is accentuated by De Paris’s pedantic and rather learned introductions. Omer Simeon, who played with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, is presented as much as a living museum piece as a soloist. Within twelve months of this recording, though, Simeon had perished, dying at the age of fifty six from cancer of the throat – another link to that past Wilbur DeParis cherished so much vanished.

We do still have the records to treasure, though, and I do, pearls of great price, spilled for one afternoon at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival where The play’s the thing met Oh! Play that thing…

Duke Ellington's America

2010-04-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

My copy of Dr Harvey G Cohen 's new book, Duke Ellington's America arrived in my hot little hand the day before yesterday.

The book has been anticipated eagerly by members of the Ellington community and fifty pages in, I can see why.

In these early chapters, Dr Cohen is able deftly to sketch Ellington's formative years and at the same time place them within the political and cultural context of the African American experience. Ellington's belief in 'commanding' rather than 'demanding' respect makes so much sense of the 'political' stance he would take throughout the rest of his life. If the reader can expect this much economically expressed insight throughout the book, it will be a rare treat.

I shall post further thoughts on the volume as I make my way through it (the day job permitting!)

I have put a link to purchasing the book through Amazon directly from Villes Ville... I have no connection with Dr Cohen beyond a passion for Ellington's music and a belief that the book looks set to make a more than significant contribution to our understanding, and appreciation, of Ellington's life and work.

Such stuff...

2010-04-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

For our celebrations of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival of 1956, I thought I would post some images from the scrapbook Miss Barbara Reid kept during the years she was associated with the Ellington in her capacity as music promoter.

When the scrapbook was put up for sale last year, its contents were described thus:

“The scrapbook comes from the estate of a Miss Barbara Reid from Stratford, Ontario, Canada. The history on Miss Reid is that she was a trained pianist as a young woman who went on to work for the Stratford Shakesperean Festival. The only reference I could get to her exact job was one that referred to her as responsible for music promotion at the festival. She worked there during the 1950's. She had direct contact with Duke Ellington and his management. The time period of the scrapbook is roughly 1956 - 1963. The scrapbook is 11 1/4" wide by 16" tall (28.5 cm by 40.5cm). It has a brown cover and manilla coloured pages. The pages are numbered 1 - 81. Pages 13/14 and 61/62 are missing. The overall condition of the scrapbook is very good with only a couple minor page rips. The covers of the scrapbook have curled corners (minor). Some of the memorabilia is loose from the album and lots are glued, stapled into the album. Not every page has something on it - the odd numbers are full and some of the even numbers.

“The connection between Miss Reid and Duke Ellington was a professional one. The Stratford Festival commissioned Duke Ellington (and his co-writer Billy Strayhorn) to compose a new score for the Festival. They came up with 'Such Sweet Thunder'. This was a big hit for Duke Ellington and he even played in the late 50's in England for the Queen. This commission led to a long relationship between the Festival and Duke.

“THE STUFF - Start off with picture #1 - An original 3" by 5" postcard photo of Duke Ellington signed 'Best Wishes Duke Ellington'. I have no reason to believe that this is anything but original. With the personal relationship Miss Reid had with Duke Ellington, I would assume she got it from him. The scrapbook has been in storage for 15 years, so that eliminates any digital highjinks. If you are not happy with it - RETURN IT - NO PROBLEM. This picture is not glued into the album.

“The scrapbook is in chronological order. Page 3 is a glued down playbill of the Festival from July 20, 1956 (pictures #10 and #11) which featured Duke and his Orchestra. Page 5 is a glued in Time Magazine (Canada Edition) with Duke on the cover and an article in the magazine. Also on page 7 is a cover shot of Duke on Down Beat magazine from Dec 26, 1956.

Page #9 - This is a glued in - fold out. It is a Merry Christmas / Happy New Year message from Duke Ellington. I can only assume these were mailed out to people. This one measures 16" by 21". The message reads - ' Music is the tonal reflection of Beauty .. and yours is such a lovely melody'. There are in total five of these different Xmas / New Years messages. Picture # 9 shows one that is glued onto page 55 and reads 'Love you, love you, love you madly Bonne Noel et Joyeux Annee'. A picture of the Effiel Tower holds a sign that says 'Duke Ellington'. This was obviously sent while he was in Paris?? Two of these messages are not glued into the scrapbook. Some show tape marks and there is a small ripped corner on the Paris one. Page 11 contains Picture #8. It is a hand drawn cartoon that says ' But Miss Reid - those jazz persons are so uncouth!'. This cartoon is not signed.

“In 1957 - Sunday Evening - April 28 - at The Town Hall in New York City, Duke Ellington premiered his Stratford Festival hit 'Such Sweet Thunder'. Included in the scrapbook are the playbill for that night - glued onto page 21. Miss Reid was in New York City for that performance and was out on the town while there. On page 18, you can see a brochure for BIRDLAND with reference to Duke on the cover and inside pictures. Check out Picture #5 for this brochure. While in New York, Miss Reid went out to the Park Sheraton Hotel to see Duke perform after his debut at the Town Hall. Picture #2 shows her sitting at the piano with Duke. This is on page 37 and is stapled/glued down. Two other 8" by 10" black and white photos of Duke sitting at a table with Miss Reid and two others are loose in the scrapbook. The photos have a credit on the back to Bill Mark - Park Sheraton Hotel and reference numbers (to the negatives??). Pages 18 to 39 are full of newspaper articles and clippings referring to her time in New York and Duke.

“Page 41 has two black and white 8" by 10" photos stapled/glued in. They are of Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and another man. You can see one of these in Picture #3. Picture #4 is on page 43 and is of Duke Ellington sitting while an artist/sculptor does a bust of Duke. I don't know what this was for.

“Page 51 has a letter from John Celley?? to Miss Reid detailing set-ups for Duke and his band and asking her to detail room arrangements for them. On page 48 are three of these hand drawn band set-ups. They can be seen in Picture #6 and #7.

“Pages 55 and 57 are newspaper slippings relating to Duke Ellingtons trip to England in late 1958 to see the Queen.

“There is a telegram to Miss Reid from Mary?? on page 59. The telegram was sent from Stratford to Hotel Anderson in Ishpeming, Michigan. It says ' Entire program thrown out please try to get Jimmy Stewart to play Lear and Duke for Puck in Mid Summer Nights Dream Hitchcock already signed to direct Love. It is dated May 12/59. The telegram is picture #12.

“Throughout the scrapbook are many glued in playbills like the one on page 63. It is from October 1959 - Berliner Festwochen (Festival??). The title is 'William Shakespeare Duke Ellington Such Sweet Thunder'. There are many other articles relating to Duke Ellington and his time in the 1950's and early 1960's. Page 81 is a press release from the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, dated Feb 4/63. It is about Duke agreeing to compose the score for 'Timon of Athens' one of four plays offered that summer during the Festival's 11th season.

“There are also two 8" by 10" black and white photos of Duke Ellington - the kind given out (press, ..). They are not glued in, but one has a sticker obscuring the bottom corner. There are three booklets from the 1987, 1989 and 1990 International Conferences of the Duke Ellington Study Group. 1987 - Inn on the Park - Toronto. 1989 - Mayflower Hotel - Washington DC and 1990 - Ottawa - Chateau Laurier.

“Wilbur de Paris is featured on page 77 and 78. There is a postcard written to Miss Reid from Wilbur when he was in Africa on tour. It is signed by him. There is also a 8" by 10" black and white stapled to page 78 of Wilbur and group at the airport in Addis Ababa - Ethiopia. They were on a special tour arranged by the President's Special International Program for Cultural Presentation. This was in May of 1957.”

For our final post on this Stratford season, I am waiting for a compact disc of the music played by Wilbur de Paris. More as soon as we have it…

The pianist

2010-04-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

Twelve months ago in celebration of Duke Ellington's birthday, I posted here a photograph of Duke Ellington taken, I presume, at a party in Stratford, Ontario.

The lady sitting on Ellington's right is Miss Barbara Reid. She was also a pianist and worked for the Stratford Shakepearean Festival in some capacity as a publicist. Clearly, she knew Ellington and liaised with his management prior to his several appearances at the Festival. About twelve months ago, a scrapbook of Miss Reid's cuttings came up for auction on Ebay. I shall post some more about this over the next few days. For now, here are two more photographs of Miss Reid with Duke Ellington. I have no idea who their dining companions may be. I would love to hear from anyone who does know, who knew Miss Reid or has some involvement with Stratford and the Festival. Please do get in touch.

A noble duke, in nature...

2010-04-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival at which the Oscar Peterson Trio’s performance was recorded straddled quite a few weeks. A month or so before the trio’s appearance, the Duke Ellington caravan rolled into town. In many ways, Ellington’s appearance was even more auspicious, resulting as it did in inspiration for his Shakespearean suite Such Sweet Thunder.

Forgive my quoting so extensively from Jack Chambers’ article Bardland: Shakespeare in Ellington’s World but his essay is the definitive word on the subject. In the Canadian magazine Coda in 2005, Mr Chambers wrote:

"Ellington’s inspiration for transliterating Shakespeare into jazz came from a chance encounter, as unexpected in its way as was his fixation on God in his final years. In July 1956, Ellington was booked to play two concerts at the Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario. It did not seem special at the time. From 1956 until 1958, while Louis Applebaum was musical director, the Stratford Festival booked summer jazz and classical concerts as adjuncts to the dramatic offerings. Besides Ellington in 1956, Wilbur de Paris, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, and the Modern Jazz Quartet also played evening concerts, spaced out in July and August. In the time-honoured tradition, the jazz musicians played their one- or two-night stands and then hit the road for the next one a day or two away (although Peterson’s performance left a permanent memento in a Verve recording that captured the head-banging competitiveness of his original Trio as no other record had to date). Not Ellington. He played, and then he carried with him for the rest of his days what he had seen and heard all around him in the quiet anglo-celtic town of 20,000 in southwestern Ontario.

"Ellington was often sensitive to the places he played in spite of their profusion. He arrived in Stratford from a resort ballroom in Bala, about 150 miles to the north, played non-consecutive nights on Wednesday and Friday, the 18th and 20th, with concerts on the alternate Thursday and Saturday nights at the Brant Inn in Burlington, just 70 miles east. (The Wednesday performance is preserved Live at the 1957 [sic] Stratford Festival, Music & Arts CD-616 [1989].) Tom Patterson, the soft-spoken newspaperman whose persistence had persuaded the town council to risk a top-flight professional Shakespeare festival on the basis of the coincidence of the colonial namesake (not only Stratford itself, but the River Avon running through it), met Ellington and Harry Carney on their arrival, and was flattered when the Duke asked him to show him around. Ellington stayed in Stratford three days, commuting to the Brant Inn in the middle, and it is worth speculating that he might have altered his lifelong routine by hauling himself out of bed for mid-afternoon matinee performances of Henry V and Merry Wives of Windsor on the Festival’s main stage.

"The Shakespeare Festival was (and is) a highbrow spectacle in the bourgeois heartland, and none of it was lost on Ellington. Stratford’s thrust stage, modeled on the Elizabethan Globe, was new not only to Stratford but to the theatre world at large. It added to the excitement of the whole heady venture. Shakespeare had seldom been treated so well. His plays were directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham, costumed resplendently by Tanya Moiseiwitsch, and acted by a brilliant young company that included Lloyd Bochner, Christopher Plummer and William Shatner. Ellington loved it, so much so that he began finagling to be part of it. He opened his Stratford concerts with a new piece he called Hark the Duke’s Trumpets. The Shakespearean resonance of the title is Ellingtonian licence; it is a fanfare played by trombones, not trumpets (later recorded as Bassment). More important, Ellington told everyone he met in Stratford and in the months that followed that he and Billy Strayhorn were preparing a jazz suite based on Shakespeare for a premiere at the Festival the next summer."

Ellington’s appearance at the Festival Concert Hall, Stratford, Ontario took place, then, less than a fortnight after his barnstorming appearance at Newport.

It may be my imagination, but do I detect a new found confidence in Ellington’s work – and indeed in the entire band’s performance during the set – as a result of their being ‘born again’ just a couple of weeks earlier? Certainly, the stars are all in place that might augur such success. In particular, Billy Strayhorn had returned to his role as Ellington’s constant composing companion and Johnny Hodges, too, had returned to the fold. In his comments during the course of the concert, as a preface to Hodges’ solo on I Got It Bad… the altoist had just returned from his own "exciting adventures leading a band" or words to that effect…

Paul Gonsalves delivers here another tour-de-force along the lines of the Wailing Interval that set Newport alight on an extended version of the band’s theme. It does not have quite the incendiary effect it did at the earlier festival, however. In fact, these rollicking extended solos of Gonsalves had been brewing quite a while, since such an excursion was featured on the original studio recording of the concerto version of A Train some four or five years previously. The boppish Betty Roche vocal is aped, too, by Ray Nance – one of his several party pieces. But the concert proves to be the usual embarrassment of Ellingtonian riches as the band members each exercise their ‘solo responsibilities’. Clark Terry – who blew through the band like a zephyr in the fifties, delivers a modish extemporization on a pianissimo version of Harlem Air Shaft; Harry Carney delineates the contours of Sophisticated Lady; Cat Anderson serves up one of those searing Flamenco-tinged specialities in La Virgen De La Macarena; Jimmy Hamilton’s own composition Clarinet Melodrama (which Duke likens to a western) is delicious as are the obligatti he serves up behind Duke’s recitation of Pretty and the Wolf which he never delivered with more élan.

The Japanese pressing of this compact disc (to my ears, a slightly smoother ride than its US counterpart) is very difficult to come by. The re-issue is quite rare, too, but used copies can be had here.

In celebration this month of both Ellington’s and The Swan of Avon’s birthdays, I will post selections soon from a special scrapbook pertaining to Ellington’s Stratford appearances.

In the meantime, the full text of Jack Chambers' article can be read in the bulletin of the Duke Ellington Music Society here.

A couple of fascinating links for further reading on the Ellington Shakespeare connection which I haven’t yet had time to investigate fully myself may be found here and here.

Such sweet sorrow

2010-04-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival is – to mis-quote Whitney Balliett – the sound of civilisation.

I was prompted to take the CD down from the shelf by the news of the recent passing of Herb Ellis. The album is often cited as the finest example of this edition of the Peterson trio on record – chiefly by Peterson himself on the liner notes to the original album.

Somewhere between a thundering tour-de-force and a trip to the moon on gossamer wings, the album is seventy-five minutes of sonic bliss. Back on home ground in his native Canada, perhaps this is what inspires Peterson to the heights the group here scales. His characteristically fractal solos are caught in a shimmering web of interplay with Ellis’s guitar and the bass of Ray Brown. As Peterson himself has said “at times, depending on where we were on the instruments, it was almost impossible to tell which instrument you were hearing.”

This is my own favourite edition of the trio, perhaps because, at times, its sound reminds me of Nat Cole’s own early jazz work with guitar and bass. Herb Ellis works the full textures of the guitar into the warp and woof of the trio’s performance: the ticking, time-keeping reminiscent of Freddie Green’s metronome tempi; those sudden cat-like springs which send notes from Peterson’s piano scattering like pigeons; and then the pure, melodic lines. I was reminded at times of Paul Desmond’s work – his solos fluttering like a bird behind the mullioned windows of Brubeck’s piano at the Oberlin concert (the first jazz album I ever bought). Perhaps that is the contrast of the melody against the fugitive stride of the piano – instant Bach; Baroque and roll, if you will…

It is entirely appropriate that the concert culminates in a piece by John Lewis dedicated to Oscar’s sister. Daisy’s Dream is an Ellingtonesque piece about a music box. The woody sound of the trio – at times like fingers running down a louvred shutter – is the ultimate music box.

The trio’s inventive use of roundelay throughout the set, the trio as, virtually, a sort of Elizabethan string section - the stuff that dreams are made on…

The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival is available here.

Just a -sittin' and a-rockin'

2010-04-08T02:33:00.001-07:00

Last night I finished reading Someone to Watch Over Me: The Life and Music of Ben Webster by Frank Buchman-Moller.

It was a life-enhancing experience. I cannot recommend the book highly enough. What I learned there fired the imagination and will be the sauce to quite a few posts over the next couple of months. Not least, I finished the book with a long list of albums to track down and squirrel away.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Webster's career - which concluded, as everyone knows, with a lengthy sojourn on the continent of Europe - was his collaboration in 1972 with the Danish rock band Savage Rose.

Courtesy of Youtube, here is one of Ben's performances with the band. Frank Buchman-Moller's superb treatise on the tenor man's life and work can be found here.

Harry Anniversary

2010-04-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

Harry Howell Carney was born in Boston, Massachusetts this day one hundred years ago.

The baritone saxophonist's sterling work was the anchor of the Ellington reed section for forty seven years. He also drove Duke, often composing in the back of Carney's Chrysler Imperial, to many of the orchestra's gigs in the last twenty years of the band's life on the road.

“He’s a great fellow,” Carney said of his passenger and leader, “and it’s not only been an education being with him but also a great pleasure. At times I’ve been ashamed to take the money!”

Appropriately enough, broadcasting out of Boston tonight on WFCR from eight o'clock tonight, Tom Reney will be devoting his Jazz a la Mode programme to a celebration of Carney's life and work. The programme is streamed live here.

Pressing matters...

2010-03-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

A fascinating discussion on the audio qualities of this pressing from Youtube of Duke Ellington's Daybreak Express can be found here.

And here is said 78 pressing:

Happy Birthday, Mr Avakian

2010-03-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

Record producer George Avakian is ninety-one years old today. Many Happy Returns, sir.

By way of celebration, Marc Myers at Jazz Wax has Part One of an interview with Mr Avakian. Go here.

I love the fact that it was English Literature - and Sherlock Holmes - which inspired him to be a writer. A man after my own heart. These Jazz Wax interviews are priceless.

Looking at the library behind George in this picture (left), one can see the covers of some of his triumphs. Coincidentally - and courtesy of a certain internet auction house, I recently acquired a copy of CL 558, The Music of Duke Ellington.

An anthology of Duke's original recordings from the thirties, I wonder the extent to which the album became a defining text in the Ellington canon. I will write about the album more in future posts. Suffice it to say, the vinyl trounces comprehensively any digital re-issue of same. The music lives and breathes.

Impromptu in Ellingtonia

2010-02-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

Some of the richest and most rewarding writing for dance bands dates from that period at the end of the forties and into the fifties when the Swing Era had effectively blown itself out.

It's one of my favourite periods of Ellington – favourite, period, in fact; there’s the First and Second Herman Herds, the indefatigable Kenton’s Innovations Orchestra. Then there are the more ‘pastel’ bands – Claude Thornhill, Boyd Raeburn – and Ike Carpenter.

I have been spending a great deal of time lately listening to Ike Carpenter and his Orchestra: Dancers in Love on the Jazz Band label – a British company – which like Hep – does sterling work in ensuring the continued circulation of these rare recorded treasures.

Carpenter’s was a smaller band – between ten and a dozen players – almost a territory outfit, working out of the Los Angeles area in 1946 and 1947.

Appropriately enough, the pianist studied at Duke University – for his band was characterized by an infatuation with all things Ellingtonian. The title of this collection, for example, is taken from a movement of The Perfume Suite – one of those sugared parlour pieces – like The Clothed Woman – which are typical, largely, of this period alone in Ellington’s output. Carpenter gives a sure, but fleet-fingered touch to this jaunty refrain, couched in rich section writing which does not betray the relatively small size of the band.

And this is true of the other pieces on this CD, from the band’s theme, Mercer Ellington’s Moon Mist to Strayhorn’s Take the A Train.

It is not a pale imitation the band offers of these charts, however, but a homage of great sophistication and sensitivity. This is evident in the new music which was borne out of these arrangements. I had been eager to track down Carpenter’s recording of Day Dream, for example, ever since I discovered the Charlie Barnet album Lonely Street last year (see here). In not wanting to score the number for alto saxophone alone – thus echoing Johnny Hodges’ work on the original version too much, arranger Paul Villepigue scored the chart mainly for the leader’s piano, transposing the alto saxophone to a specially written introduction. This introduction became the basis for Paul’s own composition, Lonely Street. You can hear a song being born in those opening moments of Ike Carpenter’s Day Dream.

There is a fascinating article from Downbeat about the Ike Carpenter band at the website dedicated to Paul Villepigue’s memory here.

More detail on this particular arrangement of Day Dream can be found, too, by visiting the Archive page and scrolling down.

Ike Carpenter and his Orchestra: Dancers in Love can be purchased here.

Wailing interval.

2010-02-07T12:59:00.001-08:00

For a superb piece on Paul Gonsalves by Matt Lavelle, go here.

The website dedicated to Paul which is mentioned in the article may, I believe, be found here.

Paul did, indeed, hold a cherished place in the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Out of Africa

2010-01-23T10:47:00.000-08:00

To complete a triptych of Ellingtonian video postings, here is footage of the Ellington band - and Cat Anderson soloing - from a travelog-style film of the Festival Mundial de Arte Negra - Dakar, 1966.

The provenance of Beyonce

2010-01-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

This portmanteau of visual and aural delights is apparently called in the popular vernacular a 'mash-up'. It features one of Beyonce Knowles' rhythm novelties set to Duke Ellington's Harlem Air Shaft. Ellington's music stands up - of course -remarkably well: its timeless vitality is as valid today as ever. And Ms Knowles is clearly no slouch either when it comes to punishing the parquet. She could certainly more than hold her own in a Cotton Club Revue.

And, as if to prove plus ca change, plus ca meme change, when the provenance of these Ellington reels was identified by the members of Duke-Lym, here is further footage of hoofers. Firstly - with sound - the Ellington portion of the film which was used in the mash-up...

DUKE ELLINGTON

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And, finally, the entire documentary footage, without sound, of Harlem.

HARLEM ( aka HARLEM, NEW YORK ) - Correct Speed version

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Middle East Suite

2010-01-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

Duke Ellington and his Orchestra in concert, 14 November, 1963, The Khuld Hall, Baghdad (date and location provided by Sjef Hoefsmit, Duke Ellington Music Society).

Duke Ellington at Salle Pleyel

2009-11-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

retrouver ce média sur www.ina.fr

Sweets to the sweet

2009-10-11T06:50:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would type the name ‘Lawrence Welk’ on these pages but there you go...

The reason? I’ve had the album Johnny Hodges recorded with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra for some time and pulled it from the shelf last night for my Saturday evening listening.

Back in the day, apparently, Welk was king of Saturday night television. Ironic, then, that I should seek refuge with this album whilst in the next room, my wife watched X-Factor. Plus ca change…

Originally recorded in 1965 and released on the Dot label, the album is nowhere near as cheesy as you might expect, considering the man wielding the baton is the terminally square titular band leader and accordion player. In truth, why should it be? Perhaps Welk is most famous for serving up anodyne pap down the cathode ray tube on a Saturday night, but his relationship to the actual music he is conducting is likely no more direct than, say, in another age, Paul Whiteman or Jackie Gleason. His is the name only in the phrase ‘name band’ and, enjoying the huge commercial success he did, I suppose he could employ anyone and make whatever music he liked. In terms of the actual scoring, then, the list of writers he contracted runs like a who’s who of Hollywood arrangers. There is one chart each for the likes of Marty Paich, Russ Garcia, Johnny Keating, Benny Carter, for heaven’s sake, and Glenn Miller’s chief of staff on his civilian and service orchestras, Jerry Gray.

Of course, to an extent the writers have to deliver within the self-imposed paradigms of Welk’s wall-to-wall easy listening and the backgrounds are, therefore, fairly uninvolving. But then you have Hodges, sailing serenely and obliviously above it all. As was ever his wont. If any musician could transcend Welk’s elevator music, it is Johnny Hodges for, truth to tell, even with the Ellington aggregation behind him, Johnny was always, somehow, above it all, his music in its own self-contained bubble, the inscrutable saxophonist seemingly impervious to his surroundings. Above it all, his music descrying the sort of progress those globules of oil perform in a lava lamp. Like bubbles of carbon dioxide, Hodges’ solos perhaps were perfectly at home in this champagne music.

A drum! A drum!

2009-09-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

A member of the Duke-LYM mailing list recently posted a link to a splendid cache of photographs capturing the telecast of Duke Ellington’s A Drum is a Woman.

Kinescopes of the original broadcast survive, I believe. Short of viewing these recordings – well, these photographs, taken by Thomas Mcavoy for Life magazine, give some idea of the visuals that went with the music.

Until I saw these images, it had never quite struck me before how A Drum is a Woman must owe its lineage to those days and nights the Ellington Orchestra had been the ‘house band’ at The Cotton Club. What we have here, essentially, is a floor show - the floor, in this case, being that of a television studio.

Although one or two aspects of the lyrics may set the nerves of a modern sensibility jangling like a shop bell, the music – interwoven with Ellington’s witty, urbane narrative – is sublime.

The album has never been released on compact disc in the USA. Frustratingly two CDs worth of material (and in stereo, if memory serves) were prepared by Phil Schaap – and even assigned an issue number – ten years ago for release as part of the celebrations for Ellington’s centennial. For some reason, the release never saw the light of day. The album has been re-issued recently on CD in Europe where its copyright has lapsed but struck not, of course, from the master tapes. These beautiful prints may rekindle some interest in the project – as part of a Mosaic re-issue, perhaps?

The photographs may be viewed here.

Vive Le Duke!

2009-08-03T03:36:00.001-07:00

News of a band in France dedicated to perpetuating Ellington’s rich legacy in performance: The Duke Orchestra directed by Laurent Mignard.

A CD compiled from several live performances last winter has just been issued on the Juste-une-Trace label and I have been enjoying its contents enormously this last couple of weekends past.

The album is called Duke Ellington Is Alive. Ellington’s music certainly ‘lives’ – and it should be brought ‘live’ to festivals and concerts for – hopefully – particularly young audiences to enjoy.

Mignard’s fidelity to Ellington’s oeuvre goes deep – not only in terms of the accuracy with which the arrangements are reproduced – but the extent of the repertoire – which on this disc includes such neglected gems as Half the Fun, The Eigth Veil and – best of all, one of my own favourite Ellington perennial’s Ad Lib On Nippon. This latter is a feature for the luminous talents of Aurelie Tropez on clarinet who appeared recently with Les Red Hot Reedwarmers at the Whitley Bay Jazz Festival. Wish I’d joined the dots sooner on this – it would have been well worth the trip to the coast.

At the moment, I think The Duke Orchestra’s itinerary has been confined solely to France. Their activities are part of a larger outreach – Le circle des amis de Duke - which includes education. I do hope they venture abroad soon. Friends of Duke Ellington everywhere should welcome this venture – buy the CD and also – literally – the T Shirt. A presence on My Space is another of the joys of performing this music in the modern age – and a potential resource for the future.

I bought my copy of the disc from Amazon France. Details here. There is further reading about The Duke Orchestra here. There is also an official website.

And should there still be any naysayer, just enjoy this gorgeous video of – appropriately enough – Kinda Dukish and Rockin’ in Rhythm will dispel any doubt. The video was recorded during the orchestra’s recent performance at the Jazz a Vienne Festival.

"I'll be the judge of that..."

2009-06-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

Ellington’s score stands in oblique relation to the film Anatomy of a Murder. What Ellington and Strayhorn wrote was not a conventional movie score in the usual sense. None of it could be said to underscore the characters or situations, to provide ‘stings’ or cues. No wonder it works so beautifully as a self-contained album. Had Ellington titled this a suite, one could hardly disagree, such is its cohesion, the pattern of repeating motifs and refrains. Some would argue that these repetitions are down to the fact that Ellington was stretching his music thinly; that the music is sketchy - although that is entirely the point.

Take the composition Happy Anatomy, for example, the first tune up on the recording session of 1 June, 1959. It begins like a sort of half baked riff number of the kind Count Basie was routinely knocking out about this time – except you feel someone like Neal Hefti could probably have made a better job of it. But then in the out choruses, suddenly there are these great stabbing chords thrown about like paint on a Jackson Pollock canvas and the whole thing suddenly turns through about a hundred and eighty degrees and takes off. Solos by Clark Terry and Paul Gonsalves lift it to a higher plane. But then for Ellington – who often in his concerts would speak of his men and their ‘solo responsibilities’, the whole thing was about creating space for these virtuosi to make their magic. And suddenly something is there totally beyond anything the Basie band could reach. Or any other aggregation come to that. That is the alchemy of Duke Ellington.

Was this free-standing suite what Otto Preminger had in mind for his movie? One can only assume so. One can assume further that it was a stroke of genius on the director’s part to commission Ellington in the first place. That jazz should be the music of choice for the soundtrack makes sense when Polly (as the Jimmy Stewart character is known) is a jazz fan. Music is used in the film pretty realistically – it is there in real time – as Polly noodles on the piano or in the roadhouse with Pie Eye. Long stretches of the film are without any music at all –it is set in a court room, after all – a place not usually noted for the evanescent strain of a string section in the air every few minutes, punctuating the discourse or telling the audience what to feel.

But I would argue further that it is not just jazz which is the perfect choice for this film but -specifically - Ellington’s jazz. For what other music besides Ellington’s own is so ambiguous – so lugubrious – so full of grace as Duke’s? For it is ambiguity, lugubriousness and grace which characterise the whole tone of the film.

This is a film for grown ups. There are no easy answers; no clear cut conclusions. Motives are mixed; morality is ambivalent.

Lieutenant Frederick Manion – who has served in Korea - is accused of the murder of bar tender Barney Quill who allegedly raped Manion’s wife, Laura. Whatever the provocation, there are no circumstances mitigating murder, however. Stewart’s lawyer coaches his client in pleading temporary insanity. But was his wife violated? Or did she encourage Barney Quill’s attentions, her husband assaulting her physically and then murdering Quill because of their dalliance down a local lover’s lane?

The case hangs on the whereabouts of Laura Manion’s ‘panties’ and one exchange in particular in court on this subject rather shows the film as a product of its time. Whilst the scene jars with modern sensibilities, nobody nowadays should be so complacent as to believe we’ve moved on, however. At the mention of the word ‘panties’, the courtroom descends into schoolboy sniggering. The Judge cautions them that there is nothing to laugh at when the offending article may be responsible for the death of one man and the possible incarceration of another. One might have thought that the judge might have thought fit to mention that the allegations of the woman in the case are not to be taken lightly either but she figures little in this battle over the fate of the men folk.

Whilst this is clearly a trial for murder and not rape (indeed prosecution and defence do not initially want to raise the question of whether Laura Manion was violated or not since it has no bearing on the charge of murder), nevertheless the woman’s own feelings seem to be of little consequence.

Was Ellington’s music colluding – by association – with such latent sexism? Flirtibird , for example, hardly seems a particularly sensitive title for a theme written for the alleged victim of assault. It’s not too far a distance from that title to the implied accusations at the trial that wearing figure-hugging sweaters or being ‘high’ on drink is just asking for trouble.

However, this is also borne out by Lee Remick’s performance in the film – the character seems rarely troubled by her experiences – and indeed is lectured at one point by James Stewart – in patrician mode – for continuing to hang out with the boys at the club house whilst her husband awaits trial.

Was the murder then committed simply out of jealous rage? Is Manion a sort of Bob Ewell figure from To Kill A Mockingbird – punishing his woman for her transgression and her putative lover in the process?

Ben Gazzara’s portrayal of the husband never canvases any sympathy. It is a performance totally free of any sentimentality – which only begs the question why Paul Biegler should want to represent him.

The lawyer makes no bones about his physical attraction to Mrs Manion and she candidly says she has always been aware of the effect she has on men. But did she encourage their attentions? And was it a criminal offence in any case if she did?

For the character of Laura Manion is damned if she did. Damned if she didn’t. Like the women of the seventeenth century condemned as witches (and Joseph N Welsh here playing the judge was a judge in real life who stood against the McCarthy witch hunts) and thrown into the river – if they floated they were burned at the stake, if they were innocent, they drowned.

She could wish her husband were found guilty, in which case she would be free, yet he must be found not guilty to exonerate herself. In fighting for such a verdict, Biegler is consigning her to a prison and himself, perhaps, to his lonely bachelorhood of fly fishing and jazz (though romance has as little place in this film as any other sentimentality).

But such is the verdict that Biegler fights for and obtains. James Stewart’s casting is inspired, simply because the actor carries with him such morality and integrity.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” his character remarks at one point. But this is a film which ultimately teaches us the value exactly of not judging. Stewart’s character moves in a man’s world; the trial is about two men. The woman is apparently a ‘flirtibird’ – and yet the film is all about Stewart reaching beyond the man’s world, behind the flirtatious surface – to reach the woman. Whilst a product of its time (and how I cherish those opening shots of Stewart’s automobile returning through the empty streets of Thunder Bay, his calling in at the local bar – the cars and bars of the fifties -saloons both – have such a style, such a nostalgia – but the fifties were also cruel times to be in if you were amongst the oppressed), the film does show that whatever Laura Manion may or may not have done – however she is a victim of the irresistible impulses which can drive us all –she does not deserve the castigation a guilty verdict for her husband may well trail in its wake. Despite the courtroom setting, the film is a plea not to judge.

Which brings me back to Duke Ellington’s music. In its ambivalence, its lugubrious undertow, its generosity and the capaciousness of its grace, it is the perfect expression of tolerance.

Ellington achieved huge success and as a result was often accused of a sort of complicity with the status quo on any number of fronts. But Ellington’s art does not make such judgements.

In its capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others, it is the epitome of tolerance.

Even if Anatomy of a Murder were the story of the woman taken in adultery, Ellington’s sublime soundtrack is saying Let he who is without sin…

It is music of understanding beyond not just words – to quote Steinbeck– but understanding beyond thought.

Whatever Ellington’s inspiration for the soundtrack – the novel, the script, Lee Remick herself – like the rest of Ellington’s oeuvre it came from a beautiful place– and Ellington – and his composing and arranging companion Billy Strayhorn – were the perfect choice for this movie.

Happy Anatomy

2009-06-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to get around to writing about the fiftieth anniversary of Duke Ellington’s Anatomy of a Murder for weeks now – and I have been beaten to it. Go here to read Hans Koert’s thoughts on this album on his Keep Swinging blog.

Whilst much fuss has been made lately – and rightly so – of 1959 as The Year That Changed Jazz with special reissues of the albums Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Mingus Ah Um and Time Out, Ellington’s major contribution to that year’s recordings has been largely overlooked.

Well, fair enough. The album was neither the critical nor commercial success of those venerable collections listed above. It was neither any more nor any less than jazz fans had come to expect, I guess, from the many albums Ellington was releasing at that time in the immediate aftermath of his renaissance at Newport. It was, however, Ellington’s first commission for a motion picture soundtrack and its anniversary is as good an excuse as any for us to pause and to reflect on Ellington’s achievements in this sphere.

Otto Preminger had already enjoyed considerable success with marrying jazz to film four years earlier with The Man with the Golden Arm. Given that so many jazz musicians had migrated west at the end of the big band era to take up steady jobs in recording studios, it seems logical that they should find their way to the soundstages of Hollywood. Or you would think so. Jazz musicians unfortunately suffered a – not entirely unwarranted – reputation for unreliability, sufficient, at any rate, to frighten off the placemen and accountants who ran the movie business so their involvement in this work was slow. Following the success of Man with the Golden Arm, composers such as Elmer Bernstein used jazz as a regular ingredient in their music for films such as The Sweet Smell of Success.

Ellington, however, was an altogether different kettle of fish. With Ellington, you were buying into both an entirely self-sufficient unit of music makers and also a distinct personality, philosophy, style and sound in the man himself and the way this was expressed through his music. In the music, what you basically had was another character in the film. Ellington himself appeared, briefly, as Pie Eye, the manager of a road house, but just in the same way that Alfred Hitchcock made a cameo in his own films, so Ellington’s imprimatur was not confined to his fifteen minutes of fame in front of the camera. Through his music, Ellington’s finger prints were all over the film.

What was Ellington’s mode of composition, his inspiration for the film's score?

Unlike the way, for example, Miles Davis created the music for Ascenseur pour l'échafaud by improvising in front of a screening of the film itself – Ellington did not have moving images or a print of the film to score to. He did have access to a film script (a copy of the script of the movie is available here) and was alleged to have read the novel. But to what extent did the actual plot influence Ellington at all in his writing?

By all accounts it was Lee Remick herself rather than the character she played who was the inspiration for one of the main themes of the soundtrack, Flirtibird.

Ellington and the band were in the studios a little month before the film premiered. Even by Duke’s standards, this is cutting it fine.

But then, that is Ellington's essential mystery and magic. Like some prestidigitateur, producing with a flourish a bouquet of flowers where formerly there was a wand, Ellington's score will suddenly appear, apparently out of nowhere.

Listening to this svelte soundtrack, I am reminded of a conjurer’s act – the reed section a velvet curtain which Ellington draws back and forth across the cabinet of delights, teasing us, shooting his cuffs in assurance that there is nothing up his sleeve, his audience looking in vain to find the lady.

Return to Lonely Street

2009-04-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

Following my recent post on the Charlie Barnet album Lonely Street, I have been in correspondence with Desne Villepigue, daughter of composer Paul.

Desne kindly supplied the sequence of tunes from the original vinyl album. I am delighted to add the details here:

SIDE 1:I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues; The Moon Is Yellow(sic); Serenade In Blue; You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To; Isn't This A Lovely Day; Lonely Street

SIDE 2:Myna; Phylisse; Lumby; Blue Rose; Hear Me Talking To You; Lemon Twist

I have amended the play list in my iPod accordingly and am enjoying this album now as it was meant to be heard.

A significant player in the album’s creation was overlooked entirely by me in my original post, too. I think I believed the mournful brass work accompanying Barnet’s solos on the soprano saxophone was a trombone. The wrong idea. It was, in fact, a bass trumpet played by Dave Wells. Desne writes:

Dave Wells told me this story about the idea for the album: Dave was playing bass trumpet with Charlie on sop sax leading a small combo out on Catalina Island the summer of 1956. Charlie wanted to do an album featuring what he called "the two bastard instruments" with full band plus strings. Dave, who was then on the faculty of Westlake College of Music along with Russ Garcia, recommended Russ as the arranger.

I am pleased to add this fascinating information, helping to ensure Dave Wells gets due credit for his part in creating this magnificent album, his own tender obligato emphasising the bruised nature of these ballads on love and loss. Thank you, Desne.

With regard to her father’s part in the music, Desne writes additionally:

The original score for "Lonely Street," handwritten in pencil, is presently held by the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers. Until recently, it was misidentified as being Paul's original score (from 1948-49). But I sent a photocopy to Russ and he confirmed that it was indeed his, noting: "I remember the mistake in the last four bars. The Vibra and Celeste were written a whole step too high. I corrected it at the session but I see that I never changed the score."

Several original Paul Villepigue charts are included, however, as additional material, from the album Dancing Party. We shall look at those and Charlie Barnet’s original recording of Lonely Street in future posts.

Happy Birthday, Duke

2009-04-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born this day, 29 April, 1899.

You can join the celebrations at WKCR, Columbia University Radio in New York which will be broadcasting Duke's music for the next twenty-four hours.

Lonely Street

2009-04-26T01:45:00.000-07:00

I’m somewhat ambivalent about CD re-issues which are released within Europe without licence from the major label which owns them because copyright has lapsed after fifty years. I have many in my collection so to condemn these issues outright would be hypocritical. The alternative is to be Jesuitical – or to dance on the head of a pin or whatever the expression is – which, to be honest, is how I justify their place on my shelves.

Since such re-issues are legal within the European Community, I buy these releases where they contain material which is not otherwise available. And, strictly speaking, these CDs ought to be produced from original fifty-year old plus vinyl or shellac. It has been the case that these reissue houses will occasionally pirate legitimate releases from the likes of Mosaic –who have paid their dues – and put them out at minimal cost to themselves. The music may be more than fifty years old but the mastering certainly is not. This is hardly ethical.

Provenance is everything then to my pick-and-mix morality on this point. I would much rather a legitimate release existed. If not and this material languishes unissued somewhere in one of the major’s vaults, then a ‘copy of the LP’ seems to me a reasonable way to go. Second hand vinyl, after all, changes hands on Ebay sometimes for astronomical prices – and not a penny of this goes to the artists or their families.

Charlie Barnet’s album Lonely Street is a case in point. I have only ever seen one copy of the original album – in Ray’s Jazz in Foyles on the Charing Cross Road. It looked pretty dog-eared and was upwards of forty pounds. I couldn’t afford it. The new CD re-issue from Lonehill Jazz (a major Spanish operation in this field) claims this is the first time this album appears on CD. I can believe that. And I believe it, partly, because of the sound of the CD which sounds horribly processed in places- as though the life has been wrung out of the sound of the original vinyl in order to wring out the snap, crackle and pops. This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But how else are you going to hear this wonderful music?

The CD comprises the entire album plus selections from two other Barnet LPs. This week I burnt a copy of just the tracks from Lonely Street to a CD (in session order, since the CD notes do not contain the album’s original running order and I cannot trace a copy of the original vinyl on line) for listening in the car.

The sessions comprise a standard big band for four of the tracks with some major hitters amongst the ranks and two sessions with strings. The discography I found on line which is printed below credits Russ Garcia as director. I am assuming, therefore, he arranged the pieces on this album.

Charlie Barnet was never quite carried along on the big band era’s ‘second wind’ to the extent that contemporaries such as Count Basie or Woody Herman were, nor even the ‘newer fellas’ like Ray Anthony. I doubt he had a regular road band by 1956, so this is strictly a studio session. Barnet’s name would still have been a draw, I suppose, to some extent, the inclusion of strings a necessary nod to the packaging of ‘mood’ albums during that period and a chance to hear Barnet stretch out on the soprano sax another reason for buying the record.

Barnet’s predilection for all things Ducal which was such a hallmark of his original band is in evidence here, too, with the inclusion of Billy Strayhorn’s Blue Rose – a composition the EKE band had only just recorded themselves for the first time that year for their Columbia album with Rosemary Clooney.

There seems, too, to be more than an echo of EKE’s Prelude to a Kiss in the brass work for the Barnet original Phylysse. And Barnet’s work on the soprano throughout, well, it is a sort of re-mix of the Apostolic succession, if you will, a shuffling of the laying on of hands in that it is Hodges coming out of Bechet coming out of Hodges - the New Orleans sound of Bechet’s soprano rippling like the lights on the Mississipi now streamlined and without vibrato.

Garcia’s writing for strings gives the album a sort of Hollywood B-Movie feel in places – the opening of Phylysse being a case in point. One is reminded of windswept autumn leaves crowding against the wet railings of some neglected yard. The album’s recording in November and December only adds to the gloom and seems suited perfectly to the maudlin sound of Barnet’s sax against the lachrymose strings.

Then there is the composition which gives the album its title. Lonely Street was the creation of Paul Villepigue. Please visit the web pages dedicated to his memory here. I shall return to his work –as I turn to his music – time and again in posts to come.

This album is an exquisite listening experience which Lonehill have at least made available to the public again. It is a prime candidate for re-issue on the Verve originals imprint – when I shall gladly buy a copy and see these musicians and writers are given the financial – as well as the artistic due – their remarkable accomplishments on this collection deserve. Until then, the album can be found here.

Album session details:
Conrad Cozzo, Carlton McBeath, Ralph Mullens, Dave Wells (tp) Bob Burgess, Dick Nash (tb) Willie Smith (as) Charlie Barnet (as, ss, ts) Bill Holman (ts) Bob Dawes, Ernie Small (bars) Norman Pockrandt (p) Bob Bain (g) Red Wooten (b) Alvin Stoller (d) Russ Garcia (dir) unidentified strings
Los Angeles, CA, September 24, 1956
20405-4 : The Moon Was Yellow
Verve MGV 2040
20406-11 Myna
Verve V 10036, MGV 2040
20407-6 You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
Verve MGV 2040
20408-10 Phylisse
Charlie Barnet - Lonely Street (Verve MGV 2040)* Charlie Barnet - Myna c/w Lonely Street (Verve V 10036)

Gene Duermeyer, Maynard Ferguson, Carlton McBeath, Ollie Mitchell, Ralph Mullens (tp) Dave Wells (btp) Roy Anderson, Bob Burgess, Dick Nash (tb) Dick Paladino, Willie Smith (as) Charlie Barnet (as, ss) Bill Holman, Bill Trujillo (ts) Bob Dawes (bars) Norman Pockrandt (p) Barney Kessel (g) Red Wooten (b) Alvin Stoller (d)
Los Angeles, CA, November 8, 1956
20460-5 Blue Rose
Verve MGV 2040
20461-4 Lemon Twist
20462-2 Lumby
20463-2 Hear Me Talking To You
Charlie Barnet - Lonely Street (Verve MGV 2040)

Dave Wells (btp) Charlie Barnet (as) Norman Pockrandt (p) Barney Kessel (g) Red Wooten (b) Alvin Stoller (d) Russ Garcia (arr, dir) unidentified strings
Los Angeles, CA, December 15, 1956
20464-10 I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues
Verve MGV 2040
20465-6 Serenade In Blue
20466-2 Lonely Street
Verve V 10036, MGV 2040
20467-7 Isn't This A Lovely Day?
Verve MGV 2040
* Charlie Barnet - Lonely Street (Verve MGV 2040)* Charlie Barnet - Myna c/w Lonely Street (Verve V 10036)

The beauty, the wonder, the splendour and the majesty...

2009-04-14T04:19:00.000-07:00

The last time I was here I had the honour of being presented to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. I was so thrilled by the beauty, the wonder, the majesty, the splendour of it all that I told Her Majesty that I was sure something musical would come of it. She very, very graciously said she would be listening. And so I wrote a suite of six numbers which were recorded and the only record that was ever pressed, of course, is in the possession of Queen Elizabeth.

Duke Ellington, January 22, 1963

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Duke Ellington recording The Single Petal of a Rose, the final session on The Queen’s Suite.

Ellington tells of the origins of this work in the remarks quoted above made during the course of a television broadcast in London. The phrase the beauty, the wonder, the majesty, the splendour echoes the notes Ellington made on the back of a publicity bill - probably the same evening he was presented to Her Majesty the Queen in 1958.

The notes comprised Ellington’s earliest conception of The Queen’s Suite – a work in six movements.

Ellington wrote:

(1) The Single Petal of a Rose. So delicate, fragile, gentle, luminous. Only God could make one, and like love it should be admired, not analyzed.

(2) Mocking Bird in the Sunset. While speeding across Florida from Tampa to West Palm Beach at 80 m.p.h. It was the half-light of sunset that we passed a bird. It seemed to call to us. We would have liked to have gone back and thanked the bird, but we were much too far down the road and we didn’t knoiw what kind of bird it was anyway. But the first phrase is the melody we heard.

(3) Lightning Bugs and Frogs. It was a hot summer night on the south shore of the Ohio River, a vast clearing with a backdrop of tall silhouetted trees, against which a million lightning bugs were weaving a spangled scrim, a design in symphonic splendour, while the frogs in the orchestra pit (pond in the foreground) provided the audio accompaniment.

(4) Northern Lights. Up in Quebec. All night we watched this, the most majestic stage show I ever saw. It was like being a short man standing behind many tall people at radio City Music Hall or the Palladium. You can’t actually see the performers. You only see lights or shadows, or reflections of the actors’ movements. The prima ballerina, the heavy, the thirty-six girl kickers, the quartette, are all there simultaneously, all night, only magnified a million times. And then when you stop, get out of the car, and look straight up overhead, it’s all going on up there, too. This is terrifying.

(5) Le Sucrier Velour is the name of a bird in France. I have seen pictures of it and think it is a good name for the bird. But after thinking more, I believe a more fitting sight, that encroaches on the domain or sense of taste, is the almost-moustache, the fuzz over the corners of the upper lip of a sweet girl.

(6) Apes and Peacocks. From the Bible: I Kings 10:22. For the King had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tarshish bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks.
Copyright Duke Ellington In Person by Mercer Ellington (Hutchinson, 1978)

One always has to wonder at the extent to which Ellington is putting us on with remarks like these. Le Sucrier Velour was originally entitled Do Not Disturb and was recorded under that title as part of the stockpile of private recordings over three years earlier on 3 January, 1956, the occasion of Johnny Hodges’s return to the band following his ‘sabbatical’. Was Duke rhapsodising over the down-soft top lip of a girl when he entitled the piece Do Not Disturb?

Certainly Sunset and the Mocking Bird as it was finally titled which begins the suite, opens with one of the most delicious Ellington refrains if this is, indeed, taken down from nature.

The melody is taken up throughout the piece by each of the instrumentalists in turn, shouldering their several solo responsibilities. It is less, the cat is put amongst the pigeons as the pigeon is thrown to the cats, as it were. And if it is a competition, - and who knows whether that wasn’t sometimes Ellington’s agenda - the winner is clearly Johnny Hodges who burnishes and caresses the melody in the way only he can.

It is the clarinet, I think, of Jimmy Hamilton which bridges the first two selections, fading away at the end of Mocking Bird and returning with an extended filigree solo at the beginning of Lightning Bugs and Frogs.

If Hamilton traces the path of the lightning bug through the air, the bass chorus of frogs is provided by the wah-wah figures of the brass section, a sonic impressionism to which Ellington returns to sketch in the sounds of the apes and peacocks in the suite’s closing movement.

Sure enough, the saxophone section nudges the melody as softly as peach fuzz in Le Sucrier Velours and it is just as sweet. This is the Ellington band at the apex of its ballroom best. There is no brass work here nor, Ellington’s dappled piano intro aside, no improvisation – just rhythm and the melody carried by the buttery sax section.

The brass section is much in evidence – hitting an almost military stride, in the opening of Northern Lights, the solo reed of Hamilton riding atop their charge before being joined, in harmony, by several other clarinets weeping against the brassy beat. As is often the case in Ellington’s writing, the reeds then dissolve into their constituent parts, Harry Carney’s baritone sax clearly audible in step with the rhythm, echoed by the to brass– the whole piece hitting a pattern of tension-release-tension until the final dissolve and a release under the aegis of a note from Paul Gonsalves.

Did Ellington hold an image of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in his mind’s eye whilst he teased the tender melody from The Single Petal of a Rose? An Ellington piano solo, with a hint of bowed bass from Jimmy Woode, I am listening to it now as I type these notes, fifty years after the fact. The melody seems to want to turn into Solitude at several points. And – in typical Ellington fashion – it lingers, never wanting to make an ending.

Jungle rhythms shimmy in the opening of the suite’s final movement with the saxophone of Paul Gonsalves sounding at its most simian, the chorus of screeching clarinets, the punctuations of the brass suggesting a suitably epic scope.

With The Queen’s Suite, then, Ellington, like Puck, conspires to put a girdle round the earth in something less than forty minutes and at dusk, encompassing its four points and offering the fruits of his travels and a menagerie of Biblical proportions to Her Majesty.

Whilst it was his contention that only a single pressing of The Queen’s Suite was made, there were, in fact, up to half a dozen printed. Whilst Ellington did not want the recording published, following the death of his father, Mercer decided the music was too beautiful for the world to be denied and it appeared on the Pablo label at the end of the seventies, anthologised with two, much later, suites. Whilst the CD is readily available, the best version to try to get hold of – though expensive – is the Japanese pressing detailed here. For this, the collector receives the full version of Loco Madi from The Uwis Suite which, hitherto, had only been available in edited form, even on the original LP release.

Dolphy surround sound

2009-04-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

The Journey into Jazz video clip was suggested by a poster to the West Coast Jazz discussion group and I had to paste it into the blog.

I was delighted by the presence of Eric Dolphy in the orchestra. Subliminally aware of Dolphy's name - probably by seeing countless copies of Out to Lunch when browsing the racks of music stores - I had heard none of his music until I listened the other week to Chico Hamilton's Original Ellington Suite. I had never particularly cared for In a Sentimental Mood but when this particular number popped up, the phosphorescent solo on alto -soaring like a distress flare on a dark night - absolutely made me sit up and take notice. I had never heard any player in Ellington's original band render the melody with such dendrite-shredding verve. It was Dolphy.

I pulled the trigger on the CD simply because it is one of the casualties of the culling Blue Note is presently conducting within the ranks of its jazz catalogue. On the strength of Eric Dolphy's solo alone it was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my record-buying life. And the recording has much more going for it besides. But that is for another day. If you do not own this beauty, hurry - as they say - while stocks last. It can be purchased here.

Beauty and The Brute

2009-04-10T04:05:00.000-07:00

Of all the former Ellingtonians, Ben Webster, I suppose, fell furthest from the nest, spending his last years on the continent of Europe, most notably in Denmark.

I have been celebrating Webster’s centenary this month by watching a DVD of priceless performances in that country. Ben Webster in Denmark (on the Emarcy label) comprises three performances recorded between 1965 and 1969 filmed for Danish television.

The absolute jewel of the collection, however, is the inclusion of Big Ben a documentary about the tenor man made in 1971. It is a privileged insight into what is, almost A Day in the Life of... We see Ben in his unprepossessing flat in Copenhagen, a spartan place bar a fridge, a shelf of LPs and a reel-to-reel recorder on which he listens to the playback of his latest studio session with which the documentary begins. We see him getting into a VW camper van to go to a gig. He talks about the making of Cottontail with the Ellington band, his dismay with the Duke when Ellington told the band they were running the number down for a rehearsal but told the engineers they were going for a take. This was the released version despite Ben’s avowed ‘casual’ solo. He talks about Hawk and Pres, about‘scuffling’ (lovely word) with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra.

The highlight of the video is when Charlie Shavers drops by, a suitcase loaded with what looks suspiciously like vodka. Bizarrely a man who appears to have come to read the meter is also drawn into this impromptu mid-day drinking session, Ben grabbing him a beer from the fridge. The documentary concludes with two numbers from the gig Webster and Shavers play in a rather dingy cellar.

It is a remarkable document of a unique individual and a great artist. Webster clearly lived for his music, purveying that apparently casual artlessness in his playing but which is, actually, hard won. Shavers (who died the same year the documentary was made) is a joy. It is interesting to watch in their gig how he cracks Ben up with his corny turns of phrase on the trumpet, reminiscent of the sort of mischief Armstrong made, the DVD closing with Webster’s evanescent solo on Stardust.

I cannot recommend this DVD enough. It is an access point for the wonder and joy that is jazz and its makers. Watching the crowd in the cellar gone to the music – the women in their leopard skin tights and luminous sweaters, the men with heavy spectacles and billy goat beards is another reminder - if any were needed - that these are times, rendered here in slightly faded Kodacolor, the like of which we shall not see again.

The DVD is already out of print. Used copies – which are beginning to escalate in price – may be found here.

Sleepless in Seattle

2009-03-27T17:20:00.000-07:00

I was alerted to the fact that Wednesday last saw the fifty-seventh anniversary of Duke Ellington's Seattle concert by Kevin Kniestedt's Groove Notes site.

The concert took place at the Civic Auditorium on 25 March, 1952. According to Kevin, this was the first 'live' Ellington album.

A centrepiece of the programme was Louie Bellson's composition Skin Deep and with the drummer's recent passing, it makes this anniversary all the more poignant.

I do not know when the album was first released. With the monster success Ellington achieved with this number, maybe its presence here prompted RCA to release the concert and steal a march on Columbia?

The personnel of the band on that occasion was as follows:

Cat Anderson, Willie Cook, Ray Nance, Clark Terry, t; Quentin Jackson, Britt Woodman, tb; Juan Tizol, vtb; Jimmy Hamilton, cl, ts; Willie Smith, Russell Procope, as; Paul Gonzalves, ts; Harry Carney, bs; Duke Ellington, p; Wendell Marshall, b; Louie Bellson, d.

And the programme? Well, thereby hangs a tale.

The numbers which appeared on the original album were:

Perdido
Caravan
Harlem
The Hawk Talks

Medley:
Don't Get Around Much Anymore; In A Sentimental Mood; Mood Indigo; I'm Beginning to See the Light; Prelude to a Kiss; It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing); Solitude; I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart

Jam With Sam

These selections comprise only a part of the evening's concert. A recording of the entire concert does, in fact, exist and, moreover, exists in stereo. It is in the collection of Ellington aficionado Jerry Valburn. What is worse, RCA have twice turned down Mr Valburn's offer to make the complete stereo recording available, first as an individual compact disc release and then as part of RCA's mammoth twenty-four CD Centennial Edition. In an interview with Peter Lavezzoli for his book The King of All, Sir Duke: Ellington and the Artistic Revolution, Mr Valburn is quoted as saying:

"They were very foolish, because I offered them the Seattle concert in stereo, the 1952 concert. I have it in stereo, and they didn't want to go the expense. So it remains at the Library of Congress. ... They stuck with the mono recording, and still did not release the complete performance, which by this time is rather frustrating. These things should come out!"

Amen to that. Fifty-seven years after the event, now, and still we wait for the record to be set straight. Here's hoping somebody out there can bring a new release about - if not in time for the hundred and tenth anniversary of Ellington's birth next month - then soon enough hereafter...

Beauty is only...

2009-02-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

Louie Bellson was a Titan of the music scene, his deathless recording alone of Skin Deep with Duke Ellington in 1952 sufficient to translate him, in imagination, to the realm of the gods.

The title of the piece is clearly a pun on Bellson’s instruments of choice but after reading in the obituaries this week that following his employment by Ellington, the band embarked on a tour of the south and the band leader decided he would say the drummer was Haitian to avoid confrontation, one could be forgiven for thinking that the title was a comment on this situation.

Louie Bellson's first first session as leader was anthologised in the Mosaic box Classic Capitol Jazz Sessions.

The session was laid down on 23 May, 1952, Louie appointed leader perhaps on the strength of that immortal record with Duke Ellington.

Recorded at the Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, the session comprised eight sides which were released under the title Just Jazz All Stars featuring Louis Bellson on a ten inch Capitol records, H348. I presume the record came about through Gene Norman’s regular Just Jazz concerts, the presence of Wardell Gray – a fixture of the central Avenue scene at this time and the Shrine Auditorium – perhaps offering confirmation.

Both the repertoire and personnel bear the imprimatur of Louie’s new Ellington period. With him on this date are those other two band colleagues and victims of what was known as ‘ the Great James Robbery’, Willie Smith and Juan Tizol. I will have to dig a little deeper into the discography, but Ellington’s raid on the Harry James band was about the time Johnny Hodges left his band to strike out on an abortive solo career. I find it interesting that the first number of this session was The Jeep is Jumpin’ and this is followed by another Hodges vehicle Passion Flower. The latter tune’s composer – and fellow fugitive from the Ellington fold– is the pianist here: Billy Strayhorn.

Fellow Ellingtonians on the session include Harry Carney and Clark Terry.

The balance of the titles on the session shows the influence of the ‘cool school’ with the writing of Shorty Rogers who contributes a couple of compositions and a flavour of that melodic West Coast counter point.

The elastic tenor stylings of Wardell Gray are much in evidence in the two ‘jump’ numbers from the Ellington book. Tizol’s sultry arrangement of Passion Flower is the most Ellingtonian in flavour, Bellson contributing stop-start rolls which only accentuate the Latinate flavour of this piece. His touch elsewhere on these tracks is typically subtle and light, weaving a variety of textures and patterns behind the soloists, his own brief solos the epitome of modernism – all of a piece with the warp and woof of the arrangements.

Needless to say, the centerpiece of the eight selections, in terms of solo work for the drummer, is Shorty Rogers’ composition Sticks – occurring at the crucial half way point in the session. It is the place – just before the intermission – where the extended drum solo occurs in band concerts – impressing more, usually, by its pyrotechnics than any inherent musical quality and, usually, battering the listener into submission, leaving him longing for the exit and a drink on a stick. Not Louie Bellson, however, the varied textures of whose solo here are, as ever, compelling.

For the final selections on this disc, he shares composing honours with Juan Tizol. Tizol’s exotic Rainbow framed by a couple of Bellson originals, Eyes and the languid Shadows, a vehicle for Clark Terry, beginning an association which would come full circle with their final album together recorded last year, Expedition 2.

This beautiful set straddling the traditions of the Swing Era with the newer stylings of the Modern period was a wonderful start to Louie's career as a leader and a harbinger of all that was to come. Louie Bellson's official website can be found here.

After My Time

2008-12-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

The years immediately either side of 1950 saw Duke Ellington particularly busy in the studio every December.

Of the pieces he recorded in these Decembers – selections for the Musicraft label or The Liberian Suite, it is the second movement from The Controversial Suite which seems most redolent of the month in which it was recorded and the approaching festive season.

Later (also known as After My Time?)was recorded fifty seven years ago today on 11 December, 1951. Surely it is Ellington’s first essay at film scoring. The clockwork rhythm of the piece initially conjures a sort of dystopian vision of the night before Christmas, sightless dolls and teddy bears – their mouths as tight as sutures – in listless repose amongst the pine needles and discarded candy foil wrappings at the foot of the tree. This incessant and ultimately unnerving tick-tock clarion of the trumpets builds to create a sonic landscape which is straight out of Salvador Dali via Alfred Hitchcock.

This is the music of the spectre at the feast, the ghost of Christmas yet to come, the nerveless white hand beneath the black cloak outstretched and pointing remorselessly towards our impending mortality, Paul Gonsalves’ solo, Scrooge’s lament at his own graveside. From the dissonant cords and Ellington’s discordant fills at the piano to the steady building of the crescendo, it is a striking piece of work as the clock on the wall is striking even now.

I read somewhere – and annoyingly cannot now remember where – that George Handy took some part in writing this piece. It is overwhelmingly, though, as the title suggests, largely a note from Ellington to himself for the threads of thought - the walking bass line which surfaced again in the composition La Plus Belle Africaine, for instance - which he was to pick up... later.

Jeep's Blues

2008-11-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

Sunday last, I finally acquired a copy of the long out-of-print The Complete Johnny Hodges 1951-55 on Mosaic Records.

When this box set crops up on one or another of the internet auction sites, it always attracts a lot of attention. Mosaics do, of course: Mosaic is the Rolls Royce of jazz re-issues and their limited print runs only contribute to the furore when a discontinued set is up for grabs.

The desirability of this particular anthology is also due to the fact, of course, that it is Johnny Hodges and the period it covers is those years when, it was thought, Hodges had abandoned the Duke Ellington Orchestra for good in order to forge a solo career.

Nicknames occasionally have an apposite cruelty bordering on the poetic. Hodges had two nick names – Rabbit and Jeep. Eugene the Jeep was a character in the syndicated Popeye cartoons. When asking what a Jeep was, Popeye was told

“A Jeep is an animal living in a three dimensional world-in this case our world- but really belonging to a fourth dimensional world. Here's what happened. A number of Jeep life cells were somehow forced through the dimensional barrier into our world. They combined at a favorable time with free life cells of the African Hooey Hound. The electrical vibrations of the Hooey Hound cell and the foreign cell were the same. They were kindred cells. In fact, all things are to some extent are relative, whether they be of this or some other world, now you see. The extremely favorable conditions of germination in Africa caused a fusion of these life cells. So the uniting of kindred cells caused a transmutation. The result, a mysterious strange animal.”

A creature from the fourth dimension, living in the third is a fairly apt way of describing the jazz musician and his preoccupation with keeping time. I don’t doubt the nick name was more a matter of physiognomy than physics: the hare-like set of Hodges eyes, the shape of his embouchure bore a startling resemblance to the family leporidae.

The recordings Hodges made under his own name in the early fifties are not, presently, in print in any form. Prior to pulling the trigger on this Mosaic set at auction, I had assembled all but the final year of his solo recordings (comprising, basically, the album Creamy) from various sources. The Spanish label Blue Moon issued all the recordings on three different volumes. They are still to be had on Amazon marketplace and so forth, from time to time, although the final volume in particular is elusive. Verve in Japan have also re-issued two of his albums from this period – Castle Rock and Used to be Duke - in those desirable Bonsai cardboard sleeve editions.

A big surprise to me, listening to these CDs however was the kind of music that Hodges made during these years. Ironically, in view of the Herculean efforts I have made to get hold of these recordings, I am less a fan of Hodges than other soloists in the Ellington band. Perhaps this is because he makes it all sound so easy: those seamless, sweet solos seem to be rolled out almost effortlessly like so much marzipan. Hodges work on alto makes a very interesting contrast to Paul Gonslaves in the reed section. I find Gonsalves’ work to be much more compelling, his serpentine solos sounding as though the tenor player is physically wresting every note from his horn as though he is attempting to wrestle a python to the ground.

There is very little of Hodges characteristic sugar rum cherry tone in these sides, however. Rather it is as though the new leader were trying to court the pop market – a fairly miserable place for a jazz man to be in the early fifties – Hodges, here, flirting with big band era ballads (Al Hibbler singing This Love of Mine) and rhythm and blues – perhaps under the influence of Al Sears.

What did Hodges make of it all? It is difficult to tell for his Buddha countenance was always so inscrutable. His attempted solo career catalogued in this Mosaic set lasted only four years and then he was back with Duke. Did he return to the Ellington fold with his cotton tail between his legs?

The question of why Hodges’ solo material was so at variance with the sound and style he pedalled with the Ellington Orchestra and how he felt about his return to that aggregation are covered in a fascinating article I ran to ground on the net by Jack Chambers for Coda magazine which you can read here.

And if you are attempting to compile a complete record of Hodges’ solo activities in the early fifties from parts – as I did – the complete discography for this period can be found here.

Empty Ballroom Blues

2008-10-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

Spent Saturday night auditioning Oliver Nelson’s 1970 album Black, Brown and Beautiful.

I came across the album googling Duke Ellington’s composition Empty Ballroom Blues. It is the first track on this album. The discovery that Johnny Hodges was present made this an essential purchase.

I did not know very much about Oliver Nelson. I had a copy of his album Blues and the Abstract Truth for the presence of Bill Evans – but I did not know that Oliver had died so young – in 1975 at the age of just forty three years old. In one of those accidents of synchronism, I pulled the album off the shelf last night in the week of the thirty-third anniversary of his death on 28 October.

The Ellington connections are interwoven into the very warp and woof of the repertoire here: credited co-composer of Empty Ballroom Cootie Williams employed Nelson’s brother in the forties and amongst other Ellingtonian pieces, the album contains Echoes of Harlem which was renamed Concerto for Cootie.
Even the album’s title – one of three Nelson compositions - is a nod to Ellington’s oeuvre.

Clearly Nelson is an Ellington disciple as one could say Charles Mingus was. And like Mingus, however difficult the terrain can be at times to negotiate for someone with rather more mainstream sensibilities, the listener persists because he knows the journey will be inherently of worth, trusting his sherpa to provide music which is always compelling. So, whilst, generally, 1970 is about where I get off, despite – or perhaps because of – the electric rhythm and piano present here on Skull Session, I found the whole of the album richly satisfying. The Ellington melodies, of course – and in particular what Nelson does with Rockin’ in Rhythm – are particularly welcome. But the whole menu – including Jobim’s Meditation are recordings I will turn to time and again. The approach of featured singer, Leon Thomas, is further testament to the avant garde nature of the jazz of this period. Thomas is clearly the great inheritor – not of the Jimmy Rushing style of blues shouting – but perhaps, more, Joe Williams. There was, always, I felt a slightly harder edge and less warmth in Williams’ approach, taking the blues into a more urban environment. Leon Thomas seems to take that hard edge a step further still – really, I suppose, into the territory of Soul singing – with suggestions, almost of aggression in his delivery (of the music in this album, and Nelson’s own alto solos in particular, liner note contributior Stanley Dance uses the word ‘astringent’). This is a sign of the times – and one evinces this style of music in Ellington’s work itself at this period, notably the sublime New Orleans Suite where I had associated Ellington’s more strident approach to his compositions less with social protest than rage at the dying of the light.

Black, Brown and Beautiful is currently out of print but, truly, worth scouring the usual auction houses for. In many ways, it is a companion piece to New Orleans Suite, featuring, as it does, the final recorded work of Johnny Hodges and, in Oliver Nelson, an explorer after Ellington’s own heart: a Columbus gathering his charts and setting out to prove the world is not square.

Food of Love

2008-10-18T05:06:00.000-07:00

If music be the food of love…

I can think of no better way of describing Duke Ellington’s work. Always, finishing an Ellington album, the listener feels nourished, warmed and sustained as though he has had a good meal.

The line, of course, opens Twelfth Night. Ellington’s music once furnished a production of the comedy re-titled Play On. The CD sits in my to play… pile.

But connections between the Bard and Ellington run much more deeply than that, however. There is Ellington’s own score for Timon of Athens and, perhaps most famously of all, the suite composed and recorded, initially for the Shakespeare festival, Stratford, Ontario, Such Sweet Thunder. There is a fascinating transcript of an interview with Ellington at the time, Shakespeare is dug by the craziest of cats, here.

But still deeper, the respective genius of Shakespeare and Ellington courses. As Shakespeare wrote his parts for particular players, so, too, did Ellington. Ellington’s manuscripts are often sketchy, leaving it to the responsibility of the soloist to supply the rest, as Shakespeare’s actors originally extemporized, bringing something of themselves to the performance.

Shakespeare was writing at a time when the London theatre was a crucible of brilliant invention, as Ellington’s New York was in the era of the great dance bands – yet these two geniuses bestrode their worlds like a Colossus, their work testing and pushing the form to places it might otherwise never have reached. Whilst they were classicists who respected, and largely worked within, the form, they were certainly never above pushing the envelope.

But, perhaps, most significantly of all is the pulse which coursed through the forms within which they worked. For Shakespeare, this was the rhythm of the heart beat in the iambic pentameter. For Ellington, he was largely writing music to dance to. The second half of the documentary A Duke Named Ellington demonstrates brilliantly that everything Duke wrote, potentially, was music for dancing, lending itself even to ballet – a form for which I found a new interest seeing the footage in this film.

Of course jazz necessarily had other rhythms to walk to when the Swing Era had largely blown itself out at the end of the Second World War. Classicism, it seems, always gives way to romanticism – so Charlie Parker’s records on Dial and Savoy were, in many ways, did for jazz what Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads did for poetry, exploding accepted forms.

But to surrender the dance beat is to surrender your position in the mainstream. Jazz became less and less a social music, music for dancing, dining and more an appeal to the intellect. Ellington, however, never forgot the dance – his music was, is and will remain an appeal not to the nut but to the gut.

You can read more about Shakespeare and Ellington at the Shakespeare Folger Library here.