Celebration

Happy Duke Day! Today is the 121st birthday of Edward Kennedy Ellington.

By way of celebration, here is a story I discovered on line a week or so ago about the Ellington composition Celebration. One of the consequences of the present pandemic is  that a performance of Ellington's 1972 composition by the Jacksonville Symphony, for whom the piece was written originally, had to be cancelled. here, nevertheless is a brief trailer for the proposed performance at Kennedy Center. This is followed by a charming piece about a recording of the original performance. All copyright and sources gratefully acknowledged...

Dad and Duke (Ellington), Jazz Class and Serendipity – All Jazz Has a Cool Hidden History

March 12, 2020Program Spotlight

By Deborah Hollis Kaye, March 10, 2018

Why did I look for the Duke composition from 1972?

I decided to change careers from being a Wall Street securities regulatory and new products lawyer for 40 years after a semi-failed spinal fusion to being a volunteer part time arts attorney. Why and how?  Since I had grown up with a family that lived and breathed music all the time, and I was a dance hobbyist for 35 years, I should focus on providing legal services to the types of artists I might know the most about – musicians and dancers.  In fact, my first career (but only 2 years) was as an entertainment lawyer.  Although I loved the intellectual challenge of being on Wall Street being part of changing the regulatory landscape at the world’s largest financial city,- New York City, running 5 divisions and companies at one of the world’s leading financial institutions, I came to a decision that I would most likely not be able to go back to Wall Street because I could not sit without pain due to continuing pain after the spinal fusion.  I just didn’t have the stamina.  But doing nothing was boring.

Once I had left Wall Street, everyone asked what I wanted to do next.  I particularly hated the question “what do you want to do;” all my hobbies had really died during my career as I had no time (Wall Street and law are jealous mistresses, as they say).  Never had an answer.  I started to take some courses at Hunter College in New York City, and found myself drawn to courses in Music History and the School for Visual Arts. I tried some dance courses but they hurt too much.

But after talking with friends, I looked at what I was actually doing, and that I was hanging around the arts and doing my thing with volunteering with charities and nothing else.  I finally had an answer to the question – what do I want to do: what I was doing.  Arts.

I was lucky to meet Professor David Wolfson, a fabulously informed, funny and erudite man who taught both 1000 Years of the History of Music and the History of Jazz to me at Hunter College.  One of the best teachers I have ever had, and I have had many teachers in college and law school, continuing legal education classes.  When we got to Duke Ellington in the Jazz course, I told him the following story about my Dad and The Duke:

In 1972 Duke Ellington was commissioned to pen a symphony for the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra (“JSO”) for their Sesquicentennial- the 150^th Birthday of the city of Jacksonville Florida.  My father, Dr. Bernard L. Kaye, was a world famous plastic surgeon, with a strong hobby in music.  He played somewhere around 15 instruments, mostly wind – all kinds of saxophones, flutes, clarinets, as well as the bagpipes, piano, guitar, piccolo, and other esoteric oddities (he had a hobby as an expert marksman so whenever they played Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture he played the canons with his pistols).

As a teenager, he occasionally played with Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.  His Jazz Nickname was “Zeke.”   I think he may have known some Latin guys – he always talked about Tito Puente.

The JSO frequently wanted to showcase our Dad when they wanted extra publicity, for a flute, clarinet or sax solo. When Duke was told they wanted a saxophone solo, Duke insisted that he had to hear our Dad play before he could write a solo (the statement being that many sax men sounded alike, he needed to hear his overall skill level).  My family was told what date and what time Duke would be calling our house from his hotel room in Toronto where he was staying at the time in order to hear our Dad’s “sound.”

He practiced for days and hours to get back his “tone.”  As his daughter, I could never tell the difference; he always sounded perfect. So when the time was drawing near, we were all positioned near the phones – everyone (my mother, my twin brother and my Dad) was positioned near a phone so we could answer the Duke!  I, Deborah, got there FIRST!

The phone rang – as if I didn’t know it would.  He was a few minutes late, which added to the suspense.

“Dr. Kaye’s Residence”, I answered, as I was trained to do for my entire life.

“Hi – its Duke Ellington.  Is Dr. Kaye there?”

“ Yes, I’ll put him on.  Dad, it’s Duke Ellington for you.”  (My heart is in my ears.)

Dad – “Hi Mr. Ellington. Good to hear you.  How can I help you with this piece?”

Duke – “Lemme hear you blow, man.”

Dad – “Certainly.”  He puts the phone up and plays a few bars.

Duke – “I dig it.”  Hangs up.

We got the piece.   Dad solos.  It’s wonderful.

Every year until Duke’s death we got a signed Christmas card from “The Duke.”

Dad unfortunately threw them out.

However, I do believe the Symphony performed the piece at Carnegie Hall later, which Dad was always proud of.

The Coolness of DiscoveryProfessor Wolfson asked me to tell the story to the class, and bring a recording if I had one.  Darn it, I knew I had a cassette tape, but I couldn’t find it.  I told the story anyway in late February 2018.  I knew my twin brother had a copy of the cassette, but we were estranged.  Like any person in this day and age I went online to see if I could find the recording on YouTube.  No such luck; but I wasn’t surprised.  However, the JSO keeps its archives with the University of North Florida archives, so I emailed them and asked for it.  In a couple of days they emailed me back, and said they were looking for it as well, but they didn’t have it.  All they had was the program. That was surprising.  They didn’t tell me why they were looking for it – so was the JSO – butt it turned out to be very important; unbeknownst to me – in their eyes and the eyes of the JSO, IT WAS MISSING FROM MUSICAL HISTORY – FOR 45 YEARS!!!!   Apparently no one in Jacksonville had it; and probably Ellington’s family didn’t either.  But my family had copies all this time.  No one had asked any of us – neither my Step Mother, me nor my twin.  Of course not, how would they know to ask us?

I decided that it was too important for musical history to not ask my twin for it, so I sucked it up and emailed my estranged twin brother.  As a writer, musician and music journalist, of course he did. After a bit of reconnecting from a 12 year gap in communication, he asked how many copies I needed. Since he records, podcasts and interviews musicians as well as writes, he could easily take the tape from cassette to MP3 or CD.  I asked for 6 copies (one for University of North Florida, JSO, Hunter, my Step Mother, 2 for greedy me, and another Ethnomusicology Professor Barbara Hampton at Hunter).  Good thing, because my twin’s CD burned burnt down after the 6^th copy.

In a few days, they arrived.  I sent an email to University of North Florida, and told them I would send it to them – THEY WERE THRILLED.   I asked them who to send it to at the JSO, and whether they could play it.  They gave me a connection and said they didn’t know what the JSO was planning and should talk to the JSO.  I emailed the JSO with the story above.   Apparently, UNF and the JSO had already been searching for it, for a totally different reason, at the same time…..

Missing  Duke Music Found
Tony Nickle, Artist Director of the JSO emailed me back – “This is absolutely fascinating, and I would love to speak about this over the phone.”  On our call he told me that the JSO had submitted a request for a Grant to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC (along with a few other symphonies) to play at the Kennedy Center.  They had been debating what to play.  As I alluded to above, for some reason, they didn’t know that this Duke Ellington piece, “Celebration”, even existed, until about the same time that I was trying to find my copy.  Apparently some “older” gentleman in Jacksonville mentioned it existed.  No one knew about it until he told them!   After searching  and searching for it, they found it in between the short time of date I asked for it, and the date I emailed Tony – late February to March 6, 2018.  They had a tape of it and the original hand written score.   They had already submitted the Grant in the beginning of March, but THEY WERE GOING TO AMEND THE GRANT TO INCLUDE THE STORY OF DUKE LISTENING TO DAD.

The World Will Hear The JACKSONVILLE Duke Again – and Dad
I got the CD.  Of course I had to play it.  I did so late at night – New York City being what it is, I was at an Edward Albee play that evening (wonderful; met the Director’s Dad, of course, serendipity being what it is in New York City) so I got home Really Late.  I had to play it over and over the night before the Jazz class, not knowing whether Professor Wolfson would play it in class the next day.  I was up until 4AM listening.  I had emailed Professor Wolfson and told him I thought Dad sounded a tad like Lester Young.   Of course I remembered every note of Dad’s soli – or solo – not sure which it is even after hearing the difference described in Jazz class (apologies Professor Wolfson).   One has to rehearse 1000 times to get one’s “tone.”

Here is what Professor Wolfson said, since he would be the first one in New York City to hear it outside of me:

Deborah,

Thanks so much for this. What a wonderful piece of serendipitous history—plus what a cool piece, and your dad killed it. 😉 (He doesn’t sound like Lester Young to me—he sounds like Johnny Hodges, Duke’s long-time alto player!)

With your permission. I’d love to play a portion of this for the class in a few weeks, probably when we start talking about fusion and the 1970s.

David Wolfson

Dad, you would love it.

Written by Deborah Hollis Kaye, March 10, 2018

Hear Duke Ellington’s Celebration (Written for the City of Jacksonville’s 150th Anniversary) performed live in Jacoby Symphony Hall Friday – Saturday, MAR 20/21 on the SHIFT: Kennedy Center Boundprogram. Tickets available here.

The Seventies: Suite for New Orleans

Today, 27 April, 2020 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first recording session for the album New Orleans Suite. 

Back in New York following their sojourn in Louisiana, the Orchestra laid down 5 tracks, the essence of the suite. Those portraits of luminaries from the crescent city such as Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson which augmented these main movements were recorded later.

This was to be Johnny Hodges' final recording session. The next time Ellington would be in a recording studio when he set down piano versions of several movements from The River was on 11 May, the day Johnny Hodges died. Listen out for his phosphorescent solo on Blues for New Orleans, the first track of the album but the last track for the album recorded fifty years today. We present the recordings here in session order.

Should this session have given you a taste for the full album, and in album order at that, it

may be found here.

One other uncollected track was recorded at that same session and destined for the stockpile: Rext. The track may be found on the appropriately named Storyville label. The album is entitled New York, New York. 

The Seventies: Never Ending Storyville

Duke Ellington and his Orchestra opened at Al Hirt's Club, Bourbon Street on Monday, 20 April, 1970. During this engagement, Ellington ran down those charts for his New Orleans Suite which comprised the main movement of the Suite - notably Thanks For The Beautiful Land,                          Aristocracy A La Jean Lafitte, Second Line, Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies and Blues For New Orleans and which Ellington took into the studio two days later to begin work on recording the album.                                 

                                 

Today, 25 April 2020, is the fiftieth anniversary of Ellington's appearance at the New Orleans Jazz Festival and the genesis of The New Orleans Suite with a performance of the opening 'movement' of the suite, Blues for New Orleans. You can listen to the performance for free at Paste Magazine.

And on the subject of Paste, I've pasted or re-posted from a couple of sources on Ellington's appearance at the festival on this celebratory day. No copyright infringement intended and all sources acknowledged...

Jazz Times:

Duke Ellington & George Wein: Civilizing New Orleans

Tom Reney connects the legendary bandleader with the festival promoter and the roots of Jazz Fest in New Orleans

Duke’s appearance at the 1970 New Orleans Jazz Festival and Louisiana Heritage Fair  was the third annual jazz festival in New Orleans, but the first that George Wein produced under the Jazz & Heritage banner, and for the occasion Ellington was commissioned to write a new work, The New Orleans Suite. The audio file from Wolfgang’s Vault includes only the suite’s opening movement, “Blues for New Orleans,” a showcase for Johnny Hodges and organist Wild Bill Davis. Ellington was notorious for completing new works minutes before deadline, but it would seem that most of the suite must have been ready at the time of the festival appearance on April 25 since its recording for Atlantic Records was completed only 18 days later on May 13. Then again, maybe not.

In any event, the set begins with Wein’s introduction of Duke, and his announcement that the festival would be returning the following year despite a loss of $40,000 in its inaugural presentation under his stewardship. (This weekend marks the 42nd consecutive presentation of Jazz and Heritage. The content has changed considerably from Wein’s original conception of a fest devoted almost exclusively to music from New Orleans and the state of Louisiana, but attendance remains an annual rite for tens of thousands of pilgrims to the Big Easy.) Highlights from the Ellington concert include a customary Hodges mini-set that includes “Blues for New Orleans,” Billy Strayhorn’s “Passion Flower,” and “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” Mercer Ellington’s classic blues; “In Triplicate,” a tour de force flagwaver for saxophonists Paul Gonsalves, Russell Procope, and Harold Ashby; and Wild Bill Davis playing his famous arrangement for Count Basie of “April in Paris,” with Duke crediting the original “one more once” orchestration for “establishing a majestic way of monumental cool.”

At the conclusion of “Blues for New Orleans,” Duke hails the band as “Buddy Bolden’s Second Line.” “King” Bolden was the New Orleans trumpeter whom legend regards as the pivotal figure in the transition from ragtime to what later came to be called jazz, but his institutionalization for “acute alcoholic psychosis” in 1907 resulted in his near total absence from the historical and musical record. Officially, about all that exists on Bolden are records from the New Orleans City Directory and the Insane Asylum of Louisiana, but a photo of the trumpeter with his six-piece band and the published recollections of Jelly Roll Morton and Sidney Bechet give considerable support to Bolden’s stature as what Morton called “The blowingest man ever lived since Gabriel.”

A “second line” of New Orleanians, clarinetist Barney Bigard and bassist Wellman Braud, provided Ellington with an early and essential stylistic foundation, and trumpeter Bubber Miley, a South Carolina native, emulated another New Orleans legend, King Oliver, in developing the growling, “wah wah” brass style that became a signature element in Ellington’s tonal palette. Bechet, who’d dated Hodges’s older sister when the great reedman was playing in Boston around 1920, toured with Ellington during the band’s summer sojourns in New England in the mid-’20’s. He never recorded with Duke, but Ellington praised him as a player whose music was “all soul.” Credit New Orleans jazz, its origins and its legacy, with playing a vital and ongoing role in the imagination of Edward Kennedy Ellington.

 Jazz à la Mode, Tom Reney's New England Public Radio broadcast on The New Orleans Jazz Festival may be heard here.

Here are the 'liner notes' for this recording from Wolfgang's Vault...

The New Orleans Suite was one of the most fully-realized of Ellington’s latter-day works, offering portraits of Bechet, Braud, Louis Armstrong, and Mahalia Jackson, and evocative pieces like Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies and Thanks for the Beautiful Land on the Delta. While its themes were historical, the music was in tune with jazz in the early ’70’s, and it won the Grammy for Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band in 1971. Alas, it was the last recording to feature Hodges, who died on May 11, 1970; reputedly, he was poised to play soprano saxophone for the first time in almost 40 years on Portrait of Sidney Bechet. 

A poignant footnote that goes unmentioned in Wein’s introduction is that the road to a jazz fest in New Orleans was fraught with cancellations and postponements due to racism and Jim Crow customs that remained in effect through most of the ’60’s. Crescent City officials first approached Wein in 1962, but when the impresario met with them in a private dining room at the Royal Orleans Hotel, he made it clear that his fest would include integrated ensembles, and that Duke Ellington, who’d be part of anything Wein produced, “is accustomed to being treated as royalty wherever he goes. He stays only in the finest hotels.” Wein detailed the saga of establishing Jazz & Heritage in his memoir, Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, and reports that the lunch ended with a consensus view “that the time had not yet come for a jazz festival in the South.” (Among the bizarre customs still in force in NOLA in the 60’s were ones that permitted blacks and whites to be in the same place only out-of-doors, not in an indoor facility; and black and white groups could appear in succession, but not together, on the same stage.)

By the time a fest was presented in 1968, it was Willis Conover, the renowned jazz host of the Voice of America (and a longtime emcee at Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival), who was hired to produce it. Wein learned through the grapevine that his own marriage to an African American, Joyce Alexander, “might be a political embarrassment to [New Orleans] Mayor Schiro if [he] were given the job,” so it went to Conover. It took only two years for the festival to become mired in local politics before the New Orleans Hotel Motel Association brought in Wein to run it once and for all. The festival is now owned by the non-profit Jazz & Heritage Foundation which is chaired by Quint Davis, the New Orleans native who’s been involved with the festival since its inception under Wein. But credit the respect Duke Ellington had earned elsewhere in the world with making it necessary for New Orleans to begin getting its act together before a bonafide jazz festival would be presented in the city of its birth.

Tom Reney looks back at Duke Ellington’s New Orleans Suite and the crucial role that Duke and festival producer George Wein played in the establishment of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which just completed its 49th annual presentation in the Crescent City. Wein’s insistence that any festival he produced would include Ellington, who “stayed only in the finest hotels,” and feature integrated ensembles was a spur to ending rigid segregation practices in New Orleans.

You can tune in to the podcast here.

From Wolfgang's Vault (Source)

Duke Ellington - piano, composer; Cootie Williams - trumpet; Frank Stone - trumpet; Money Johnson - trumpet; Al Rubin - trumpet; Cat Anderson - trumpet; Booty Wood - trombone; Julian Priester - trombone; Malcolm Taylor - bass trombone; Chuck Connors - bass trombone; Russell Procope - alto saxophone, clarinet; Johnny Hodges - alto saxophone; Norris Turney - tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute; Harold Ashby - tenor saxophone, clarinet; Paul Gonsalves - tenor saxophone; Harry Carney - clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone; Wild Bill Davis - organ; Joe Benjamin - bass; Rufus "Speedy" Jones - drums; Tony Watkins - vocals

To kick off the inaugural New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1970, impresario George Wein addressed the crowd at Municipal Auditorium: "This particular festival, along with the Newport Folk Festival, has moved me more than any festival I've been involved with. We've struck a chord here in the city, mostly with the performers and the artists. It's something that I think can really develop into one of the major festivals in the world." Indeed, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, now in its 42nd year, continues to be a preferred destination for music lovers all over country and throughout the world.

While the major headliners performed in Municipal Auditorium that first year of the festival, local gospel, blues, zydeco, cajun and jazz bands were showcased outdoors at Beauregard Square (renamed Congo Square the following year). Today the whole sprawling enterprise - 12 stages of music spanning a wide stylistic spectrum -- takes place at the Fair Grounds Racetrack and draws crowds upwards of 650,000 over two consecutive weekends. From it's humble beginnings - the inaugural festival drew small crowds and operated in the red - the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has grown to become one of the premier attractions on the international festival circuit.

The Ellington Orchestra kicks off it's New Orleans performance with a spirited reading of the Duke classic C Jam Blues, which features some exuberant blowing from clarinetist Russell Procope, trumpeter Cootie Williams, tenor saxophonist Harold Ashby and trombonist Booty Wood. Trumpeter Williams is next featured on Take the 'A' Train. Ellington opens this Billy Strayhorn tune with an unusual waltz-time piano trio arrangement before segueing to the standard 4/4 swing vibe. The powerhouse horns kick in on the familiar theme and Williams leads the way with his loose, high-note trumpet solo.

Blues for New Orleans (one of the pieces from Ellington's New Orleans Suite, which George Wein had commissioned for this inaugural New Orleans Jazz Festival) is a laid back and earthy, organ-fueled showcase for some gospel-tinged testifying by alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, in one of his last performances with the Duke Ellington Orchestra (he passed away three weeks after this New Orleans Jazz Festival concert, on 11 May, 1970). The great Hodges follows with an inspired, tender reading of Strayhorn's sublime ballad Passion Flower before leading the band through a swaggering rendition of Mercer Ellington's bouncy blues shuffle, Things Ain't What They Used to Be. Hammond organist Wild Bill Davis is next featured on his own orchestral arrangement of Count Basie's April in Paris, accompanied only by the rhythm tandem of bassist Joe Benjamin and drummer Rufus "Speedy" Jones through the piece, until the horns kick in on the final jubilant chorus. Ellington sounds elated here as he twice calls the band back for "One more time!" in traditional Basie fashion. And he concludes the piece by giving the spotlight to a whirlwind Jones drum solo.

The three tenors -- Paul Gonzalvez, Norris Turney and Harold Ashby - battle it out on the uptempo burner In Triplicate, which had been a highlight of Ellington's 70th birthday concert the previous year. Singer Tony Watkins then performs the easy swinging pop trifle Making That Scene, an Ellington tune written for Tony Bennett and which would later appear on Duke's 1971 studio recording Togo Brava Suite on Denmark's Storyville label. Watkins then leads the band through a contemporary soul-jazz boogaloo, Be Cool and Groovy for Me, which is strangely co-credited to Ellington, Cootie Williams and Tony Bennett and includes some hip spoken word rhymes by the rapping Duke. (Jazz critic David Hajdu called it "the worst song ever written by a great and important composer," and while it does smack of a 70-year-old trying to remain 'relevant' by picking up on the hippie flavor of the moment, it's more just some good-natured fun with a beat being played out on the bandstand). They close their New Orleans Jazz Festival set with a buoyantly swinging rendition of Ellington's classic Satin Doll that prominently features organist Wild Bill Davis. Duke bids the Municipal Auditorium adieu with his usual hipster farewell: "I don't have to tell you, one never snaps one's fingers on the beat. It's considered aggressive. Don't push it, just let it fall. And if you would like to be respectably hip, then at the same time tilt the left earlobe. Establish a state of nonchalance. And if you would like to be respectably cool, then tilt the left earlobe on the beat and snap the finger on the after beat. And then, you really don't care. And so by routine-ing one's finger snapping and choreographing one's earlobe tilting, one discovers that one can become as cool as one wishes to be. We want to remind you that you're very beautiful, very sweet, very gracious, very generous…and we love you madly."

Blew for New Orleans

As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Duke Ellington's appearance at The New Orleans Jazz Festival on 25 April, 1970 and the performance of the essential compositions that comprised the New Orleans Suite which Ellington wrote to commemorate the occasion and the city, I recently discovered on the uCathode Tube these performances of early Ellington compositions by a current New Orleans ensemble, Tuba Skinny.

The Seventies: Grace and Favour

It is fifty years ago today, 16 April, that Duke Ellington and a small group of musicians from his Orchestra played at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The cathedral had hosted Duke Ellington's original Sacred Concert in 1965. (You can read more about that occasion here.) This was a return visit, then, for Ellington accompanied by Wild Bill Davis, organ, Joe Benjamin, bass, Rufus Jones, drums and Toney Watkins vocals.

I posted about this engagement previously here, on Billy Strayhorn's birthday last, 29 November, 2019. I have copied and pasted the entry again now, well worth revisiting on its fiftieth anniversary...

I usually go through the Ellington listings on eBay with a fine tooth comb, so I don't know how I missed this treat earlier in the Autumn.

The listing is for a recording of a Duke Ellington performance on  16 April, 1970 at Grace Cathedral (the location for the première performance of the First Sacred Concert some five years earlier. Here are the details and photographs from the original ad...

Duke Ellington At Grace Cathedral 4/16/1970 Concert Series Part 1 Reel To Reel. Condition is Brand New in original box with original program.

By a remarkable act, appropriately enough, of grace itself the recording has been made available for free by the purchaser. Brian Koller runs the excellent website films graded.com, a substantial section of which is devoted to a discography of Ellington's collected works. Brian has graciously published a remastering of the tape.

The whole recording may be downloaded from Brian's filmsgraded.com site here. 

Post Script:

Several numbers feature Wild Bill Davis at the organ. An interesting account of how Davis came to be employed by Duke was posted recently to Facebook by Douglas Lawrence. Here is his posting, and an anecdote perhaps previously not known. Generosity all round from admirers of Ellington's music!

"I worked a lot with Wild Bill in the 1980's. This is what he told me - Wild Bill and Johnny Hodges were starting to tour together with a succesful 4-piece organ band (Hodges, Wild Bill, guitar and drums). The band was becoming quiet successful and Hodges started taking time off from the Ellington Orchestra. They were working somewhere (I can't remember where) and Ellington showed up at the gig and sat directly in front of the bandstand. After the performance Ellington joined Hodges and Wild Bill backstage in the dressing room. Ellington looked at Wild Bill and said (I'll never forget these words) "I don't know what I'm going to do with you, but I have to have Johnny back, so I'm hiring you too!" Wild Bill said that was it for the quartet! He joined Ellington's band and for most of the first several months just learned orchestration from Ellington, and worked as a copyist, no playing at all. (That in itself is another great story for perhaps another time.) I distinctly remem!

ber Wild Bill telling me his time with the Ellington Orchestra was the highlight of his illustrious career, and it involved very little playing. It was the tutelage from Ellington on big band arranging and composing that Wild Bill appreciated so much. Wild Bill loved to write for big band after that. It became his passion, although only a few of us actually knew it."

The Big Band Theory

David Palmquist discovered this article by Duke Ellington recently in his travels...

Duke becomes critic; biggest bands reviewed by Ellington

BY DUKE ELLINGTON

California Eagle, Los Angeles, Cal.

27 July, 1939

NEW YORK July 27 – The only outstanding conviction that we know concerning the contemporary dance field is that it is essentially as yet unexplored. There is so much that remains to be done and even to be attempted. We have previously stated that we consider the influence of commercialism the most flourishing and potent evil to be combatted in our field of endeavour. Standardized commercial requirements are apt to dull the ambitions of our outstanding musicians and influence them to satisfy themselves with a musical formula calculated to please, not themselves, but the general public.

  It is to be hoped that those musicians who are today standing at the top of the ladder of success will continue to permit their musical spirit of independence to function sufficiently to allow for constant experimentation and innovation, which qualities are the principal ingredients of musical progress. In commenting upon the better aspects of the outstanding contemporary bands of today we herald with a musical fanfare every significant instance of the spirit of musical independence.

AND HERE THEY ARE:

  Tommy Dorsey— Has won, and justly so, the appreciation of all sincere musicians by his policy of attempting to play well many and varied types of music.

  Benny Goodman— Has outstandingly proven himself to be a great leader by the fact that he has consciously separated himself, one by one, from the stars of his band and yet still shows himself to be tops.

  Paul Whiteman– Deserves credit for discovering and recognizing ability or genius in composers whose works would not normally be acceptable to dance bands.

  Bob Crosby— A band with an amazing amount of color. We feel that here the fan has attained a very luxurious lustre perhaps through absorption. However that may be, a truly gutbucket band, capable of really getting down there.

  Jimmie Lunceford — A greatly underrated band. Capable of mighty fine interpretations the result of sincere thought and of rehearsal to the perfection point: rehearsal until the arrangements are matured. Much of the music of this band has been overlooked. He has developed a definitely individual style, mood, and color, and has never been successfully imitated.

  Fred Waring– Waring has shown broad scope and a wide range, notably having put the popular musical glee club on the musical map. He is the finished product of the stage.

  Count Basie— Basie's outstanding musical quality has been unpretentious and he and his boys have stuck to their guns all the way to success. Undoubtedly the greatest rhythm section in the business, they are the greatest exponent of that emotional elements [sic] of bouncing bouyancy [sic] otherwise known as swing.

  Artie Shaw— Artie has used his band to great advantage in rhapsodizing his solos to the point of making them finished products in the concerto classification.

  Don Redman — Redman has performed phenomenal feats in orchestration and has created several magnificent things, many of which have been copied although Redmond has rated no credit lines. We shall never forget the "Chant of the Weed" and its effectiveness.

  Cab Calloway— Calloway is definitely the most dynamic personality to ever front a band. He established characters who existed in the realm of dreams, characters who attained their altitude on a curl of smoke but to us it seems unfortunate because his almost immortal characters have overshadowed his better singing. His band continues to improve all along but only to be overshadowed by Calloway's tremendous personality. I always resent the statement that "Minnie The Moocher" is not pure jazz.

  Louis Armstrong— Louis also is a great personality, we say also great, not because he is lesser, but because we cannot think of further terms. Unless possibly to say he is heroic-size standard in trumpet. He is also a brilliant comedian.' 

World Wide Webster

Here, collected, are the four parts which comprise a presentation on the music of Ben Webster presented by Loren Schoenberg, Founding Director and Senior Scholar at The National Jazz Museum, Harlem.

Too Pretty To Be Blue

Exciting news in troubled times... I posted previously here about plans to publish an English translation of Luca Bragalini's study, Dalla Scala a Harlem. News reached me today from Luca that his book is now ready for publication in safer times and its time will come. The 'flyer' below contains some information about Luca's seminal work which is something to keep us going until the book is published...

Newport in new bottles...

Two performances of Duke Ellington's music streamed last night, 9 April, are now available to view. Firstly, Charleston Jazz Orchestra's recreation of the famous Newport set, 1956, including such rarities as Tea for Two and Day In, Day Out.

Details of the orchestra here.

And here is a performance of The Best of the Sacred Concerts by the Orchestra of the Giussepe Verdi di Milano Conservatory  which was streamed via  Facebook and YouTube.

Let The Zoomers Drool

One of the most popular means at present of communicating virtually is the video conferencing facility Zoom.

Stefan Zenni (whose home page may be reached here) has organised a conference via Zoom on Ellington's Sacred music:

Sunday 12 April 2020, 4.30 pm

Listening guide. In the Beginning Duke. Discovering Ellington's Sacred Concerts.

Carnal man like few others, profound connoisseur of the Bible, Ellington was nourished by a varied and contradictory spirituality. Unrepentant sinner, he entrusted his vision of the sacred to three concert-suites, mirror of a beautiful world, perhaps sacred, certainly bizarre, chaotic and tremendously similar to the earthly one.

* The conference is limited to 500 participants *.

To participate:

- Download the Zoom software from www.zoom.us, going to the Resources menu and clicking on Download Zoom Client. No registration or payment is required.

- The link to participate is:

https://zoom.us/j/450737225?pwd=VHlNcFRnQTEwV1R5aCsrNENpSFNMQT09

Password 195824

It is not necessary to book.

- By clicking on the link, Zoom will open and welcome you in the waiting room. You will be put online at 4:15 pm on 12/04. Remember to activate the icon on the bottom left "Join Audio".

- The conference * will not * be recorded.

- For those without Facebook: the invitation is also available on Twitter (@stzenni) and on my website www.stefanozenni.com

The conference is free. However, its realization requires some preparatory work: those who want, * without any obligation *, can send a contribution of € 0.50 via PayPal (stzenni@me.com) or Satispay. I recommend people who have already sent generous contributions for previous conferences to refrain from further payments. 

The Seventies: Happy Days

By one of those strange synchronisms yesterday, the fiftieth anniversary of Duke Ellington's appearance on In The Round, I happened across a press photograph of Ellington taken for his appearance on the television show Happy Days. While the photograph is dated on the reverse 30 July, 1970, this was the date of the broadcast of the programme. In fact, the programme was recorded about the time Ellington appeared on In The Round. As quoted from Duke Where and When in the previous post:

"During the interview Ellington says he's "come into Vancouver twice in the last little while." The Springfield Union reported he flew to Los Angeles from Vancouver to tape his upcoming Happy Days appearance, and returned the same day."

Jet magazine, 30 July, 1970, advertising Ellington's appearance on Happy Days.

Happy Days, of course, is not to be confused with the series of the same title with Henry Winkler in the role of 'The Fonz'. This Happy Days was a summer replacement comedy/ variety show. Details at IMBD here.