Room At The Inn

 

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I Am Ambivalent About You At Best, Porgy

Further to yesterday's post on the Cherry Hill Hotel, here is further material we are making use of in our present researches. Ellington's alleged antipathy to the works of George Gershwin ... has long been going on... and here is a posting which perhaps references the origins of that animus towards Porgy and Bess in particular.

In an earlier post, an essay by Ted Gioia was referenced. That post may be found here.

‘Duke Ellington on Gershwin’s “Porgy”‘ by Edward Morrow from New Theatre. Vol. 2 No. 12. December, 1935.

A much quoted article by music historians, Duke Ellington’s guarded, but honest opinion of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for the Communist Party-supported New Theatre magazine.

‘Duke Ellington on Gershwin’s “Porgy”‘ by Edward Morrow from New Theatre. Vol. 2 No. 12. December, 1935.

When the Theatre Guild launched the George Gershwin musical version of Du Bose and Dorothy Heyward’s play Porgy recently, and rechristened it Porgy and Bess, the cult of critical Negrophiles went into journalistic rhapsodies, hailed it as a “native American opera”, avowed it “typical” of a “child-like, quaint” Negro people and declared it “caught the spirit” of a “primitive” group. The huzza filled the columns, were quoted by second-hand intelligentsia, and echoed in the banalities of the subscribers. No one, however, thought to ask Negro musicians, composers and singer their opinions of the Gershwin masterpiece.

Accordingly I sought out Edward Kennedy (“Duke”) Ellington, Negro orchestra leader and composer. He has neither axes to grind nor pretensions to support, but busies him elf reproducing and creating the most genuine Negro jazz music in the world. Objective critics have likened his work to Sibelius; his band is distinctive. Unfettered by hot-cha exploitation, his energies might be released to the serious efforts his genius warrants.

“Well Duke,” I began, “now that you have seen Porgy and Bess, what do you think of it?”

“Grand music and a swell play, I guess, but the two don’t go together-I mean that the music did not hitch with the mood and spirit of the story.” Then he added: “Maybe I’m wrong or perhaps there is something wrong with me, but I have noted this in other things lately too. So I am not singling out Porgy and Bess.”

“But sticking to Porgy and Bess, Duke, just what ails it?”

“The first thing that gives it away is that it does not use the Negro musical idiom ” replied Ellington. “It was not the music of Catfish Row or any other kind of Negroes.”

“Then I don’t suppose it could be very true to the spirit, scene or setting of impoverished Charleston Negroes if the musical expression failed to consider the underlying emotions and social forces of the Gullah Negroes,” I suggested.

“That might be it at that,” agreed Ellington, “but I can say it better in my own way. For instance, how could you possibly express in decent English the same thing I express when I tell my band, ‘Now you cats swing the verse, then go to town on the gutbucket chorus’!”

“You would intend for the boys to play the verse in rhythm, and finish the final chorus with improvisations accented heats and a crescendo,” I laughed.

“Sure, but for all your fifteen-dollar words you didn’t give the same impression did you?” he argued. “If you hadn’t been around the band, and if you did not know the background of the musician you couldn’t interpret them or use their idioms, could you?”

“I think I get your viewpoint,” I answered, “but why did you say the music was ‘grand’?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?” he smiled amiably, “It was taken from some of the best and a few of the worst. Gershwin surely didn’t discriminate: he borrowed from everyone from Liszt to Dickie Wells’ kazoo band.”

Ellington turned to the piano, and playing said: “Hear this? These are passages from Rhapsody in Blue. Well, here is where they came from- the Negro song Where Has My Easy Rider Gone? Now, listen to this- this is what I call a ‘gut-bucket waltz.’ See, it’s a waltz, but it still has the Negro idiom. I have taken the method but I have not stolen or borrowed.”

He played on, evidently pleased with his innovation.

“Will you ever write an opera or a symphony?” I asked.

“No,” Ellington declared positively. “I have to make a living and so I have to have an audience. I do not believe people honestly like, much less understand, things like Porgy and Bess. The critics and some of the people who are supposed to know have told them they should like the stuff. So they say it’s wonderful. I prefer to go right on putting down my ideas, moods and theme and letting the critics call them what they will. Furthermore, an opera would not express the kind of things I have in mind.”

“Where would you consider Porgy and Bess offered opportunities that you should have used that Gershwin missed?” I asked.

“Several places,” Ellington said, “he missed beautiful chances to really do something. There was one place, though, where he made the most of his music: the hurricane passages, when no one was on the stage. But when he tried to build up the characterizations he failed. What happened when the girl selling strawberries came on the stage? Did he get the rhythm, the speech, and the ‘swing’ of the streetvender? No, sir, he did not; he went dramatic! Gershwin had the girl stop cold, take her stance, and sing an aria in the Italian, would-be Negro manner.”

Ellington warmed up to his subject.

“Bubbles, who is a great dancer, built up the character of Sportin’ Life with his dance. The music did not do that. And other actors had to make their own characterizations too. There was a crap game such as no one has ever seen or heard. It might have been opera, but it wasn’t a crap game. The music went one way and the action another. If a singer had lost his place, he never would have found it in that score. Still, the audience gasped: ‘Don’t the people get right into their parts?’ and ‘Aren’t they emotional’!”

“Would you say that an honest Negro musical play would have to contain social criticism?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” declared Ellington. “That is, if it is expected to hold up. In one of my forthcoming movie ‘shorts’ I have an episode which concerns the death of a baby. That is the high spot and should have come last, but that would not have been ‘commercial,’ as the managers say. However, I put into the dirge all the misery, sorrow and undertones of the conditions that went with the baby’s death. It was true to and of the life of the people it depicted. The same thing can not be said for Porgy and Bess.”

It was very evident that here was one colored composer who realized the cramping forces of exploitation which handicap not only him and his colleagues, but the Negro masses as well. That is why their expression is filled with protest. He is also fully conscious that there are imitators and chiselers, always ready to capitalize on specious products purporting to “represent” the Negro. They are totally lacking in social vision, and their art is phony.

No Negro could possibly be fooled by Porgy and Bess. Mamoulian’s direction has added nothing to his old superficial tricks of animating inanimate objects, such as rocking chairs, with rhythmical motion to fit a song. (This business was used in Porgy which he directed in 1927.) His Negroes still wave their arms in shadowed frenzy during the wake. The production is cooked up, flavored and seasoned to be palmed off as “authentic” of the Charleston Gullah Negroes- who are, one supposes, “odd beasts.”

But the times are here to debunk such tripe as Gershwin’s lamp-black Negroisms, and the melodramatic trash of the script of Porgy. The Negro artists are becoming socially-conscious and class-conscious, and more courageous. Broadway will find it harder to keep them on the chain-gang of the hot-cha merchants. The Ellingtons and the Hughes’ will take their themes from their blood. There will he fewer generalized gin-guzzling, homicidal maniacs, and more understanding of rotten socio-economic conditions which give rise to neurotic escapists, compensating for overwrought nerves. There will be fewer wicked, hipswinging “yellow-gal hustler” stereotypes, but more economically isolated girls, forced into prostitution. These themes are universal. They will be particularized and vivified in ringing language, and charged with the truth of realities. The music will express terror and defiance in colorful Negro musical idioms which have remained melodious despite a life of injustices. They will compose and write these things because they feel the consequences of an existence which is a weird combination of brutality and beauty.

The New Masses was the continuation of Workers Monthly which began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Communist Party publication, but drawing in a wide range of contributors and sympathizers. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and The New Masses began. A major left cultural magazine of the late 1920s and early 1940s, the early editors of The New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, and Joseph Freeman. Writers included William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. Artists included Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Boardman Robinson, Wanda Gag, William Gropper and Otto Soglow. Over time, the New Masses became narrower politically and the articles more commentary than comment. However, particularly in it first years, New Masses was the epitome of the era’s finest revolutionary cultural and artistic traditions.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/workers-theatre/v2n12-dec-1935-New-Theatre.

Source

About The Woodlands I Will Go...

You may be wondering, dear reader, what the connection is between the music of Duke Ellington and the graphics pasted below.

They are an aid-mémoire for a project we are presently working on which with hope will bear fruit early next year.

It is part of a study which is the most extensive  upon which we have yet embarked. It connects to the most recent essay published on Substack which may be found here.

Updates will be posted in the New Year and this stage of the project should be completed by April 2025.

It was  14 August, 1973 and Bruce Springsteen was making his local debut at Uncle Al’s Erlton Theatre Lounge on King’s Highway in Cherry Hill

Live: December 2024

It is advisable to book any event listed here in advance when possible and check with the promoter/ organiser to ensure any performance is going ahead as planned before travelling.

Speaking of Music: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington (a Concert Experience)

Sat, 7 December 19:00 - 21:30 pm (EST)

Speaking of Music returns for an all-star tribute to the legendary Duke Ellington!

Learn about the life and legacy of Ellington from acclaimed scholar John Edward Hasse. Then, take in the music of the man courtesy of a blockbuster lineup of performers, including James Langton's New York All-Star Big Band, featuring Ms. Audrey Martells!

Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington: No one led a life, led a band, or made music like Ellington. He was one of a kind — beyond category. Based on his acclaimed biography, Hasse introduces the moving and inspiring story of Ellington, who overcame racial, social, and musical obstacles to become one of the 20th century’s greatest musicians.

You’ll learn about his boyhood in Washington, D.C., his breakthrough at Harlem’s Cotton Club, the way he personalized his compositions for the individual gifts of his players, and his sharp disappointment about being rejected for a Pulitzer Prize. You’ll see video excerpts from such famous pieces as Mood Indigo, Take the “A” Train, and his Sacred Concerts.

***

During his 33-year tenure at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, Curator Emeritus John Edward Hasse developed exhibitions on Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Ray Charles. He founded the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, now celebrating its 32nd anniversary, and international Jazz Appreciation Month, which is celebrated in all 50 states and 40 other countries.

His books include an acclaimed biography, Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington, with a foreword by Wynton Marsalis, and Jazz: The First Century, with forewords by Quincy Jones and Tony Bennett. As an expert on 20th century music, Hasse is a contributor to The Washington Post and eight encyclopedias and has written 50+ articles on music for The Wall Street Journal. His media appearances include CNN, CBS, PBS, BBC, NPR, and several documentary movies. He is the recipient of two Grammy Award nominations and two ASCAP awards for excellence in writing on music.

Hasse earned a BA cum laude from Carleton College, MA and PhD degrees from Indiana University, a certificate in Business Administration from The Wharton School, and two honorary doctorates. Active in cultural diplomacy for the U.S. State Department, Hasse has lectured on leadership, the arts, and music in 25 countries. His website is: johnedwardhasse.com

Purchase tickets here.

Tickets here.

Sunday, 15 December 2024 15:00 (EST)

Ellington Effect with David Berger

Ellington Effect Workshop 46: Volga Vouty

Join us for the live Zoom workshop on Sunday, December 15th at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Can't make the live call?  Your ticket includes access to the video recording forever.
Each presentation will last around 2 hours, followed by a Q & A.

Joining any workshop also gets you access to the private Ellington Effect Facebook group, where lively discussions continue after the workshops finish.

Looking for the annual membership option?  Click here.

Buy this individual workshop

About Volga Vouty

Although Ellington wrote hundreds of arrangements, this arrangement from the Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker Suite is the only arrangement we’ll be dealing with in this book. The overwhelming majority of Ellington’s arrangements are settings of popular songs. With the Nutcracker and Peer Gynt, he and Strayhorn translated European fully developed classical music into the American vernacular. Although both Ellington and Strayhorn share credit for both suites (and all their suites per Ellington’s direction to his sister/publisher), in actuality, Ellington only arranged Volga Vouty, Peanut Brittle Brigade, and In The Hall Of The Mountain King.  

The idea to arrange and record these two suites came from Strayhorn. As usual, Ellington was not very interested in arranging other composer’s music, preferring to compose his own, so Strayhorn did the lion’s share of the arrangements. Ellington’s instructions to his alter ego were to avoid “jazzing the classics” by describing the corresponding American ritual to the European ritual that Tchaikovsky and Grieg were describing, thus avoiding the superficial rhythmic treatments that plagued other jazz players and arrangers. 

Volga Vouty is the Russian Dance from the second act dances in the Nutcracker. Ellington’s alliterative title cites the Russian river and Slim Gaillard’s slang (meaning “guy or cat”). The actual name of the dance in Tchaikovsky’s score is Trepak, which is a traditional Russian and Ukrainian folk dance. Tchaikovsky’s dance is rather short with little development. The theme is eight measures repeated followed by two short contrasting sections that develop the theme, and a recap that is the same as the original theme with a repetitious tag. 

Ellington takes melodic and rhythmic liberties with the theme and the following contrasting sections, adding an intro and interspersing improvised solos. His shout is truer to Tchaikovsky’s theme and dance excitement but still Ellingtonian. The slower tempo allows for more hip shaking and swing feel and the blues. Ellington creates intensity through counterpoint and swinging rhythms rather than the fast tempo of the Tchaikovsky.

Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music

Saturday, 28 December, 20:00 (PST) The Great Hall,  1119 Eighth Avenue Seattle, 98101 United States

Presented in partnership with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.

Ellington’s Sacred Music is both serious and swinging. It is a reverent and hip body of jazz composition, written late in his career, for jazz big band, vocal and instrumental soloists, and tap dancers.

For the past 30+ years Earshot Jazz and Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra have partnered to present an annual concert of Ellington’s Sacred Music. The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, led by Artistic Director Michael Brockman (who co-founded SRJO alongside Clarence Acox Jr.), features the 17-piece big band with trumpeters: Jay Thomas, Nathan Breedlove, Michael Van Bebber, and Andy Omdahl; trombonists: Dan Marcus, Scott Brown, Bill Anthony, and David Bentley, and saxophonists: Mark Taylor, Dan Wickham, Travis Ranney, Kate Olson, and Alex Dugdale. Rhythm includes Randy Halbertstadt (piano), Brian Kirk (drums), and Phil Sparks (bass). This year’s vocal soloists are Stephen Newby (baritone voice) and Nichol Veneé Eskridge (alto voice). Also featuring a choral ensemble combining members of the Northwest Chamber Chorus (Jeremy Edelstein, director) along with Music Director, Vanessa Bruce and vocalists. Cipher Goings will return to the stage as the tap dancer. A local artist raised in the Central District, Cipher Goings has appeared recently on So You Think You Can Dance, and on the stage in the Charles Dickens’ inspired production Spirited.

Note about the livestream:

Tickets to livestream and in-person concerts sold separately. At the time of a livestream ticket purchase, you will receive a confirmation email with a url link to access the concert stream. A reminder email will be sent out shortly before the event begins.

The livestream concert begins at 7:30PM PST. Ticket-holders will be able to access the concert as a “video on demand” with the same link, once the initial livestream concert has aired, until January 10, 2025. Once the concert has aired live, please allow at least 24 hours for viewing as our staff needs time to set up the “video on demand” manually.

Tickets

The Biggest and Busiest Intersection

Available here...

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World...

 To Madison Square Garden in happier times... 17 October, 1957 and "A Little Party"  celebrating the first birthday of Around The World In 80 Days.

DUKE ELLINGTON and his orchestra for dancing

Playing Second Fiddle

These items, a copy of Duke Ellington's Music Is My Mistress and a Christmas Card interestingly a signed, possibly(?) by Evie is currently for sale on eBay.fr

Music is my Christmas!

I have left the vendor's description in its original tongue.

Pictures of the items for sale are all we can afford...

Editions Doubleday & Compagny, Inc - Garden City, New York 1973. Enorme in-4 cartonnage éditeur pleine toile noire de 522 pages au format 18,5 x 5,5 x 28,5 cm. Premier plat et dos avec titre doré et gravé. Complet de la jaquette bleue avec titre imprimé en blanc. Frottis aux coins et mors de la jaquette, qui présente aussi de petits manques et qui à été renforcée au verso. Souvenirs de l'artiste accompagnés de très nombreuses photos hors texte. Tirage sur couché. Rare édition originale américaine en premier tirage et superbe état général, à l'exception des défauts de la jaquette. Précieux Exemplaire accompagné d'une d'une carte de vœux imprimée avec mention " Season's Greeting and Best Wishes for the New Year ", enrichie d'une dédicace autographe signée de Edward Kennedy Ellington dit Duke Ellington et de Beatrice Ellis, sa femme, dite Evie : Sincerely The Duke Ellingtons ( Evie and Edward ).Le livre est aussi accompagné d'une magnifique photo au format  18 x 24 cm, en tirage argentique, avec cachet au verso, représentant Duke Ellington en galante compagnie lors d'une fiesta organisée par Eddie Barclay. Rare et superbe ensemble.

Live: November 2024

 It is advisable to book any event listed here in advance when possible and check with the promoter/ organiser to ensure any performance is going ahead as planned before travelling.

Saturday, 9 November, 2024 19:30 (GMT)

The Music of Duke Ellington 

Harmony In Harlem, dir. Michael Kilpatrick

40-43 St Andrew's St, Cambridge, Cambs CB2 3AR Tel: 01223 506343

Harmony In Harlem return to St Andrew's Street Baptist Church in Cambridge, for a fresh performance of our vibrant foot-tapping swing, exotica and jazz from the great composers Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. On this occasion we are reviving some of up-tempo repertoire all the way from the mid-1930s through to the mid-1960s for an invigorating show. We are pleased to be included as a Fringe Event within the Cambridge Jazz Festival. Doors open at 7:00pm.

Details here.

Saturday, 16 November 2024 20:30 (CET)

La Légende de Duke Ellington: Du Cotton Club À Newport

Duke Orchestra, dir. Laurent Mignard

Théâtre de la Garenne, 22 Av. de Verdun 1916, 92250 La Garenne-Colombes, France

Two great orchestras brought together on the same stage (Nicolas Montier's Jazz Circus and Laurent Mignard's Duke Orchestra) bring us back to life the odyssey of the most brilliant jazz composer and orchestrator of all time.

From the Cotton Club in the late 1920s to the Newport Festivals in the late 1950s, a breathtaking journey along the paths that led Duke Ellington to the height of fame and glory.

An exceptional concert specially designed to celebrate 20 years of Jazz at La Garenne and the 125th anniversary of the birth of Duke Ellington. A new sesame to enter the world of jazz… not to be missed under any circumstances!

Details here

Sunday, 17 November, 2024, matinee and Evening Sets

Mr Tipple's Jazz Club San Francisco

From Nick Rossi:

I am very proud to once again present the Jazzopaters: an Ellingtonia Unit this coming Sunday, November 17th at Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club here in San Francisco. This, our final scheduled performance of the year, will consist of two shows each showcasing our Swing Era book of Duke Ellington’s “small group” material adapted and arranged for our 9 piece repertory ensemble. Shows are at 5 and 6:45 p.m. and will consist of two programs of material. We hope that you can join us for this amazing music played with love by some of the best musicians on the scene in a sophisticated but comfortable night club setting. 

Advance Tickets Highly Recommended: here

Sunday, 24 November, 2024, 18:00 (GMT)

Kings Place (Hall One), 90 York Way, London N1 9AG

Tomorrow’s Warriors presents Nu Civilisation Orchestra led by Peter Edwards for this special EFG London Jazz Festival performance of Duke Ellington’s New Orleans Suite.

Intensely evocative, New Orlean’s Suite is not just Ellington’s love letter to the city that is regarded as the cradle of jazz, but also an homage to the great musicians that shaped the Crescent City sound and who would go on to have such a huge influence across America and beyond.

These compositions retain the trademark Ellington swing, but he’s added something more. There’s a swagger and grit to the opening track, Blues for New Orleans, with its swirling electric organ riffs and rolls that anchor you in Tremé from the get-go. Equally evocative is the high-energy street parade of Second Line, conjuring images of crowds partying down streets amidst a sea of spinning umbrellas.

But Ellington goes beyond just celebrating the city. He also honours some of the great New Orleans musicians, many of whom were his contemporaries, with a series of portraits for Sidney Bechet (who Ellington recalled hearing in 1921, “the greatest thing I ever heard in my life. It knocked me out.”), Louis Armstrong, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and bassist Wellman Braud.

“Ellington is a unique composer and bandleader. It’s not just the quality of his arrangements, he brings a humanity to his writing that is unlike anyone else. With New Orleans Suite, he is celebrating a city and its great musicians, but there is an added poignancy. At the time of the recording Bechet and Braud were both already dead, and Armstrong and Jackson would pass away within the next two years. Six decades into his own career, Ellington must have been acutely aware that this was the end of a chapter in jazz history, a changing era. You can feel that in the compositions, but he is embracing that change in true Crescent City style, celebrating life and banging the drum for its blessings. Ellington’s music stands alone. It’s tempting to say that there’s Ellington and then the rest is a bag of noise!”

Dr Gary Crosby OBE, Artistic Director, Nu Civilisation Orchestra

Book tickets here