The greatest composers are in the pantheon for their numerous (if not consistent) great works, but some pieces stand out—Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage Of Figaro, Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring. These pieces are iconic, well-known and performed often all over the world. For Ellington, it is his 1950 A Tone Parallel To Harlem, which unlike the previously mentioned masterpieces isn’t well-known even to most jazz musicians and certainly isn’t performed often.
Originally commissioned by Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony (Toscanini never conducted it and most likely had nothing to do with its commission), Ellington composed Harlem for his band while traveling from Europe back to New York by steamship. It’s unclear who wrote the orchestral orchestration. It was assumed to be Luther Henderson, who orchestrated most of Ellington’s orchestral works, but Luther said that it wasn’t him. In any event, the orchestral version rather that adding to the scope of the band piece, robs it of its unique and concise color and jazz feeling. At best, it is superfluous.
Ellington first performed the band version at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City January 21, 1951 and recorded it on the LP Ellington Uptown for Columbia December 7, 1951. The reasons for the long delay are that the piece is extremely difficult to perform and that its 14-minute length required a long-playing record, which Columbia had just started issuing. Columbia didn’t release Ellington Uptown until 1953—smack dab in the middle of Ellington’s supposed artistic drought.
Harlem is the only long-form work of Ellington’s that he continued to perform. In fact, it remained in his book for 25 years. He performed Harlem on TV often and regularly on concerts. He even re-recorded it in the studio. There exist numerous live recordings, most notably The Great Paris Concert. Alas, there is no definitive recording of the piece. The first recording is clean, but Paris feels lived in (more personality from the players) and negotiates the tempo changes better.
So, what is it that makes this piece so great? Following Tattooed Bride, which combined three essentially dance charts into a longer story, Harlem also consists of three parts, but aside from the middle section with its blues choruses, this piece develops motifs without the crutch of song forms.
There are tempo and groove changes that rarely, if ever, occurred in jazz before, and certainly not so successfully. The difficulty of leaving the safety of the ballroom are the hazards of not swinging and of feeling contrived. Ellington’s previous attempts in 1931’s Creole Rhapsody and 1943’s Black, Brown, And Beige were awkward and lacked continuity. 1948’s Tattooed Bride was limited in this regard but more integral and convincing.
Aside from the bass and drums (there is no piano), there is no improvisation in Harlem. Every note is written. It’s a marvel of development. Duke takes us on a fascinating guided tour of his beloved Harlem, where he had lived for over a quarter of a century.
Harlem was the epicenter of Negro culture. A city within a city situated in the upper part of Manhattan. Previous to the 1920’s Black people lived mostly on the west side of midtown Manhattan. With the expansion of the subway system, the immigrant Jews who lived in Harlem were moved further uptown onto the mainland of the Bronx, and Manhattan’s Negro population was relocated uptown to Harlem. East Harlem, which had been Italian, was gradually taken over by Hispanics from the Caribbean and subsequently renamed Spanish Harlem.
This all coincided with the Great Migration of Southern Blacks up north. Harlem was the biggest recipient. It didn’t take long for the culture to thrive. The Harlem Renaissance produced artists of every discipline but most notably the new music—jazz. Jazz had flourished in New Orleans and then Chicago, but by the mid to late 1920s, Harlem was the destination for serious jazz musicians. Only a few miles south was home to the record companies, radio networks, publishers, and the financial hub of the United States. New York was where careers were made, and Harlem was where the Black musicians lived and worked.
Famous for its nightlife, most notably the Cotton Club and the integrated Savoy Ballroom, musicians also challenged each other in smaller clubs like Smalls Paradise and Minton’s, where bebop incubated in the early 1940s.
Ellington was always quick to point out that although Harlem was known worldwide for its high- living clubs, there were more churches than bars. I don’t know if his numbers are correct—probably not, but there were a lot of churches in Harlem and a deep spirituality.
Alcohol was always a problem with some inhabitants, but after World War II, the introduction of heroin by organized crime ravaged the community and ultimately destroyed the cultural fabric. At the same time, the real estate industry created sections of Brooklyn and suburban towns exclusively for Black people. This started an exodus of more affluent Blacks from Harlem and a watering down of the culture that had been established. Oddly, the opportunity that integration brought at the same time diluted the culture to where it lost its once vital force. As always, progress doesn’t always move in a straight line.
In his depiction of Harlem, Ellington invites us into his community in its heyday. He clearly knows it and loves it—every wide boulevard, side street and corner. Albert Murray has said that Ellington’s music best describes what it feels like to be an American. A Tone Parallel To Harlem best describes what it felt to be in Harlem.
This month, we will be examining the interior blues section of Harlem. Ellington is the master of the blues, but these choruses are above and beyond even what Ellington has shown us in the past.
Personnel
Recorded December 7, 1951 Columbia C050717-take 1
Conductor: Duke Ellington
Reeds: Willie Smith, Russell Procope, Jimmy Hamilton, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney
Trumpets: Cat Anderson, Willie Cook, Shorty Baker, Clark Terry, Ray Nance, Francis Williams
Trombones: Britt Woodman, Quentin “Butter” Jackson, Juan Tizol
Bass: Wendell Marshall
Drums: Louis Bellson
N.B. Six trumpet players are listed in the personnel, Anderson, Baker, Terry, and Nance are clearly audibly identifiable. There are five written parts. Most likely Cook is playing 2nd Trumpet, and Francis Williams is not playing, but it is possible that Cook is the odd man out.
