Live: October 2025

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.

Sunday 5 October 15:00 (EST)

Ellington Effect Workshop #56: The Blues

with David Berger

About The Blues

23 January, 1943 stands out as one of the most significant dates in the annals of jazz. It was on this evening that Duke Ellington premiered his first and only symphony at Carnegie Hall. He didn’t call it Symphony #1 or even refer to it as a symphony, but in essence that’s what it is: a 3- movement motivic-driven work divided into nine parts lasting 52 minutes.

Black: Work Song, Come Sunday, Light

Brown: West Indian Dance, Emancipation Celebration, The Blues

Beige: Beige, Cy Runs Rock Waltz, Symphonette

As great as this piece was, many critics failed to understand both its importance and its greatness. The classical critics only saw its minor flaws in continuity and didn’t understand Ellington’s jazz harmonic, structural, and developmental language and process. On the other hand, the jazz reviewers weren’t ready for jazz to leave the dance hall and viewed BBB as pretentious. The sold-out audience (who attended despite a blizzard) disagreed and was overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

Due to the AF of M recording ban at that time, no commercial recording was made. However, the concert was recorded live but wasn’t released until three decades later. When the recording ban ended, Ellington recorded a few excerpts of BBB in December 1944. He never performed the piece in its entirety again. When he recorded portions of it in later years, he still didn’t fix all the original problems, the most egregious of which was the ultrapatriotic ending. The 1945 RCA recordings, although incomplete, are the best played and recorded. The piece and the band were a bit unprepared at the premiere, and later bands had vastly different personnel that didn’t always address the earlier music. There have been several performances since Ellington’s death, but, considering the quality of music and its historical importance, this gem has been overlooked.

Come Sunday has become well-known to jazz fans and many churchgoers, but it’s only one of the great themes in BBB. Ellington’s initial idea for this piece was the 1935 short film Symphony In Black, which was a series of vignettes depicting contemporary Negro life in America. Although the film won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject, it suffers from being too short and lack of musical preparation. Ellington ran out of time and used previously written pieces to tell the story. Ducky Wucky, Saddest Tale, and Merry Go-Round are all great pieces but lack the cohesion of a singular work.

If Symphony In Black was too big a story to tell in 15 minutes, BBB attempted to tell the entire 324-year history of the American Negro in 52 minutes. Mistake number one. BBB begins with Work Song, which bears a strong resemblance to the opening scene of Symphony In Black’s The Laborers. It’s fully developed and leads to the spiritual theme, Come Sunday, which is similar to Hymn Of Sorrow, the spiritual theme of Symphony In Black. Light closes out the first movement. Curiously, Brown begins with two standalone dances before concluding with The Blues, which combines operatic recitative, harmonically sophisticated and earthy downhome blues.

The contiguous Beige includes a bit of Billy Strayhorn’s writing in 3/4 before easing into Ellington’s expressive medium swing. It’s clear that a solid ending is called for, but Ellington’s frequent mental block surfaces. He decides to write a patriotic coda for Herb Jeffries to sing. When this proved to be too over the top, he removed the vocal, but the flag waving was still too much. He never did find a satisfactory ending.

In an inspired piece of music with numerous memorable themes, The Blues stands out as one of Ellington’s most iconic pieces. There is nothing like it in his entire canon. Like Come Sunday, it is clearly a concert piece, while descending from the dance hall, it has no place there. The Blues is a dramatic description which draws on jazz and blues as well as the recitative/accompaniment of opera.

Ticket available here. Annual membership available here.

Sunday 12 October 2025, 15:00 (BST)

Harmony In Harlem directed by Michael Kilpatrick

St John's ARC, St John's Walk, Market Street, Harlow, Essex, CM17 0AJ

Tel: 01279 417575 

Harmony In Harlem is a 16-piece jazz orchestra specialising in the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, directed by Michael Kilpatrick, whose research on Duke's manuscripts and recordings has resulted in a repertoire unique amongst jazz orchestras. From the 'jungle sounds' of the Cotton Club era through to the esoteric 'Such Sweet Thunder' of the late 1950s and beyond, we can present a vibrant and gripping performance of music from the greatest bandleader/composer in jazz history.

The orchestra, based in Cambridge, performs regularly across the East of England.

Find out more about us.

Tickets: £17.50/£7.50/£0 online or cash/card on the door

Doors open at 2:30pm.

Tickets on sale here.

The Ellington Piano Project: Eastbourne 1973 Reimagined is released on Rubicon Jazz. 

Eastbourne’s Congress Theatre hosts a special Ellington in Eastbourne gala on 12 October – BOOKINGS

TOUR DATES

Forsyth’s Music, Manchester, 7 October – BOOKINGS

606 Club, London, 8 October.- BOOKINGS

Eastside Jazz Club, Birmingham, 9 October (lunchtime) – BOOKINGS

Peggy’s Skylight, Nottingham, 9 October (eve). – BOOKINGS

Jazz at St Andrew’s, Hove, 10 October.

The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, 12 October (part of ‘Ellington in Eastbourne’ gala show)

More details about this exciting project here.

Wednesday, 22 October 2025, 19:30 (GMT)

Louis and Duke In London

The Jazz Repertory Company

Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace, London SW1X 9DQ

In 1932, Louis Armstrong was a sensation when he made his European debut at the London Palladium. A year later Duke Ellington’s Famous Orchestra became the talk of the town when they topped the bill at the same venue performing such classics as Ring Dem Bells, Bugle Call Rag, Black and Tan Fantasy and Mood Indigo.

Now, over 90 years later, the 13-piece Midnite Follies Orchestra (founded by Keith Nichols and Alan Cohen in 1978) recreate the sound of Duke Ellington’s Famous Orchestra in all its majesty with Vimala Rowe performing as Duke’s featured singer Ivie Anderson in Stormy Weather and It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.

For this concert, Enrico Tomasso plays the role of Louis Armstrong. At the tender age of six, Enrico performed for Louis Armstrong’s arrival in England in 1968 and the two of them became great friends, exchanging letters for the rest of Armstrong’s life. Satchmo’s influence is paramount in Rico’s style and the spirit of this jazz legend lives on in his playing.

Both Louis and the Duke appeared at the Palladium with a number of variety acts of the time (Duke was 14th on the bill after an evening of juggling, tumbling, magic and novelty items). To recreate this style of presentation, the concert also features a selection of fine entertainers, including the Mampara Dance Troupe and Thomas ‘Spats’ Langham performing as George Formby.

Connecting us directly with the world of show business of the early ’30s we have John Sutton who, besides being drummer with the Bryan Ferry Orchestra, Chris Barber and the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, is the grandson of music hall star Randolph Sutton who appeared at the Palladium with Duke Ellington.

The concert is presented by master of ceremonies Mr Kerry Shale.

PERFORMERS

The Midnite Follies Orchestra appearing as Duke Ellington’s Famous Orchestra of 1933

Enrico Tomasso as Louis Armstrong

Vimala Rowe as Duke Ellington’s singer Ivie Anderson

Thomas ‘Spats’ Langham as George Formby

Angela Andrew as ‘The Snakehips Girl’ Bessie Dudley

John Sutton novelty drummer

The Mampara Dance Company

Kerry Shale presenter

RELATED LINKS

www.jazzrep.co.uk

www.midnitefollies.com

Book now

Eastbourne Promise

There is little over a week now until the tour headed by bassist Arnie Somogyi and pianist Mark Edwards to promote the release of their new album The Ellington Piano Project.

The album has already been released across the major streaming services and the playlist from YouTube is embedded at the end of this post.

The tour culminates in a mini-festival at The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne. Dates on the tour are listed below and you can read more about the project on our previous posts here. 

This is an excellent piece on the forthcoming tour from  UK Jazz News by John Fordham. No copyright infringement intended.

(Click on the links for original source)

On 1 December 1973, the Duke Ellington Orchestra was running late on the 300-mile drive from Lancashire to Eastbourne, heading for the last of its back-to-back gigs at the end of a gruelling six-week UK tour. Ellington had been on the road all his long working life, and had composed plenty of masterpieces in hotel-rooms, and on buses and trains and planes, but what was probably uppermost in the 74 year-old’s mind on this long day was the prospect of heading home to New York. 

At this point, the maestro was suffering from cancer and pneumonia, though he made light of both, and he was in the last six months of his life. Several of the great soloists from the band’s glorious heyday had died or quit. And yet, as this writer recalls from hearing the band a few weeks earlier in London, the 1973 edition of this iconic outfit could still rouse a devoted crowd with the enthralling harmonies, imaginative soulfulness and driving swing that had made Ellington an undisputed giant of 20th century music in any genre. 

When the band pulled up that Saturday evening at Eastbourne’s Congress Theatre, they were surprised to find microphones set up for a live recording. But the show went on, as in Ellington’s world it always had, until his much-mourned death in May 1974. The following year, RCA released a live album entitled Eastbourne Performance, because that gig in the quiet English seaside town turned out to have hosted his last known recording. Hindsight comparisons with landmark Ellington works running back to the 1920s may have affected the muted critical response the album received, though the Duke’s own jubilantly propulsive piano-playing on the set mostly did get its proper due. 

This month, double-bassist/composer Arnie Somogyi and pianist, producer and arranger Mark Edwards – two of the most experienced and adaptable musicians in UK jazz – celebrate Eastbourne Performance in the most creatively personal of ways, born of an astonishing run of coincidences. 

With The Ellington Piano Project: Eastbourne 1973 Reimagined, a 13-track collection of six Ellington and Billy Strayhorn originals (only two of which were on the 1973 set) and improvisations and new pieces by the pair and three empathic partners – saxist Gideon Tazelaar, vocalist Sara Oschlag, and drummer Matthew Holmes – steer a remarkable tribute that is both respectfully devoted to its source, and a creative salute to the inspirational influence Ellington had on the jazz generations that have followed him. 

On a three-way Zoom for UKJN, we get together to look into how it happened. Mark Edwards takes up the story. 

‘It all started in this famous old Eastbourne recording studio called Echo Zoo’, Edwards begins, ‘which is a place I’ve been going to since 1986 – Paul McCartney and Billy Bragg and all kinds of great people have recorded there, and it had an amazing vibe and fantastic vintage analogue equipment, microphones and monitors dating from the 1970s. If you wanted the wonderful as-live audio sound of the famous jazz recordings of the 1960s with people like Coltrane and Miles, you could get it there.

‘A friend of mine called Dave Lynch took it over about 15 years ago, he’s an absolute master engineer really dedicated to analogue and organic recording processes, minimal microphones, very careful mic placement. A few years back, Arnie and I did a jazz album there, using just a few microphones in the room with this old Steinway piano that Dave had acquired from the Congress Theatre. When we finished, we thought the music reminded us a bit of the 1960s Ellington album Money Jungle, which had Ellington on piano with Charles Mingus and Max Roach. The next week, Dave told me he’d just found a copy of Eastbourne Performance in a charity shop, and also that the 1921 Steinway in the Echo Zoo studio is the very piano Ellington was playing at the Congress that night. Arnie immediately said “why don’t we revisit that album? Build a project around that piano, and that iconic event?” So it started from there really’. 

But hadn’t the original Ellington album been a pretty damp critical squib by the Duke’s standards?

 “I think that reaction should be put into context,’ Arnie Somogyi says. ‘I’ve spoken to one of the trombonists who was on that gig – Vince Prudente, I think he’s the only surviving musician from that concert. He said the band hadn’t had a day off the road for six weeks at that point, it was a tortuous drive down from Preston, they were pretty knackered when they got to Eastbourne, and they weren’t expecting to record. Obviously, the album wasn’t Ellington’s best work, but I think the thing that stood out for me on that record was his piano playing – and also just the idea of taking bits of  the source material from that night and finding beauty within it to create something new. You can always find something, and some of the compositions on our album were inspired by little fragments of Duke’s piano playing, or chord sequences or whatever, just small things that you can find as a starting point for a new narration.’

It isn’t necessary to know exactly how Somogyi and Edwards found their routes to a fresh Ellington homage to appreciate the lyrical elegance and heartfelt jazz wisdom of The Ellington Piano Project – but the background nonetheless provides a fascinating sidebar to how this distinctive venture works. There are three group improvisations spread across the set (‘Prelude’, ‘Interlude’ and ‘It Never Really Ends’), each guided by a single melodic fragment from ‘Mercuria the Lion’, an Ellington piece from the Congress gig that wasn’t included on the first LP release of Eastbourne Performance, but appeared on the subsequent CD. The fast swinger ‘Brake!’, distilled by Somogyi from Ellington’s Eastbourne piano intro to a tune called ‘Woods’, shows how perceptively Gideon Tazelaar, a 28 year-old saxophonist from the Netherlands (now living in New York and studying with the great tenor saxist George Coleman) has absorbed a tenor-sax lineage running from Ellington’s Ben Webster and Paul Gonsalves to John Coltrane and beyond. Tazelaar’s precocious sensitivity to balancing narrative emphasis and canny insinuation is evident here on ‘Black and Tan Fantasy’ and ‘Creole Love Call’. 

Somogyi was introduced on a Netherlands tour to the fast-rising Tazelaar by Sara Oschlag, a UK-resident Danish singer with her own infectious gift for eloquent reinvention of traditional materials. Oschlag joins this venture on three tracks, notably in an exquisitely-paced vocal of subtle swerves and wistfully gliding tones on ‘Don’t You Know I Care’ – originally a Latin-jazz instrumental on Eastbourne Performance, but transformed here by Edwards’ sumptuous intro and Oschlag’s delicately yearning interpretation. 

Considering Somogyi’s and Edwards’ long friendship and musical partnership over the years, it’s intriguing to consider how much was designed and how much emerged in the live process of making this album – as ideas so often did in Duke Ellington’s own work with the musicians he knew and trusted.

‘Well, if you take the three tracks that were freely improvised,’ Somogyi says, ‘each one began with a melodic fragment from Ellington’s “Mercuria”. We used them just as spurs for free impro, did quite a few improvised takes, and then selected what we thought were the best bits. Then there are some newly-composed tracks which again come out of Duke’s playing – one of them is called “A Little Tickle”, from a figure that he plays in the middle of a solo which we worked up into a blues. The overall remit was it had to be an Ellington idea, or related to the Eastbourne album. But it’s interesting that Ellington himself would sometimes freely improvise in his own ways. There are tracks on his trio records, like Piano Reflections, and Piano in the Foreground, that are just free impros, where the trio improvise around maybe just a tonality, and it’s really interesting that he could sort of embrace that genre, but in a very natural way, play freely within his style.’ 

Edwards credits his co-leader in The Ellington Piano Project with a perspective that isn’t so dissimilar. 

‘Arnie’s great at creating tunes from minimal information,’ Edwards says, ‘and the belief that if you put the right people together, and don’t overload it with compositional information, great things can happen. That’s about making a space, an environment where really interactive creative stuff can form. 

 ‘For my part, I just took a couple of things from the Ellington album, and a couple of others of his that were favourites of mine, and tried to bring some fresh light to them. Much of the time what I do is production and arranging, so as we worked up those tunes, certain other sounds seemed to present themselves. Ashley Slater played trombone and trumpet on three tracks, and we used some banjo and marimba to hint at a bit of that 1920s sound the Ellington band had when it used to be The Washingtonians. But I guess above all, I was thinking of Duke’s approach to the piano. In a really interactive, listening band like his, it’s not a restriction to be mainly creating textures and hooks for the others, it’s a freedom. Sometimes to suddenly do something to really drive it, other times  not play at all. With him, it was all about the overview of the thing that he kept in his head all the time, and he would only solo if there was something he could add to the whole that wouldn’t just be about him.’

I mention that conducting from the piano chair is sometimes a description of Ellington’s method, as it is of other pianist/bandleaders in jazz, like Count Basie or Fletcher Henderson – though the constant spontaneity of Duke’s piano-playing in performance, however intricate the score, perhaps makes him the most creative one, and more of an arranger-on-the-fly. 

‘Arranger-on-the-fly, that’s about right,’ Edwards concurs. ‘I always think of that as the piano’s role in jazz, it’s about listening as much as playing. Sometimes you find yourself producing a recording, and a session player comes in, you put on the track you want them to play on, and they just start playing along with it like karaoke. Others will sit and listen and wait, and you know they’re thinking “where’s the gap? What can I do that’s going to add something to this?” In performance, Ellington seemed to have that head on all the time’

Arnie Somogyi, Mark Edwards, and their partners on The Ellington Piano Project: Eastbourne 1973 Reimagined will be bearing those inspirations in mind when they take this adventurous tribute to a musical colossus, and his undaunted final months of live performing, on the road themselves. As writer and musician Simon Spillett observes in this fine album’s sleeve-note, the great jazz master ‘would have found in Edwards, Somogyi, Talezaar, Oschlag and all of the musicians…an adherence to the creative credo that remained constant throughout his five-decade career: that a performer should make a piece their own, shape it as only they can, and leave those listening in no doubt as to who they are’. 

The Ellington Piano Project: Eastbourne 1973 Reimagined is released on Rubicon Jazz. 

Eastbourne’s Congress Theatre hosts a special Ellington in Eastbourne gala on 12 October – BOOKINGS

TOUR DATES

Forsyth’s Music, Manchester, 7 October – BOOKINGS

606 Club, London, 8 October.- BOOKINGS

Eastside Jazz Club, Birmingham, 9 October (lunchtime) – BOOKINGS

Peggy’s Skylight, Nottingham, 9 October (eve). – BOOKINGS

Jazz at St Andrew’s, Hove, 10 October.

The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, 12 October (part of ‘Ellington in Eastbourne’ gala show)

Live: September 2025

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, 13 September 2025, 19:30(BST)

The Blackbird and The Duke

Nu Civilisation Orchestra

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

The Blackbird and The Duke

Nu Civilisation Orchestra celebrates the Harlem Renaissance with Duke Ellington’s music and the story of Florence Mills, with special guests CHERISE and Bonnie Greer.

Although Ellington and Mills never formally collaborated, their lives were entwined in the Black cultural revolution of the Harlem Renaissance in mid-1920s New York.

The evening begins with the premiere of The Blackbird of Harlem, telling the story of the artist, activist and trailblazer Florence Mills through music, dance and spoken word.

It also features two of Duke Ellington’s seminal pieces that chart the influence of the influential New York district, A Tone Parallel to Harlem and Black, Brown and Beige.

As African American artists and writers united to take ownership of their own representation, Mills and Ellington were at the centre of a creative movement that shook up a city and woke up a nation, the impact of which can still be felt across the world to this day.

Duke Ellington composed A Tone Parallel to Harlem in 1951, capturing the transformative essence of the Harlem Renaissance, creating a vivid soundscape of the times.

Black, Brown and Beige charts the social narrative of African American history. Beginning with the burden and oppression of ‘Work Song’, the prayer for salvation of ‘Come Sunday’ (originally performed and recorded with the Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson), the story shifts to the patriotic Black Americans fighting in the Revolutionary, Civil and Spanish-American wars.

The final chapter covers the ‘Great Migration’ and the movement of Black Americans into the city – arriving in Harlem, hungry for a cultural awakening and revolution that would shape the identity of African Americans in the 20th century and beyond.

Florence Mills’ story is a testament to resilience, talent, and her pursuit of equality. From her childhood and Vaudeville beginnings, through to her breakthrough on Broadway in Shuffle Along and subsequent headline shows and European tours, Nu Civilisation Orchestra tells the little-known story of the life of the singer, dancer and formidable campaigner for equal rights for African Americans, who became known across the world as ‘The Blackbird of Harlem’.

This event is part of Tomorrow’s Warriors Presents Harlem Renaissance: A 100 Year Revolution. Supported by Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a Donor Advised Fund, held at The Prism Charitable Trust.

Details here.

Saturday 13 September  2025, 14:00 (BST)

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

A 100-Year Revolution: The Harlem Renaissance

Trace the century-long cultural impact of the Harlem Renaissance across the Black diaspora in a panel discussion made up of writers, musicians and historians.

Acclaimed jazz talent development organisation Tomorrow’s Warriors hosts a panel including Bonnie Greer, Margaret Busby, Soweto Kinch and Kevin Le Gendre to discuss the origins of the Harlem Renaissance, exploring how the Black creative revolution in 1920s New York transformed the world, both then and now.

The Harlem Renaissance saw an explosion of literature, music, visual art, and intellectual thought that defined a new African American identity. Black artists, writers and musicians were taking control of their own narrative and through a movement that would grow to encompass and celebrate commonality of the cultural heritage of the African diaspora.

While the Harlem Renaissance inspired the music of Ellington, the writing of Zora Neale Hurston and the art of Aaron Douglas, it was never just an American phenomenon – it inspired a global Black consciousness.

Writers like Claude McKay (who was Jamaican) and thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois had international influence, connecting Harlem to London, Paris and beyond. That legacy continues to inspire artists and activists across Britain.

The panel examines how Harlem’s cultural explosion influenced Black British identity, the impact of transatlantic artistic exchanges and the role of the creative arts in cultural solidarity.

This event is part of Tomorrow’s Warriors Presents Harlem Renaissance: A 100 Year Revolution. Supported by Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a Donor Advised Fund, held at The Prism Charitable Trust.

Details here. 

Saturday, 13 September, 19:00-20:15; 21:30-22:45 (BST) 

Tony Kofi and Alan Barnes The Pocket Ellington

Toulouse Lautrec Restaurant and Jazz Club, 140 Newington Butts, Kennington

London, SE11 4RN

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7582 6800

A swinging, seven-piece celebration of the Ellington repertoire with Alan Barnes (reeds), Tony Kofi (tenor), Simon Finch (trumpet), David Lalljee (trombone), Dave Green (bass) and Winston Clifford (drums). 

As well as clever adaptations of Ellington classics by pianist / MD Alex Webb, the group also plays music from arranger/composers influenced by the Duke, including Mingus, Monk and Gil Evans.  Music for the heart, ears and feet.

Alan Barnes (reeds): A highly regarded British saxophonist and clarinetist known for his versatility and skill across multiple reed instruments. He’s an active performer, recording artist, and arranger in the jazz scene, blending traditional and modern jazz styles.

Tony Kofi (tenor saxophone): A prominent British jazz saxophonist who has gained recognition for his powerful playing and contribution to hard bop and contemporary jazz. He’s a former member of the Jazz Warriors and has collaborated widely in the jazz world.Tony Kofi (tenor saxophone): My bio here is also solid. Tony Kofi is a prominent jazz saxophonist, widely respected for his work, including as a member of the Jazz Warriors and various solo projects.

Dave Green (bass): A legendary British double bassist known for his long-standing contributions to jazz. He has played with numerous iconic figures, including Stan Tracey, Humphrey Lyttelton, and even American jazz stars like Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins when they toured the UK.

Winston Clifford (drums): A versatile and dynamic British drummer with a wide-ranging career. Known for his work in both traditional and contemporary jazz settings, his playing is characterized by a deep sense of groove and musicality.

Details here.

Thursday 18 September, 20:00 (CEST)

Duke Ellington... But Not Only...

The Serpentine Orchestra 

Bal Blomet, 33 Rue Blomet, 75015 Paris, France

A young orchestra, a period repertoire, and brand-new energy: jazz is making a stylish comeback! The Serpentine Orchestra revisits the Roaring Twenties with today's enthusiasm.

Joë Santoni – Trumpet, vocals, and musical directior

Angela Strandberg – Trumpet and vocals

Rudolph Stengel – Trombone

Prokhor Burlak – Reeds

Remi Fahed – Reeds and vocals

Phiphi Lambrechts – Reeds

Mathieu Meyer – Piano

Tickets here.

Sunday, 28 September 12:30-14:30 (BST)

Stafford Jazz Society Presents Harlem

The White Eagle Club, Riverway, Stafford ST16 3TH

A professional 13-piece ensemble drawn from across central England and specialising in authentic jazz classics from the late 1920s to the early 1930s. Directed and arranged by Bob Hunt on lead trombone the orchestra features “Magic” Mike Henry (lead cornet), Wil Robinson (trumpet), Charlie Manning (trumpet), Graham Woodhouse (valve & slide trombone), Zoltan Sagi (lead reeds section), Richard Exall (reeds), Michael Kilpatrick (clarinet, alto sax & baritone sax), Art Toper (piano), John Irwin (banjo/guitar), Tomas Pedersen (string bass), Nick Ward (drums) and Sarah Spencer (vocals).

Details here.

Duke Ellington: American Genius

Instructor: William Saxonis, Adjunct Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, UAlbany,  The Albany Guardian Society, 12 Corporate Woods Blvd 1st Floor, Albany, NY 12211

Ellington expert Bill Saxonis  will be leading a course on the life and work of Duke Ellington: 5, September  12, 19, 26 September, 3 and 10 October

at University at Albany, New York State.

Details in our previous post here.

Sunday, 21 September 2025 15:00 (EDT)

Ellington Effect Workshop #55: Mainstem with David Berger

About Main Stem

The title refers to the main street or central artery in town, which in New York, means Broadway.

Ellington paints the picture of hustle and bustle at a terrific pace. Alternate titles for this piece were Altitude and On Becoming A Square. Main Stem, along with two Strayhorn charts (My Little Brown Book and Johnny Come Lately) was recorded on 26 June, 1942 in Ellington’s penultimate recording session before the recording ban took effect.

The band’s personnel has remained constant since Ray Nance replaced Cootie Williams a year and a half before, except for the loss of Jimmy Blanton, who left the band due to fatal tuberculosis. Junior Raglin filled in for nearly four years but was never the major soloist or driving force that Blanton had been for the band. The succession of fine bassists over the next 30 years, including Oscar Petiford, Jimmy Woode, Wendell Marshall, Aaron Bell, Ernie Shepard, Joe Benjamin, and John Lamb all paled in comparison to Blanton.

Ellington’s love of the blues was well documented by his own words on the subject as well as the extraordinary number of blues pieces he composed and arranged, and the creative variety of each. Of the 14 titles chosen for this volume, which spans the three most prolific and inspired years of his career, seven are 12-bar blues and one is an 8-bar blues with a bridge.

Fletcher Henderson’s band had a reputation for playing in difficult keys, but here is Ellington in the key of D. Jazz bands prefer the flat keys and will go as far as one sharp (G major or E minor), but two sharps is usually reserved for strings, to accommodate their tuning. The fundamental pitch for trumpets and trombones is Bb and saxes are also more naturally in flat keys. Flat keys sound darker. D major is quite bright. The interlude modulates up a 4 th to G major, but then we return to D for the recapitulation and coda. Like C Jam Blues (composed by Barney Bigard and arranged by Strayhorn in January of 1942), Main Stem parades a series of star soloists. Where C Jam Blues leaves the accompaniment mainly to the rhythm section, Main Stem develops the opening motif throughout all the blues choruses. C Jam Blues is the epitome of simplicity in jazz. Main Stem is propelled by the succession of riffs that subtly develop the opening motif a little bit at a time.

Jazz musicians coming up at the time name Cottontail and Main Stem as the two Ellington records that influenced them the most. There is a raw energy in both these recordings that pushed the Swing Era to its boundaries. Bebop was beckoning. But this is 1942, and Ellington won’t have any beboppers in his band until the following year when Dizzy Gillespie joined for a short time at the Hurricane Club in New York during the recording ban. Finally, Jimmy Hamilton, Paul Gonsalves, Clark Terry, and Willie Cook will add that modern approach, but that won’t be for a while yet. When Michael James asked his uncle what he thought of bebop, Duke answered, “The bop was a bitch.”

Get a ticket here, or an annual membership here.

Saxophonics

News from Ellington expert Bill Saxonis who will be leading a course on the life and work of Duke Ellington  from 5 September at University at Albany, New York State.

Duke Ellington: American Genius

Instructor: William Saxonis, Adjunct Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, UAlbany,  The Albany Guardian Society, 12 Corporate Woods Blvd 1st Floor, Albany, NY 12211

Overview: This course will explore Ellington’s art, life and times utilizing music, film and excerpts from interviews recorded with key figures in Ellington’s world including several interviews personally conducted by the instructor.

Day/Time: Fridays, 10 a.m. to noon

Dates: 9/5, 9/12, 9/19, 9/26, 10/3 and 10/10

Location: Albany Guardian Society, 12 Corporate Woods Blvd 1st Floor, Albany, NY 12211

Format: In-Person or Zoom 

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born in Washington, D.C. on April 29, 1899, and died in New York City on May 24, 1974. He lived a most extraordinary life. His doting mother recognized her son as exceptional from the start, proclaiming, "Edward you are blessed!" This course will explore Ellington’s art, life and times utilizing music, film and excerpts from interviews recorded with key figures in Ellington’s world including several interviews personally conducted by the instructor.

For six decades, Duke Ellington demonstrated his remarkable gifts as a composer, arranger, bandleader and pianist. Simply stated, Ellington was prolific, innovative and in the opinion of many, the 20th century's greatest composer. His music was never restrained by the boundaries of the jazz idiom. He wrote music for symphony orchestra, theater, ballet, movies, dance halls concert halls and places of worship - about 2,000 compositions in all.

His bands always showcased some of the jazz world's finest and most individualistic musicians. Many of these all-stars stayed with the band for decades, some virtually their entire adult lives. The ensemble was further enriched by Ellington's creative and gifted piano playing that was skillfully woven into the arrangements with laser precision. His solo and small group piano recordings have become jazz classics.

Ellington's mystique also included a dynamic stage presence and unlimited charisma. He brought sophistication  to jazz for audiences of all races, colors and creeds. Ellington traveled incessantly to perform for enthusiastic audiences worldwide and the rigors and frequent indignities of life on the road seemed only to stimulate his creative spirit. Whether he was playing in a high school gym, a jazz club, Carnegie Hall or before British royalty, Ellington always charmed and delighted his audience. 

Class Schedule

Week 1: Introduction and the Emergence of Genius

Topics: Why study Ellington?

An exploration of Ellington’s youth in Washington DC, his move to New York City and rise to national fame at Harlem’s Cotton Club.

Week 2: Ellington the Composer

Topics: Ellington’s creative process

What inspired Ellington’s compositions?

A review of the extraordinary life of Billy Strayhorn, Ellington’s writing and arranging companion. Strayhorn was a significant factor in the Ellington story.

Week 3: The Band was Duke Ellington’s Instrument

Topics: How Ellington held together, decade after decade, a band of all-star musicians even when it was financially impractical 

The role the band played in creating Ellington’s unique sound.

A snapshot of some of the band’s featured soloists.

Week 4: Ellington’s Extraordinary Music

Topic: Exploration of compositions that go beyond Ellington’s contributions to America’s songbook (e.g., Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady and It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing). The quality and breadth of the totality of Ellington’s music including symphonies, scared concerts, suites, movie scores… is astounding.

Week 5: Ellington and Civil Rights

Topics: Ellington’s underappreciated role in civil rights.

The exploration of how Ellington navigated maintaining popularity with his white audiences while using his art to celebrate his Black heritage.

The challenges Ellington and other Black artists faced traveling across America.

Week 6: The Ellington Continuum

Topics: Ellington’s legacy and how he influenced a wide range of musicians beyond the jazz idiom including Gershwin, Stravinsky, Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.

Studies by management gurus of Ellington’s methods of composing and  maintaining an all-star band

Ellington’s continued influence, 51 years after his passing. Despite wide ranging acclaim, a compelling case be made that Ellington is under appreciated.

The course costs $60. To register for a place, click here.

Cotton Pickin'

 

Since we are unlikely ever to be able to find the $3 400 the vendor of this programme for The Cotton Club requires, we are grateful that so many photographs of the item were supplied with the listing at this well-known Internet auction house. The vendor's description is as follows:

1937 Cotton Club Parade Program 25¢ – Signed by Duke Ellington – Beckett Authenticated – 12” x 9”

This is an original 1937 Cotton Club Parade program, signed by Duke Ellington and authenticated by Beckett Authentication Services (BAS). A rare and historic artifact, this 16-page program (12” x 9”) comes from the Cotton Club’s Broadway & 48th Street era, when the venue was at its peak as the premier stage for jazz and Black entertainment.

Historical Significance

This program is from the second edition of the 1937 Cotton Club Parade revue, which ran from March 14 to June 13, 1937. It captures the height of the Big Band & Swing era, featuring performances by:

• Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra – One of jazz’s greatest composers.
• Ethel Waters – Trailblazing singer and actress.
• The Nicholas Brothers – Legendary tap-dancing duo.
• George Dewey Washington & Ivy Anderson – Celebrated vocalists.

Features & Highlights

• Authentic Duke Ellington Signature – Professionally authenticated by Beckett (#AC66524) and has the sticker and a COA.
• Striking Art Deco Cover – A stunning illustration reflecting the energy of the jazz age.
• Full-Page Portraits & Biographies – Featuring Ellington, Waters, the Nicholas Brothers, and more.
• Cotton Club Girls Photography – Glamorous images by James J. Kriegman, capturing the club’s famous showgirls.
• Complete Show Program – Includes legendary performances such as:
  • “Cotton Club Express” by Duke Ellington
  • “Taps Is Tops” by Harold Nicholas
  • “Peckin’” – A new dance craze introduced in this revue
• Press Reviews & Famous Guests – Includes glowing reviews and a list of notable Hollywood and Broadway attendees.

Condition & Collectability

• Size: 12” x 9”
• Pages: 16 (unnumbered)
• Illustrations: 11 high-quality photos of entertainers and performances.
• Condition: Folded in half long way at some point, top right corners has a crease, so do a few pages. No tears. Minimal wear along outer edges. No other marks besides autograph. (Sorry for page glare from the light in some photos)
• Authentication: Duke Ellington’s signature has been verified by Beckett Authentication Services (BAS).

This is a rare, museum-worthy piece of jazz and entertainment history, offering a direct connection to Duke Ellington, the Harlem Renaissance, and the golden era of swing music.