Live: August 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.

Monday, 25 August 2025, 01:00-04:30 (BST) 

Mr Tipple's, 39 Fell Street, San Francisco CA, United States

Nick Rossi and his Jazzopaters Play Duke Ellington

Enjoy Northern California's only ensemble wholly dedicated to the music of Duke Ellington, Nick Rossi's Jazzopaters, in this special, seated night club performance featuring special guest Jacob Zimmerman (Seattle, Wash.)! The 9 piece ensemble will present two shows of Swing Era (1936-1947) Ellingtonia at 5 p.m and 7 p.m. in this great San Francisco supper club setting. Tickets are $15-30, all ages. Great cocktails and tasty dim sum dinner menu. Both shows are expected to sell out! Advance tickets available via OpenTable.

Within the span of two very short years, the Jazzopaters have garnered international acclaim for their approach to Duke Ellington's classic material. Largely originally intended for the burgeoning juke box market at the time, these masterpieces in miniature capture the essence of the composition, arranging, and performance qualities of what continue to make Ellington the most essential of musical figures. The ensembles love for the music and attention to detail is a delight both for the musicians and the audience.

Band personnel: Patrick Wolff (alto sax & clarinet), Jacob Zimmerman (clarinet & tenor sax), Kamrin Ortiz (baritone sax, alto sax, & clarinet), James Dunning (trumpet), Victor Imbo (trombone), Adam Shulman (piano), Nick Rossi (guitar), Mikiya Matsuda (bass), Riley Baker (drums).

Tickets here.

Tone Parallel: Issue 17

The latest edition of Tone Parallel is available today. Subscription is free. 

Details here.

The Mere Lees To Brag Of...

 

One of the most insightful pieces on Duke Ellington's music is an essay written by Gene Lees for his Jazzletter - which was mailed out to subscribers from the early eighties.

In the essay, under the heading Reflections on Duke, Lees shows a certain ambivalence towards both Ellington and his work. What he has to say is perceptive and fair, contributing much to our understanding and appreciation of Ellington's achievements and saying more in the length of a single essay than many biographers writing books have achieved.

The piece may be found here:

Reflections on Duke

And in what is a marvellous service to admirers of music, Donald Clarke and his Music Box website has made available the entire archive of the Jazzletter which may be accessed here.

Rehearsal

 

Duke Ellington playing at the 1970 dedication of the library.

Love On Parade

One of the touchstones of this blog is the performance of Duke Ellington and his Orchestra which took place to celebrate the opening of the Alvar Aalto Library at Mount Angel Abbey, Oregon on 29 May 1970. The orchestra premièred the composition Pockets: It's Amazing When Love Goes On Parade which had been orchestrated by Ron Collier and created by the Benedictine monastery's composer in residence, Ann Henry.

Researching this period of Ellington's career again recently, we were sad to note that Ann Henry passed away a little over two years ago on 14 May, 2023, her ninety-ninth birthday.

We have returned to the story of Ellington's involvement with the work of Ann Henry on the occasion of the concert at Mount Angel Abbey a couple of times in posts here and here.

The second post linked leads to an essay on Substack, which may be found here.

It seemed appropriate to mark the end of her story here with obituaries posted below.  The video which precedes this post is from the Mount Angel Abbey website and briefly features Miss Henry, with Ellington rehearsing at the piano. If anyone could teach us that life is not a rehearsal, it is Ann Henry.

Ann Henry Obituary

Ann Henry was a force of nature: a woman of energy, unstoppable and unforgettable.  She grew up in Chicago, the only child of “Little One” as her mother was known.  It was there that she started the Co-op Dance Group.  As a dancer she toured with famed musicians, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan and Count Basie, who would become lifelong mentors and friends.  But she was more than just a dancer.  Her singing break came when she replaced Eartha Kitt in the musical revue, “New Faces of 1952.”  Subsequently she was hired to become a member of the original cast of “New Faces of 1956,” and by 1959 she had a three-month stint in the UK.  She returned to the United States and performed in Las Vegas but grew weary of the night club shows and wanted to focus on composing and song writing.

In the mid-1960’s while she was in France, she got a call from her manager informing her that she had a gig in Vancouver.  “British Columbia?” she asked and was told “No, Washington State”.  Daryl Kaufmann had tickets to her show and was so impressed that he tried to talk to her backstage.  Ann pretty much ignored him. When she was hospitalized with spinal meningitis, Daryl began visiting her in the hospital.  Eventually she was discharged and went to Chicago for some rehab.  Then she returned to live at Daryl’s family’s home in Vancouver.  One day they went for a car ride that led them to Mt. Angel, Oregon.  When Ann saw the Benedictine Abbey on the top of the hill, she told Daryl that she KNEW this was where she was supposed to be.  Ann then became a beneficiary of Benedictine hospitality and took up residence in the retreat house.  She also had an office that wasn’t much more than a closet with no windows, but it was big enough for her upright Grand Piano.  This is where she began her next chapter as composer-in-residence.  During this time at the Abbey, Ann studied theology and composed liturgical music.  Her long work, “Everyman’s Mass,” was in honor of St. Benedict the founder of the Benedictine Order of Mt. Angel Abbey.  But she never lost contact with the mentors of her youth.  In May 1970 her composition, “Pockets: It’s Amazing When Love Goes on Parade,” was sung by Ann accompanied by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra for the dedication of the Abbey’s Alvar Aalto Library.  In 1994, the Abbey honored Ann with an award for her accomplishments.

To know Ann was to know an American singer, dancer, choreographer, comedienne, composer, arranger, and lover of life.  She will be missed but her music will live on in all those who have heard it and sung it.

For those interested here is a link to the Duke Ellington performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV9p2YZCP_8

Ann Starts singing around the 27-minute mark.  It would be interesting if anyone could identify any of the seminarians singing with her.

Here is the obituary for Ann Henry which appears on the website of Mount Angel Abbey...

ANN HENRY was born in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of James and Jean Henry. It was in New York City, however, that her career in dance flourished, and she appeared in three Broadway shows, in the Metropolitan Opera House, as well as in television. Ann danced with her Co-Op Company and was creator of the modern dance jazz technique. Words such as choreographer, singer, music arranger, organ orchestrator, director, designer, artist… all have a place in describing the amazing career of this musician! Later, in a quite different setting, from 1964 to 1974 Ann Henry was a composer in residence at Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon. Here she shared her musical expertise with both monks and seminarians, composed five Masses, and for the dedication of the Mount Angel Abbey Library on May 30, 1970, Ann composed music which she and seminarians performed with Edward “Duke” Ellington. In more recent times Ann made her home in Portland, and here she formed the People’s Choir which served churches, schools and events including weddings and funerals in Portland and beyond. Ann Henry passed away on August 27, 2023. Mount Angel Abbey was a very special place to her, a spiritual home, and it was here that her Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated. She will be buried at Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Portland. Ann was a Benedictine Oblate of Mount Angel Abbey.

The Ellington Impulse

The following article from New York Times appeared in 1972. It is posted here for reference since it falls within the purview of the essays currently being collected at our Tone Parallel Substack. No copyright infringement is intended.

Duke Ellington sat cater cornered on a folded plaid blanket on the piano bench. “Lemme hear it now,” he said. With his left hand he cued the brass section for the biting attack he wanted on the riff theme of “New York, New York.”

It is the newest of the countless hundreds of compositions he has written since he began his career with “Soda Fountain Rag” in 1915, and he and his band will probably play it during their concert appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival here this week.

After a few measures the Duke signalled a halt. “Ooh, no, no, no,” he said.

“You want the same B‐flat as in the first bar?” asked Tyree Glenn, the lead trombonist. “Bah, bah, beyow?”

The Duke shook his head.

“What do you want?” asked the trombonist, a large, dark pudding of a man with a graying goatee.

Southern Intonation

“I want it together, mainly,” the Duke replied with a laugh. “Play it … play it with a drawl and an accent.”

He illustrated his conception by bending the word “drawl” with a full southern intonation and tightening his mouth around “accent” so that it came out as pure May fair.

“Tyree, keep it that way,” he said, after the band had played the figure again.

“I don't know what I did,” the trombonist replied, and the 15 musicians in the re cording studio in Toronto last week laughed appreciatively.

“C'mon, let's roll it,” the Duke said. Behind the glass partition the sound engineer adjusted his dials and switches and started the tape spinning.

Heard all the way through, “New York, New York,” was what has come to be thought of as typical Ellington: An easy, rocking tune, built on dark, pulsing chords, featuring a couple of solo choruses.

Behind, around, underneath and over the wind instruments was the famous Ellington piano. Almost off handedly, he spun single‐note runs and figures, some smooth and glistening as beads of dew on a spider's web, others brittle, shiny and sharply cut as a necklace of jet.

As one long instrumental passage built and swelled, he left the piano and danced a few steps in front of the band. His feet scarcely moved but his hips and shoulders expressed the rhythm.

At the age of 73, Mr. Ellington is getting a bit stiff legged. His body bends for ward from the hips when he walks, and around his right wrist he wears one of those copper bracelets that are supposed to ward off arthritis. A lifelong dedicated hypochondriac, the Duke has found some of his ailments inevitably becoming real with the passage of time.

Even so, his enthusiasm for the endless grind of travel, performance, composition, rehearsal, is undiminished. It may even have increased in recent years and become something of a compulsion with the growing realization that even the longest journey must finally come to an end.

He had been on the road almost continuously since the first of the year. It was a trip that took him and his band to Tokyo, Bangkok, Indonesia, and Jakarta, then from Tacoma, Wash., San Francis co and Los Angeles back across the country, playing concerts and dances. Now, on a rare night without a performance or the need to travel he was making records.

A Need for Haste

The same sense of a need for haste has also led him lo simplify his life. Once a fashion plate, the Duke now seldom dresses up except when he is performing. On this night he wore a loose long sleeved woolen polo shirt, a pair of bright blue narrow legged trousers, long out of fashion, that sagged below a noticeable paunch, and un polished loafers. On the massive Ellington head was perched, incongruously, a fuzzy, narrow‐brimmed blue fedora, punched out into derby shape.

His diet has been simplified, too. No longer a great gourmand, he seldom eats much besides steak and grapefruit. He gave up alcohol years ago, but as a great believer in the need for sugar to fuel his creative processes, he drinks many bottles of Coca‐Cola eich day and nibbles at peanut brittle, gumdrops and cookies that. he buys at roadside stands.

At 11:30 P.M., the Duke left the recording studio. From there he went to a nightclub to hear a singer he was thinking of engaging for a one‐week date he was booked to play at the Play boy Club Hotel in Great Gorge, N. J., that began Friday night.

He was greeted at the nightclub by the singer, Aura Rully, who came to Canada from her native Rumania three years ago. She is a striking young woman, with long, dark hair and small, feline features.

A Ceremonious Greeting

The Duke ceremoniously greeted her with four kisses, two on each cheek, took his place at a ringside table and ate a steak and drank tea while listening to her per form. He decided that she would do, and they discussed terms and Conditions in whispers when she had finished her set.

At 2 A.M. the Duke was back in his hotel room, talking with Ron Collier, who would do the arrangements that Miss Rully required. From his flight bag the Duke produced a couple of the miniature bottles of Scotch that he picks on his air travels for visitors and rang for ice and soda.

“This is first‐class Scotch,” he said, and laughed at the play on words.

“It's not a big sound,” said the arranger, speaking of Miss Rally, “but a fantastic range. But I don't know about her reading.”

“Well, if she isn't a good reader, she has to have a quick ear to do all those Ella Fitzgerald things,” said the Duke. “It works out about the same.”

He played cassette tapes of several old Ellington recordings that he wanted the arranger to revise. “She needs something to open with,” he said, “something like Joya Sherrill did on ‘Mood Indigo.’”

“What about those things you did with Kay Davis?” asked the arranger. He whistled a tune. “What's that one called?”

“You mean Transbluency?” asked the Duke.

“That's it,” Mr. Collier re plied. “Have you got chart?”

“No,” said the Duke. “It's stuck away somewhere at Tom Whaley's.” (Mr. Whaley is the band's copyist.) “It's a good thought for later on.”

“How about C‐Jam Blues?” The arranger sang, “Let's all go/Down to Duke's place.”

“There's no chart for C‐Jam, the Duke said. “The chart they're faking goes back to 1941 or 1942.”

Finally, at 3:30 A.M., the arranger, pleading exhaustion and an early deadline, departed. “Now I can get down to work,” Mr. Ellington said, laughing, as he closed the door.

A Traveling Composer

Al 5 o'clock the next afternoon, which was Wednesday, the Duke, naked except for a chartreuse chiffon scarf wound around his head to protect it from air‐condition ing drafts, got out of bed in his hotel suite. He would be leaving in another hour to play a dance date in West Lorne, Ontario, 150 miles to the west.

“I was up till 7 o'clock this morning writing,” he said, rolling himself under the covers again. Next to the bed stood a small electric piano that follows him on his travels.

Did his world‐ranging trips still provide him with musical inspiration, or was it a case of having been too many places too many times?

“I compose as I travel,” he said. “Sometimes it doesn't come out until much later. A couple of days ago I was thinking about Russia, where we went last year, and I began writing. It just came out so so naturally. I think I'm going to call it ‘European Sunrise Land.’ That's a good title. He rolled over in bed, and closed his eyes, letting a stream of words pass across the inside of his lids.

“No,” he said, after a moment. “‘Continental Sunrise Land.’ From the continent you look east and there are all those countries out there in that minor key.”

‘Magicians the Smartest’

But like many, perhaps most, artists, Mr. Ellington does not really like talking about how his creative processes work, especially when he has just awakened.

“I don't understand this craze to know how every thing works,” he said grumpily. “People want to know how I do it, or they say they want to get behind the scenes. Why should the audience ever be behind the scenes? All it does is pull the petals off the creative flower.

“Magicians, they're the smartest artists in the world,” he went on. “They don't tell everybody how it's done. They're not expected to.

“That's going into the stockpile,” he said. “For an artist, that's Fort Whatsit, where they keep the gold. It's the secret of the nuclear bomb. I don't think that everybody has got the right to know where the nuclear bombs are kept and how they are turned on and off.”

The power of the Ellington creative impulse has, by general agreement, diminished with the passage of the years. The longer compositions that he mainly addresses himself to these days lack the compressed vitality of Sophisticated Lady, Mood Indigo, Warm Valley, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, I Got It Bad, to mention a few of the dozens of evergreens he has writ ten.

Once in the musical van guard, he has continued in his own path while jazz has developed in many other streams. What was once daring and disturbing in his work has come to be seen as conservative. He has been loaded with Establishment honors, including the Medal of Freedom, which was presented to him by President Nixon on his 70th birthday.

Although his place at a pinnacle of American musical history is secure, the Duke is still Impelled by fierce pride and the desire to go on working.

‘Love What We Do’

“There are only a few of us who love what we do enough to stay with it 52 weeks, 365 days a year,” he said. “You have to love something to do it like that, win, lose or draw, whether you make a profit or not. I want to keep my band together. I want to hear my music. And I'm going to keep right on doing it.”

The telephone rang. It was Harry Carney, the band's baritone saxophonist, an Ellingtonian since 1927. The Duke rides in Mr. Carney's car, rather than in the band's chartered bus, on their trips in the East.

“Got to get going,” said the Duke, rolling out of bed and quickly getting into the same clothes he had worn the night before. Downstairs, Mr. Carney was waiting by his battered white Imperial, parked in front of the hotel.

“That Collier is all right,” he said. “You know those arrangements we were playing last night. On my part, he wrote ‘Harry‐tone’ instead of baritone. No one ever came up with that one be fore.”

He lighted a cigarette. “This band is different,” he said. “Monotony never enters the picture. We play con certs, dances, we play sacred music, we play long compositions. There are so many small places that we visit, and in every one of them there are people who have been listening to Duke and the band on records for years.”

The Duke appeared at last, tipped the bellboys royally, and he and Mr. Carney pulled away. They disagreed amiably about directions, stopped for gasoline and a Coke, and got back on the divided highway.

For a while the Duke jotted notes on a sheet of musical manuscript paper. Then he dozed off while Harry Carney, hitting a steady 85 miles an hour, headed west into the slowly falling twilight.

Flying Over The Island...

 

The photograph above was posted to the Facebook page of Simon Spillett and appropriated here for its huge significance to the story of Duke Ellington's visits to the UK.

According to Simon, the photgraph portrays "Ellingtonians at the Flamingo club in Wardour Street with some of London's finest, October 1958.

Left to right: Harry South, Tony Kinsey, Jeff Kruger, Paul Gonsalves, Jack Sharpe, Ray Nance, Ronnie Scott and Harry Carney."

October 1958 saw Duke Ellington tour the UK with the entire compliment of his Orchestra for the first time in twenty-five years, his famous initial visit in 1933.

The 1958 tour began a series of regular visits by the band to the UK which lasted for the next fifteen years and which were virtually annually throughout the mid-1960s.

Of the musicians pictured, Paul Gonsalves perhaps developed the closest ties to the UK, recording several albums here, including two with Tubby Hayes and the album Boom Jackie Boom Chick title track of which was named for Jack Sharpe in the picture above.

In anticipation of what we migh call The Eastbourne Festival, there will be several posts about Duke Ellington's time in the UK to follow...

We are delighted to learn just today that Pete Long's Echoes of Ellington Orchestra, which will take to the stage of The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne as the centrepiece of the festival on 12 October, will include Simon Spillett in the chair of Paul Gonsalves. In this regard, Simon's presence means that1973 is fused directly with 2025: Paul was unavailable due to illness and did not appear at Eastbourne. On that occasion, his place was taken by Percy Marion.

Eastbourne: October 2025

Exciting news of a mini- festival this coming October celebrating Duke Ellington and his Orchestra's appearance at The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne half a century ago.

"The future. Tonight. Eastbourne."

Here is the Press release:

Ellington in Eastbourne

A Festival of World-Class Jazz, Local Voices, and Musical Heritage—Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Duke Ellington’s Iconic "Eastbourne Performance”

Join us for Ellington in Eastbourne, a vibrant celebration marking the 50th anniversary of Eastbourne Performance—Duke Ellington’s legendary final album, recorded live at the iconic Congress Theatre during his last European tour. On Sunday 12 October 2025, the Congress Theatre will come alive with a dynamic, community-driven programme of performances and events. Featuring some of the UK’s top jazz talent alongside local, regional, and national collaborators, this one-off event celebrates a landmark moment in music history, shines a spotlight on Ellington’s enduring creative legacy, and commemorates Eastbourne’s special connection to one of the giants of 20th Century music.

Line-up:

Echoes of Ellington: Duke and Ella

The UK’s premier Ellington Big Band play music from the landmark albums, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook and Ella and Duke at the Côte D'Azur.

This 16-piece big band features sensational vocalist Sara Oschlag, and is packed full of acclaimed instrumentalists, under the leadership of Pete Long, musical director of the Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Orchestra.

“Pete Long’s Echoes of Ellington orchestra creates results that are amazingly truthful to the original Duke Ellington Orchestra” – Ronnie Scott’s Club

Arnie Somogyi and Mark Edwards: The Ellington Piano Project - Album Launch.

A special project researched and developed by two of the UK’s top jazz musicians - bassist Arnie Somogyi and pianist Mark Edwards – The Ellington Piano Project is centred around the last piano on which Ellington recorded. It draws on harmonies and improvised phrases heard on his final album, Eastbourne Performance, as inspiration for new compositions and spontaneous improvisations, alongside reimaginings of Ellington classics.

The band features New York-based rising tenor star Gideon Tazelaar, trumpeter Chris Coull and drummer Matthew Holmes.

“Musical reimaginings these days so often mask the material they seek to champion. This album, however, does precisely the opposite, offering us a new view on a legend mapped a million different times already. In this its significance is as noteworthy as its brilliance.” 

– Simon Spillett, award-winning saxophonist and author.

The Brighton & Hove Youth Big Big Band Play Ellington

The jazz stars of the future perform a set of Ellington classics. Presented by Create Music

The evening concert will be preceded by an Ellington-themed, free-to-attend performance, in the Congress Theatre foyer, presented by New Generation Jazz Futures Youth Ensembles. Engaging the next generation of young players is at the heart of New Generation Jazz’s mission. 

In the weeks before the festival, the Congress Theatre foyer will feature an exhibition curated by Dr. Pedro Cravinho, archivist at the Duke Ellington Society UK,  highlighting memories of the original concert at the Congress Theatre and its importance in Duke Ellington’s final European tour.

Tickets and further details here.

Live: July 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, 6 July 2025 13:00 (BST)

The Duke Ellington Songbook

Echoes of Ellington, directed by Pete Long

Pizza Express, 10, Dean Street, Soho, W1D 3RW

From the website:

Following their sold-out inaugural Dean Street 2023 concert and a follow up successful return last year, we had no hesitation in arranging this further 2025 Summertime return for Pete Long and his Echoes of Ellington Big Band presenting the Duke Ellington Song Book, featuring the sensational voice of Sara Oschlag, echoing the style of the great Ella Fitzgerald.

Book Tickets

Ellington Effect Workshop #53 with David Berger: Warm Valley

Sunday, July 20th 15:00 (EDT)

Join David Berger for the 53rd Zoom webinar in David Berger's Ellington Effect workshop series, which will focus on Ellington's iconic composition Warm Valley. The Ellington Effect workshops are monthly Zoom meetings where David dives into a single composition each time, analyzing it musically line by line, as well as relating pertinent stories about Duke and the band, and answering questions from attendees.  This one will take place on Sunday, July 20th at 3:00pm EDT.

Get a ticket here, or an annual membership here.

About Warm Valley

One of Ellington’s more erogenous titles slyly referring a part the female anatomy, this recording for RCA was originally released on the flipside of Flaming Sword in case there was any question as to Ellington’s meaning.

Although Ellington had written and recorded many ballads before, some of which became hits and eventually standards, like Solitude, In A Sentimental Mood and Sophisticated Lady, it was Warm Valley that captured Billy Strayhorn’s attention and imagination becoming the prototype of all the ballads he wrote for Johnny Hodges. Strayhorn said that both he and Ellington wrote a pile of material for Warm Valley, but Duke didn’t use any of Billy’s music in the final product.

Unlike those other ballads, Warm Valley never became a hit nor were Bob Russell’s geographical lyrics recorded by Ellington. Many years later Johnny Hartman, Alice Babs, Abbey Lincoln, and others did record the lyrics. 

In a perfect use of opposites, Ellington combines a chromatic melody and harmony with a more diatonic accompaniment from the muted brass. Johnny Hodges’ romantic tone and approach is contrasted with Rex Stewart’s more jocular approach.

Due to the slow tempo, the full 72 measures would not fit on a 78-rpm phonograph record. The band recorded three takes on October 17, 1940 experimenting with deleting different sections of ensemble playing from the complete written chart. David Berger reproduced the entire chart as written and planned and transcribed the solo and rhythm section parts from the released recording where possible.