14 December this year sees the centenary of Clark Terry. As the days grow short and the nights draw in, I'm taking my albums by Clark Terry down from the shelf and giving them a re-listen, digging about on line to research his work.
Given my obsession with Ellington's music, needless to say, most of the albums I have in Clark's name were recorded during his tenure with the Orchestra, 1951-59, including several with bigs co-centenarian Paul Gonsalves.
It seems counter-intuitive to begin with Clark's work after he left Duke, but I recently encountered the following video on YouTube of a gig with Bud Powell which took place immediately after he had left the band. The Ellington Orchestra had been on a tour of Europe in the autumn of 1959 and this was Clark's last engagement as a full time member of the band. He bailed out after the tour to take up an engagement with Quincy Jones and his Birth of a Band outfit. It was at this time, on 7 November, 1959, Clark played a club in St Germain, Paris, with Bud Powell on piano, Barney Wilen on tenor saxophone, Pierre Michelot on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums.
This particular engagement and the only other sides recorded by Clark with Powell are available on a long-out-of-print CD as part of the Mythic Sound series entitled Earl Bud Powell - Cookin' At St Germain, 57-59.
Here, however, is both sound and vision of that club date...
I happened upon the video because extracts of the date appear in a documentary about Bud Powell I had recently watched and burned to DVD entitled L'exile intérieur. While in paris, of course, Bud recorded an album for Reprise produced by Duke Ellington who introduced himself at the first session for the Money Jungle album by saying he was "the poor man's Bud Powell'. There is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in the documentary presented here...
In my previous post, I made reference to the State Department sponsored tour of Russia by a band put together for Benny Goodman. Joya Sherrill was a featured artist on that tour from which emerged her hit record Katusha. Professionally, the tour must not have been the happiest of times for her. Here is an extract from the memoir by bassist Bill Crow, To Russia Without Love, written for Gene Lees' Jazzletter. Bill writes...
Joya Sherrill was a sensation in Moscow. Goodman didn't seem too happy about it. On the first concert in Moscow, the audience's response to Joya was thunderous. The Russians had never seen anyone like her. Joya, an elegant, beautiful black woman with graceful bearing and a mellow voice, was stunning in her white strapless gown. The Russians couldn't get enough of her. They especially loved the Gershwin medley Joe Lipman had put together for her.
For a sizzler to bring Joya on, Al Cohn had written a chart combining the tunes Riding High and I'mShooting High. He gave it a long introduction to allow Joya enough time to walk across the stage to the microphone. There was a strong opening and a wonderful shout figure under her last chorus. Her second number, a Ralph Burns arrangement of The Thrill is Gone, began with a repeated bass figure at a slower tempo. Joya wanted me to start it while the audience was still applauding the opener, so she could begin singing as soon as the crowd got quiet again. In Seattle this routine had been very effective.
On our second concert in Moscow, Benny canceled Joya's opener and had her begin with The Thrill isGone. He would announce her, let her walk out with no music, take her applause, and then after it was quiet again, he would count off the introduction, leaving Joya with at least four measures to wait before she could begin singing. It gave her a much less effective entrance, but she carried it off professionally and was very well received throughout the tour.
I never heard Benny refer to Joya by her name except when he announced her. She was always "the girl."
"Where's the girl? We'll put the girl on next."
One night Benny told me to play the introduction to The Thrill is Gone as straight eighth notes. It was a shuffle figure Ralph Burns had written to set the feeling for the whole arrangement. It would have sounded ridiculous as straight eighths, so I ignored Benny's instructions. As I started playing, he walked over and stuck his face right into mine.
"Straight eighths!" he yelled.
"NO!" I yelled back, right into his nose.
He snapped his head back and nearly lost his glasses. I wasn't going to play her music wrong just because Benny was jealous of her. Joya, unaware of all this, continued to sing, and I didn't hear any more about straight eighths.
One of Joya's songs was a Jimmy Knepper arrangement of The Man I Love. We couldn't understand why Benny insisted on also playing that song with the septet later in the program. It seemed redundant. There certainly were a million other tunes we could have played instead.
Katyusha was a prewar Russian popular song that Joya had learned in Russian. Benny didn't let her do Katyusha on the first Moscow concert, but even so, Premier Kruschev sent her a note saying her singing was "warm and wonderful." Katyusha was well received when Joya sang it on subsequent concerts.
The only place that song was not welcomed was in Tblisi, where the audience stamped and whistled until Joya stopped singing it. They were Georgians, and didn't want a Russian song. It was as if she had sung Yankee Doodle in Alabama. She skipped Katyusha and went into I'm Beginning to See the Light, with the band making up a head arrangement, and she soon had the Georgians eating out of her hand.
A letter in Izvestia criticized the "cabaret style" with which Joya sang Katyusha, and after that there were always a few in each audience who would whistle their disapproval when she sang it. Inside a bouquet she was given onstage at one concert was a note from a Russian fan praising her rendition of the song and claiming that the whistlers were "hired goons."
From the evidence contained on the RCA Victor album Benny Goodman in Moscow, no one would suspect that Joya had been with us on the tour. Benny specifically instructed George Avakian to omit her material, and told him not to mention her in the liner notes. George urged him to reconsider.
"It's my album," said Benny, "and that's the way I want it."
You can read the full version of To Russia Without Love in two instalments, part one here and part two here.
Away from the bandstand or concert stage, however, Miss Sherrill looked to have a joyous time as these photographs attest. These wonderful shots are copyright Getty Images and no copyright infringement is intended in gathering them here.
Posting yesterday about the anniversary of Duke Ellington appearing on Time for Joya reminded me that this year makes the tenth anniversary of Joya's passing.
I posted briefly at the time and illustrated the piece with some joyful photographs of the singer from Life in what looks like holiday repose.
In fact, the photographs were taken from Joya's tour of the Soviet Union with a band put together for Benny Goodman in 1962. While all the photographs of Joya on this State Department sponsored tour are watermarked (rightly so) and copyrighted to Getty Images, I will republish them here in continuing celebration of Joya's bright spirit.
The Russian tour was not altogether an unalloyed pleasure as an (in)famous essay about Benny Goodman by bassist Bill Crow makes clear. I will post an extract from the essay along with the Getty images in due course.
Firstly, however, the origin of the tour was controversial in the first place. Researcher and podcaster Steve Bowie of Ellington Reflections, whose most recent podcast is devoted to Joya's music, recently shared to Facebook scans from the cover story of Jet which details the débâcle of the tour and specifically Goodman's offer to Ellington to appear as a guest star. In his typically gracious style, Ellington declined...
Today, 30 August, is the fiftieth anniversary of Duke Ellington's appearance on the early morning children's show, Time for Joya, hosted by Ellington's former vocalist, Joya Sherill.
Here is a reminiscence from featured artist 'Mr BB', Brumsic Brandon Jr, who created the character Seymour the Bookworm:
One of my fondest memories of taping Joya's Fun School was when Duke Ellington was our guest.
I had a subject I had been anxious to bring up to him since I was a freshman in High School. I had an art teacher then who had also taught the Duke and he loved to brag about it.
He would regale the class with wonderful stories about Edward Ellington and what a gifted art student he was. For many years I harbored a burning desire to raise that subject if I were ever fortunate enough to meet the Duke.
When he came into the studio to tape a guest appearance on Joya's Fun School I finally got to ask, "Duke, do you remember the name of your high school art teacher?" Without hesitation, Duke responded, "Of course. That was Mr. Dodson!" With enormous pride I told Duke that I had been taught by the same Mr. Dodson, who was so very fond of telling Ellington stories.
Duke's answer satisfied my need to have Mr. Dodson's memories confirmed and it made me wonder how Duke could remember with such alacrity. I was mightily impressed!
Later, on camera, the Duke told the kids that he and Mr BB "went to school together." Luther Henderson and I looked at each in disbelief. I thoroughly enjoyed that moment with the quietest belly laugh I have ever had.
Mr. Dodson must have taught Duke Ellington very early in his teaching career and me just before his retirement. (My mother and Duke Ellington were about the same age.) I think Duke's faux pas ended up on the cutting room floor.
On the same show I was honored when I got to draw a picture with the Duke. He would draw one thing and I would draw something else that was separate but related. Thanks to my wife's tenacity in a tug of war with an Ellington agent, the drawing is still ours. That composite work of art is now framed and is proudly displayed periodically in my home.
Mr. Dodson would have been very pleased with both of us, former students, I am sure.
There is a summary of the episode on the same web page here. Sound files of the episode are also available for download but do not seem to play on my computer. Nil desperandum... Here is the audio for the episode, courtesy of YouTube...
You can read more about the artist Brumsic Brandon Jr and his daughter Barbara here...
What was Duke Ellington up to in 1921 while Bubber Miley was variously recording sides with blues singers?
A clue to Ellington's activities was recently discovered by researcher Steve Bowie who broadcasts the excellent podcast Ellington Reflections.
Duke Ellington's Jazz Bandits played for dancing on 30 September, 1921 at Assembly Rooms, Annapolis, MD, returning for an engagement on 24 October.
Here are two pictures of the venue at 150 Duke of Gloucester Street, Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, MD.
From the billing in the newspaper ad, it is significant to note that one of the players is Otto Hardwick, a key player in such a small ensemble since he could play bass as well as saxophone.
Further speculation on the description in the ad from the Duke-LYM internet discussion group is that the claim Duke Ellington: world’s greatest piano player probably relates to the growing reputation Ellington had in the Washington area (Annapolis is just 32 miles from Washington) after he memorized James P. Johnson’s piano roll of Carolina Shout. The GRS piano roll had been cut in May, 1921 and Ellington worked on memorizing it using a slowed down player piano during the summer of 1921. Duke would actually appear on the same program as James P. Johnson on 25 November, 1921 in Washington DC.
'Idolized Paris' and 'Two years London's scream' is advertising hyperbole likely less a reference to Duke than the 'banjorean' William White whose fame was 'international'.
The last post in our Bubber series brings us full circle to the soundtrack at least - the full video is not presently available - of the Vitaphone short that Bubber Miley recorded with Leo Reisman.
We have now catalogued all of Bubber Miley's recordings - so far as are known, to date - outside of his work with Duke Ellington. The earliest of them are virtually a century old. Indeed, this week gone by, 10 August, 1920 saw one of Bubber's collaborators, Mamie Smith record Crazy Blues, changing the course of recording history.
A comprehensive discography of all Bubber Miley's known recordings outside his work with Duke may be downloaded here.
While Bubber was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, he participated in a recording session accompanying the singer Martha Copeland. The session took place on 28 August, 1928 for Columbia. J.C. Johnson is on piano. Two tunes were recorded and here they are.
