The Shepherd who...

Preparing a post recently on the passing of Alice Babs, I happened across this video clip (above) from the documentary  Shepherd of the Night Flock. The documentary concerns Father John García Gensel who was Father of the St Peter’s  Lutheran Church, Lexington Avenue, New York and Honorary Member of the Duke Ellington Music Society. Father Gensel inspired the composition The Shepherd Who Watches Over The Night Flock (a composition which, according to Norman Granz, was first improvised by Ellington in performance for Joan Miró in the South of France. The music was incorporated into a performance for the full band that same evening).

You can read more about Father Gensel here and his obituary in The New York Daily News from 1998 may be read here.

Not waving but drowning...

I have already written about my fascination with Duke Ellington's engagement at Billy Rose's Aquacade in the early fifties here. 

Now, another copy of the programme for that engagement has appeared on Ebay, including a picture of the relevant pages for Ellington. Here is the pictorial evidence...

ORTF, 2 July, 1970, Paris

This recording is apparently available on the following CD on the Editoriale Pantheon label (number JCD-05)if you can find it...

Alice Babs

I'm reposting here the videos of The Second Sacred Concert I put up a couple of weeks ago in celebration of Alice Babs' ninetieth birthday. Sadly she passed away last week on 11 February. Here is a reminder of the luminous beauty she brought to these late Ellington works:

Alice Babs, 26 January 1924-11 February  2014

                     Thank you for Alice Babs.