The swing era...

Here's a young woman who takes 'swing' quite literally - Anny Duperey at the Gala de l'Union des Artistes, 1973 - the daring young woman on the flying trapeze accompanied by a  couple of Duke Ellington records...

Memphis Blues is likely a Billy Strayhorn arrangement - and worth seeking out along with other W C Handy compositions, St Louis Blues and Beale Street Blues recorded by the Orchestra in their final sessions with RCA during the late summer of 1946.

Esquire Swank is one of the very last tracks to be recorded for Ellington's mid-forties RCA contract. The very final track was Midriff by Billy Strayhorn. These two tunes constituted a single 78 record issued not by RCA but exclusively and appropriately enough only in Paris on the Swing label (photograph above). The two tracks were also omitted from the otherwise comprehensive French Intégrale series. As far as I'm aware the only issue of Esquire Swank and Midriff on vinyl was again only in France in their Treasury of Jazz series...