Our journey in 'real time' fifty years on through Duke Ellington's seventies continues with this date for the diary, 22 February, 1970.
This day in 1970 saw the first of two days' pre-recording for The Ed Sullivan Show. According to David Palmquist's superb website Duke Where and When , Harry Carney's father died on 22 February. I'm assuming therefore that the soundtrack was recorded (perhaps on the 22nd?) and then the band mugged along to create the visuals the next day. Russell Procope is therefore pictured apparently playing the baritone sax but synched to the soundtrack Harry Carney had already laid down.
The medley played consists of She Loves You; All my Loving; Eleanor Rigby; She's Leaving Home; Norwegian Wood; Ticket to Ride.
Ellington was no stranger to The Beatles' oeuvre. The Orchestra had already recorded arrangements of All My Loving and I Want to Hold Your Hand five years earlier for the Reprise album Ellington '66.
It is slightly strange to see Ellington's fingers across the keyboard rendering Lennon and McCartney's tunes. I'm not sure the legacy of either aggregation - the Beatles nor the Ellington band - were well served in yoking these disparate musical elements into service for the light entertainment behemoth that was The Ed Sullivan Show, down to the dubbed performance, the split screen camera trickery (at least I assume it was trickery. Although the chances must have been high that such a mash up would only end in tiers?). Ellington was more Blue Pepper than Sergeant Pepper, but he was never out of his depth, even as a deck hand on the Yellow Submarine so he carried the gig off with his customary élan.
We love, love you do, madly...
And, of course, it's worth pointing out that while we trace these fifty year anniversaries of dates with Duke, half a century has also passed since The Beatles broke up. As ever, in trying to be modish, the efforts of the mainstream/middle of the road are only ever ever so slightly outmoded. The Beatles were irretrievably ruptured even as this broadcast went out a month later on 1 March, solicitors exchanging letters by 10 April, 1970 before the final dissolution on 9 January 1975. But we are getting ahead of ourselves...
It is slightly strange to see Ellington's fingers across the keyboard rendering Lennon and McCartney's tunes. I'm not sure the legacy of either aggregation - the Beatles nor the Ellington band - were well served in yoking these disparate musical elements into service for the light entertainment behemoth that was The Ed Sullivan Show, down to the dubbed performance, the split screen camera trickery (at least I assume it was trickery. Although the chances must have been high that such a mash up would only end in tiers?). Ellington was more Blue Pepper than Sergeant Pepper, but he was never out of his depth, even as a deck hand on the Yellow Submarine so he carried the gig off with his customary élan.
We love, love you do, madly...
And, of course, it's worth pointing out that while we trace these fifty year anniversaries of dates with Duke, half a century has also passed since The Beatles broke up. As ever, in trying to be modish, the efforts of the mainstream/middle of the road are only ever ever so slightly outmoded. The Beatles were irretrievably ruptured even as this broadcast went out a month later on 1 March, solicitors exchanging letters by 10 April, 1970 before the final dissolution on 9 January 1975. But we are getting ahead of ourselves...
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