The Ellington Effect: Post Script

Further to the post above, here is a piece on The Ellington Effect by the late Jeff Friedman, Professor of  Jazz Composition at Berkeley College of Music. How this list of 'ingredients' compares to David merger's, time will tell. The piece was originally published at David Palmquist's Ellington on the Web site.

Source

The Ellington Effect

by Jeff Friedman

As I understand it, "The Ellington Effect" was the sound bite for the fact that Strayhorn had "cracked the code," meaning he'd caught on to Duke's musical tendencies and techniques.

The late, great Herb Pomeroy, who was probably the first to teach the techniques of Duke for an academic course (at Berklee), developed a list of Dukish techniques. Herb was my mentor, and he fostered my fanatical interest in Duke.

When Herb retired from Berklee, I inherited his Duke course, and for the course, I adopted (read: embellished and expanded) Herb's list. I would suggest that these are the technical elements of "the Ellington effect," with the proviso that if you wrote music using all of the stuff on the list, you wouldn't sound like Duke, because techniques are tools to express musical IDEAS, and Duke was Duke!

1. Combination Diminished Voicings



2. Blue Note Voicings



3. Wide interval melody and counter-melody



4. Extensive use of dominant harmony (bluesy effects)



5. Unusual combinations of instruments



6. Unusual instrumental registers (i.e., high bari, low tenor, etc.)



7. Lead not always top voice



8. Constant color coupling above lead



9. Conversational jazz soloists



10. Obligato melodic settings for soloist



11. Extensive use of clarinet in reeds



12. Impressionistic harmony (i.e., parallelism, whole tone, etc.)



13. Plungers in brass
    1. )  sectional
    2. )  solos
    3. )  muted 
    4. )  non-muted 
    5. )  “Pep” section (2 trumpets plus trombone,
       using wah wah plunger mutes)
14. Shorter than usual brass punctuations 



15. Faster than usual brass shakes 



16. Extensive use of “continuing” pedal point (ambient thread drone)



17. Constant structure in compositions and arrangements



18. Concerting within the octave when possible 



19. Abrupt changes of mood (sharp contrast) 



20. Triadic trombone solis