Here is a playlist, courtesy of Spotify which covers the uncollected recordings Duke Ellington made in the first half of 1970. Perhaps it may be considered an album to complete a triptych of sorts with Ellington 65 and Ellington 66.
This 'promotional video' for the Nutcracker album from the television show Playback is very familiar to Ellington admirers.
The soundtrack to the version uploaded to YouTube a day ago has been 'stereo-fied', however and, it's true enough, the sound stage does seem remarkably wide.
Here is a TV promo video for Duke Ellington’s 1960 Christmas album: The Nutcracker Suite with an interview by then president of Columbia Records, Goddard Lieberson with Duke Ellington.
The album was recorded at Radio Recorders, Inc. located at 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. [My church was only 2 blocks away and I didn’t even know it]. Studio sessions were May 26, 31, June 3, 21–22, 1960. The album was released for Christmas 1960.
Due to the camera being focused on a "roundie" TV monitor, this appears to be a professional 70mm kinescope of either the live broadcast or from a videotape playback for distribution to CBS affiliates. Either way, it was recorded on high fidelity vacuum-tube equipment, preserving the great audio forever.
Music arranged by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn
Personnel:
• Duke Ellington – piano
• Willie Cook, Fats Ford, Ray Nance, Clark Terry - trumpet
• Lawrence Brown, Booty Wood, Britt Woodman - trombone
• Juan Tizol - valve trombone
• Jimmy Hamilton - clarinet, tenor saxophone
• Johnny Hodges - alto saxophone
• Russell Procope - alto saxophone, clarinet
• Paul Gonsalves - tenor saxophone
• Harry Carney - baritone saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet
• Aaron Bell - bass
• Sam Woodyard - drums
Technical Information:
I used SPLEETER v2.4 to separate the components [Drums, Bass, Brass and Piano] into 4 separate tracks. [Sadly Duke's piano wasn't miked properly, if at all]. Adobe Audition was used for Dynamic Range recovery, EQ and final mixdown. NERO 2019 Platinum used to generate the final video.
I wish to thank my good friend, John VanBroekhoven, for introducing me to this great video!
Enjoy my MONO-to-STEREO conversion of this historic TV performance and interview of Duke Ellington and his Band performing excerpts from their 1960 Christmas album The Nutcracker Suite.
This video is strictly for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.
Any excuse to post these two sterling portraits of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. They are contained within the pages of a sumptuous album set of 78s called The Jazz Scene - a series of sessions supervised by Norman Granz which were recorded and released in 1947.
Click on the link in the paragraph above for full details of the album. A copy is presently up for auction on eBay, from which listing derive the photographs which follow.
Despite his portrait being included, Ellington himself does not play on these sessions (which is not to say he wasn't present). it is Strayhorn's touch on the piano and the featured artist is a rare moment in the spotlight for Harry Carney...
The most significant fact of the session featuring Duke's men, perhaps, is that this was the final recording session of the guitarist who had been with Ellington for a quarter of a century, Fred Guy who subsequent to these sessions retired to Chicago where he ran a ballroom for twenty years. He committed suicide in 1971.
The luxurious presentation of this album (which truly justifies the use of that word) is evident from the photographs here. Bidding at present, with twenty four hours to go, stands at $157.50. Needless to say (needle-less as well since I have no gramophone), I am not participating.
There is some interesting broadcast material about the album as well here. The perfect listening accompaniment while, to quote the poet, "my swivel eye hungers" over these images...
The programmes are broadcast weekly on Wednesday at 5:00pm GMT and available at the same address as recordings.
There have been seven editions of the programme so far, each lasting something in the region of an hour and a half.
This coming Wednesday's, 17 June, looks to be of particular interest because the invited guest is Bill Saxonis of Albany, New York. Bill was scheduled to speak about Duke's civil rights activities at the international conference Ellington 2020 which was cancelled due to the pandemic.
The current lockdown has necessitated many activities taking place via Zoom (out of Periscope TV in this instance). I hope Uptown Lockdown continues to thrive when the current crisis has passed. It's an imaginative way of bringing the international community of Ellington scholars and admirers together and deserves every success.
There is also a Society UK discussion group themed around the broadcasts which may be accessed here.
The most popular post on Ellington Live which receives more 'hits' than any other is my post from eight years ago about Elaine Anderson and Ellington's first Newport appearance in 1956, The girl who...
I'm very happy for Ellington Live to be a major stop over for anyone wanting to find out more about Elaine Anderson and this iconic moment in the Duke Ellington story. The prose of the original post, I have to say, is somewhat overcooked and I wouldn't write anything like it today but it will remain for the record.
I thought it was about time I updated the details somewhat, though, in this 'sequel', particularly since next month sees the centenary of Paul Gonsalves' birth. His famous barnstorming solo at Newport and Elaine Anderson's dancing will be forever intertwined so this seemed like an ideal occasion.
There are two Elaine Anderson's and they are often confused, even, it seems, by the Internet Movie Database. The Elaine Anderson who danced at Newport is not Elaine Anderson Steinbeck, who was married to the writer John Steinbeck.
It seems both women were dancers and both appeared in movie musicals in 1944, Elaine Anderson Steinbeck in Frank Sinatra's first starring vehicle Step Lively and 'our' Elaine in the film Seven Days Ashore with Miriam LaVelle.
We know 'our' Elaine appeared in this film because a profile in The New York Times concluded with the following quotation from her:
''The other day on TV I saw a rerun of a movie in which I had a minute part. I had one of those starlet contracts. Seven Days Ashore, one of the worst B movies ever made.''
While from Elaine Anderson's comments it's clear that Seven Days Ashore enjoys regular late night re-runs on American TV, a commercial recording of the film does seem hard to come by. Here is a clip of one of Miriam LaVelle's exhausting routines from the film, however. I wonder is it possible that 'Girl in band uncredited' Elaine Anderson is in the crowd somewhere?
She was certainly to stand out from the crowd at Newport in 1956...
To what extent, though, was Elaine Anderson's impromptu dancing at Newport the reason for the incendiary nature of Paul Gonsalves's solo and the performance of the Orchestra or was she simply responding to the heat the orchestra put out? Jack Heaney was there. In 2002, he wrote:
"I was there. The young lady, with her male escort, got up from their aisle seat and began dancing in the aisle. Others also started to do the same thing in other aisles close to the stage. The driving rhythm was so infectious that those couple only represented in motion what everyone was feeling the sheer joy of the moment. The crowd began rising from their seats at about the same time. We were about in the middle, and we stood just to see the band as the music continued. We couldn't dance, but we could grin and sway, which we did. This was not any kind of riot situation. Everyone was smiling, grinning, happy, joyous. It was one hell of an experience.
Frankly, the jazz rating of the solo was of no concern, at least to me, at the time. The primary thing was the swinging rhythm, just the right tempo, and Gonsalves rode it beautifully. It was joy through music, which is one of the great gifts of jazz."
Here is Elaine Anderson in her own words, writing to George Avakian, the producer of the bestselling album Ellington At Newport. her letter was published in the Bulletin of Duke Ellington Music Society in the autumn of 2002.
Dear George
. . . . . to answer your questions and to let the internet group of Ellington collectors and scholars know the truth and the facts of that momentous evening, let me recall to the best of my ability (after all it was a long time ago) what really happened: HERE GOES:
My husband, Larry Anderson (Anderson, Little Co.), Ted LeSavoy and Ed Capuano (Newport Finishing Co.) bought the box for the entire festival as we always had from the inception of the very first festival in the Newport Casino. After the Chico Hamilton group finished playing, the Ellington band took the stage at which time it was getting quite late and a lot of the audience was leaving and they played "The Newport Jazz Festival Suite" not too inspiring at this juncture.
Ellington then called for Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue the audience was very cold and at about the fourth or fifth chorus Jo Jones, who had played drums that night with Teddy Wilson and who was sitting on the steps at the edge of the platform, started thumping a rolled up newspaper in the palm of his hands and called out "Let's get this thing going " at which point Teddy LeSavoy got up and pulled me from my seat and pushed me in front of the bandstand and said, "Go Elaine" (I was infamous for my dancing) then Paul Gonsalves started his solo and the more he wailed, the more I danced ALONE. No one danced with me and I was never aware of any other dancers in the crowd.
Who caused the moment? It's how you look at it the glass was half filled? I did. Or the glass was half empty? Gonsalves did. Take your choice. They tell me I saved the night for the Ellington Band and that I was the cause of an historic event in Jazz history. In later years, I attended a concert in Grace Cathedral at the invitation of Duke Ellington and he admitted that I was the force that put his band back on the Jazz Map at that time. Best regards, Elaine Anderson
George Avakian's commentary was as follows:
Elaine is right. As Duke had anticipated, the band would disappoint him and themselves because of lack of preparation. He told them just before they went on-stage, "I know we haven't had time to prepare the Suite properly, but don't worry if it doesn't come off well, because I've asked George to reserve the studio Monday Strayhorn will mark the score as we play, and he and George and I will check the tape against it Monday morning, and I'll call you at the hotel to come in the afternoon and we'll fix anything that needs fixing. So after the Suite, let's relax and have a good time let's play Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue . .
I am sure what Jack Heaney saw was Teddy getting Elaine started. I was on the stage at stage left; she was directly in front of the stage, slightly toward my right. The stage was less than four feet high. If she had taken five steps forward and I had taken three, I could have reached down and shaken her hand, but I did not see her begin because I was concentrating on the performance, and of course the moment I saw Paul blow into the wrong mike, eyes screwed tight, and Duke jumped up from his chair to yell at Paul "The other mike! The other mike!" which Paul never heard, of course I had no interest in the commotion taking place just below me. But as I ran down the steps to where our engineers had set up their equipment, I was aware that a platinum blonde was dancing alone, by then. Halfway down I nearly collided with my assistant, Cal Lampley (Irving Townsend did not participate in any of the recording, then or later) who was racing up to ask me "What's going on? We're not getting enough of Paul!" By the time I went back on-stage, other couples had started to emulate Elaine, who of course remained oblivious to everything but the music.
Yes, Elaine got a lot of publicity, but never by name. That was the last set of the 1956 Festival, and nobody ever found out who she was until she introduced herself to me the following year. Nothing like going to the primary source! George Avakian
In response to this account, Jack Heaney wrote:
Thank you, Mr. Avakian, for telling us the story of the lady who started the dancing at Duke's 1956 Newport concert. It sure fits in with my memories of that evening. As I said, I was seated near the middle; when she began dancing, it was something I saw, but it was not my main attention. I was watching and listening to Gonsalves. But as the mood swelled like a wave through the crowd, sweeping up from the stage, the crowd began to stand, and we did too to see the stage. It was impossible to see how many were dancing in the aisles, but it was happening. It seemed nothing remarkable, but just another expression of the joy the music created.
Elaine Anderson died Tuesday, 15 April, 2004 aged 80.
There is some debate over the earliest recordings Paul Gonsalves made. Ahead of celebrating the centenary of Paul Gonsalves next month, I thought it would be a good idea to present what are, possibly, the earliest recordings which feature him.
During The Second World War, Gonsalves' served in the Quartermaster Corp in India and Burma where he had the opportunity in Calcutta to play with the band of the Virginia born pianist Teddy Weatherford.
Several sides cut by the band appeared subsequently on the HMV India label and the possibility that Gonsalves participated in these sessions has long tantalised collectors.
Gonsalves' work with the Weatherford band is catalogued as follows in Tom Lord's discography (click to enlarge):
There is an interesting piece on the provenance of the recordings on this web page from Finding Carlton. There is a also a follow up piece Resolved?
The following which may provide conclusive evidence of the presence of Paul on these discs, is taken from the website Shanghai Sojourns:
'Jack Armitage, writing in Le Jazz Hot, gives a good account of hearing the band at the Grand one evening. “I had taken four weeks leave in Calcutta....I was flattered to find (Weatherford) flushed with pleasure at the entry of an old acquaintance and that he would compose a programme specially for the occasion....that night he was so dazzling I would not hesitate to place him among the great musicians in jazz. He played all the pieces I asked of him, including Mr. Freddie Blues, as well as a unique version of Twelfth Street Rag, which I had never really liked. Not only did he play marvellously solo, but proved himself a real strength in the rhythm section. One could feel his enormous power, the solid swing of the firm left hand lifting the band....most of the time the band worked out in a room full of British airmen, G.I.’s, both black and white, and Anglo Hindus....as a leader of the orchestra Teddy left much to be desired. Of course, he never had the same musicians, so the ensembles suffered from a serious handicap....for all that the brass section was good and had power.
The best musician was undoubtedly Cedric West, the guitarist. His tone was warm and he had plenty of ideas. He was also learning to play trombone and beginning to play very agreeably. For their best work, the band played a good proportion of excellent arrangements like Tommy Dorsey’s Boogie Woogie and several numbers of Count Basie... then they had plenty of swing and the soloists played their choruses with enthusiasm....the rest of the time they were content with standard arrangements or improvising softly on the blues, all interluded with Teddy’s solos.”
Armitage’s comment that Teddy never had the same musicians is not altogether true, as the band was basically constant for two years. Those remembered by Reuben Solomon were: George Banks, Bill McDermott, another (trumpets), George Leonardi (trombone), Reuben Solomon (clarinet, alto sax), Roy Butler, Sonny Gill (tenor saxes), another sax, Tony Gonsalves (bass), Cedric West (trombone, guitar), Jimmy Smith (drums). There were, however, many ‘sitters-in’ for, despite the drabness of the band’s daytime repertoire, at night it was one of the hottest bands in Calcutta.
The most famous of the ‘extras’ was Paul Gonsalves, then a truck driver in the Quartermasters’ Corps, who used to borrow an alto sax from the Services’ Club and jam with the band.'
Here are five of those HMV India sides with Teddy Weatherford...
Another treat today from The Savory Collection, and an extract from The Savory Collection: The Singers. Ivie Anderson is the vocalist on the song My Old Flame, first featured in the picture Belle of the Nineties.
"Ivie Anderson is melodrama. I don’t know if there will ever be that level of melodrama in American music ever again. That is… It’s incredible and that track. I mean I love My Old Flame. That’s one of my favourite songs period. Any time I hear it by anyone I’m happy; I’m a happy camper. The arrangement, that Duke Ellington arrangement with that band, is wild. It’s also extremely dramatic. I mean, it’s high drama. It’s beyond cinematic I think, hearing that and the way she sings it. I mean, she really throws it out at us. She’s just really… throwing it right into our face in such an incredible way. I love the directness of her voice, love the vibrato; I love that… it’s not intimate in any kind of way …
I don’t know what the opposite for intimate is but it is what that is and it is exciting. I mean there’s something so exciting about that for me. I’ve always loved Ivie Anderson ever since I heard her in a day at the races doing AllGod’s Chillun Got Rhythm. I mean she just…its like a shot of espresso and I love it and I love when I hear something like that. It makes me feel what weird music this is, it’s so strange this music; it can be so strange, almost like extra terrestrial. I mean where is that coming from? What is that? I don’t think there’s anything like that, I mean within jazz itself. I don’t think there’s anything as strange as that sound and it is in large part due to the arrangement and to the band, Duke Ellington’s band, but also in large part to the strangeness of Ivie Anderson. And when I say strange I mean that in the best way. It makes me want to listen to that again. I mean I really want to hear that again. Something that extraordinary requires a few more listens to just start understanding a little bit of what’s going on. I loved it. I really loved it."
"There were definitely changes happening in his playing in the fifties. We began to hear, I'd say, a slightly disillusioned Johnny Hodges. There crept in a note of cynicism and toughness in is playing. The idealism was being tempered by the reality of the post-war world. he was less concerned with romantic idealism and more into a blues feeling and an almost kind of erotic, sensual quality in his playing. His tone became coarser you might say, but also more dynamic in many ways. His sound developed an edge."
The quotation is from Bob Wilber, addressing the International Duke Ellington Study Group Conference in Oldham, 1988.
Wilber identified four periods in Hodges' career: 'hot', romantic, exotic, and funky, each spanning a decade of his career. The talk is fascinating and a video of it may be found here. While Bob Wilber identifies each of these four periods as the stages in Johnny's development as an artist, I wonder, too, if that isn't the stages in the development of the man, the journey from romanticism to cynicism, one familiar to many during the course of their lifetime. That his experiences came through his horn, however, speaks to the quality of his artistry. When the life is the work, that's one definition of genius. Here is a little of the genius of Johnny Hodges at work, a recording which is part of The Savory Collection, from Hodges' romantic era in the thirties: Jeep is Jumpin'...
Today Essentially Ellington 2020 starts. While we're waiting, I discovered performances of four very rare Duke Ellington compositions by the Wynton Marsalis septet recorded live at the Village Vanguard.
Ellington originally recorded these four pieces with a septet of his own on 19 March, 1956. Where's the Music? (mis-titled on the Marsalis anthology as Midnight in Paris), in particular, is a striking piece of work, very untypical of this period in Ellington's career. It sounds more like a recording from his 'blue period' of the mid-30s in hi-fi.
The performances by the Wynton Marsalis Septet were recorded in December 1994. The septet on these recordings is drawn from:
Wynton Marsalis (trumpet), Wycliffe Gordon (trombone), Wessell Anderson (alto sax), Victor Goines, Todd Williams (tenor sax, soprano sax, clarinet), Marcus Roberts, Eric Reed (piano), Reginald Veal, Ben Wolfe (bass), Herlin Riley (drums).
Midnight in Paris is listed correctly as Where's the Music (sans question mark) in the discography on Wynton's own website here.
Please note, I've posted the pieces here in the order Ellington recorded them.
Now, if I can only get hold of a copy of The Deep South Suite the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra recorded at the Festival de Jazz in August 1993...
Tubby Hayes was an Ellingtonian for one night only: two houses at The Royal Festival Hall, 15 February 1964.perhaps because of my location here in the United Kingdom, this solo flight has always had a particular appeal to my imagination.
There is a bootlegged recording of the second of Tubby's sets with the Ellington Orchestra (see here) which has never been made available commercially. The picture of the tape box is Tubby's own copy which was presented to him at the bar of Ronnie Scott's club by the person who had made the recording. In exchange, Tubby bought him a pint!
While the concert itself is not available, there are recordings available from that period, before and during the week of Tubby's appearance at The Royal Festival Hall, including one, Inventivity, recorded the night before, 14 February with bona fide Ellingtonian Cat Anderson.
A week to the day before Tubby's appearance with Ellington on the previous Saturday, 8th February, Tubby's quartet was playing Ronnie's. A recording made of that gig may be heard here, for free, courtesy of the Bandcamp website. Fire up the reel-to-reel!
The first two weeks of June saw Ellington completing work on recording sketches of the music for The River with his Orchestra. he had recorded some earlier 'takes' and some piano versions of the pieces but it is these recordings which were finally released in the late 1980s on Volume 5 of The Private Collection.
Here are the details of the recording sessions from the ever reliable ellingtonia.com discography:
DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA New York City, NY 03 June 1970
Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Al Rubin, Fred Stone(t); Booty Wood, Julian Priester(tb); Chuck Connors(btb); Russell Procope(cl,as); Norris Turney(fl,cl,as,ts);
Harold Ashby(ts,cl); Paul Gonsalves(ts); Harry Carney(cl,bcl,as,bar); Duke Ellington(p); Joe Benjamin(sb); Rufus Jones(d)
THE RIVER
70060301 -1 10. The Village Of The Virgins LMR CD-83004
Add Davis Fitz(xy,ma); Walter E. Rosenberger(gl); Elayne Jones(tymp)
70060321 -9 02. The WhirlpoolLMR CD-83004
Davis Fitz, Walter E. Rosenberger, Elayne Jones out
70060340 -14 09. The Neo-Hip-Hop Cool Kiddies Community (Stud) LMR CD-83004
70060342 -2 08. The River LMR CD-83004
DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA New York City, NY 15 June 1970
Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Mercer Ellington, Fred Stone(t); Booty Wood, Julian Priester(tb); Chuck Connors(btb); Russell Procope(cl,as); Norris Turney
(fl,cl,as,ts); Harold Ashby(ts,cl); Paul Gonsalves(ts); Harry Carney(cl,bcl,as,bar); Duke Ellington(p); Joe Benjamin(sb); Rufus Jones(d)
THE RIVER
70061503 07* 11. The Mother, Her Majesty The Sea LMR CD-83004
Russell Procope(cl,as); Norris Turney(fl); Harry Carney(bar); Duke Ellington(p); Joe Benjamin(sb); Rufus Jones(d)
70061504 08* 01. The Spring (Soft) Sv 1018402, Sv 108-8617
From earlier posts in our series, The Seventies, You can read Stanley Slome's excellent essay on The Riverhere. The discographical history of various recordings of the work may be found here.
