The girl who still...

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.