Mission to Moscow: 1

Posting yesterday about the anniversary of Duke Ellington appearing on Time for Joya reminded me that this year makes the tenth anniversary of Joya's passing.

I posted briefly at the time and illustrated the piece with some joyful photographs of the singer from Life  in what looks like holiday repose.

In fact, the photographs were taken from Joya's tour of the Soviet Union with a band put together for Benny Goodman in 1962. While all the photographs of Joya on this State Department sponsored tour are watermarked (rightly so) and copyrighted to Getty Images, I will republish them here in continuing celebration of Joya's bright spirit.

The Russian tour was not altogether an unalloyed pleasure as an (in)famous essay about Benny Goodman  by bassist Bill Crow makes clear. I will post an extract from the essay along with the Getty images in due course.

Firstly, however, the origin of the tour was controversial in the first place. Researcher and podcaster Steve Bowie of Ellington Reflections, whose most recent podcast is devoted to Joya's music, recently shared to Facebook scans from the cover story of Jet which details the débâcle of the tour and specifically Goodman's offer to Ellington to appear as a guest star. In his typically gracious style, Ellington declined...

The Seventies: Joya Unconfined

 

Today, 30 August, is the fiftieth anniversary of Duke Ellington's appearance on the early morning children's show, Time for Joya, hosted by Ellington's former vocalist, Joya Sherill.

Here is a reminiscence from featured artist 'Mr BB', Brumsic Brandon Jr,  who created the character Seymour the Bookworm:

One of my fondest memories of taping Joya's Fun School was when Duke Ellington was our guest.

 

I had a subject I had been anxious to bring up to him since I was a freshman in High School. I had an art teacher then who had also taught the Duke and he loved to brag about it. 

He would regale the class with wonderful stories about Edward Ellington and what a gifted art student he was. For many years I harbored a burning desire to raise that subject if I were ever fortunate enough to meet the Duke. 

When he came into the studio to tape a guest appearance on Joya's Fun School I finally got to ask, "Duke, do you remember the name of your high school art teacher?" Without hesitation, Duke responded, "Of course. That was Mr. Dodson!" With enormous pride I told Duke that I had been taught by the same Mr. Dodson, who was so very fond of telling Ellington stories. 

Duke's answer satisfied my need to have Mr. Dodson's memories confirmed and it made me wonder how Duke could remember with such alacrity. I was mightily impressed! 

Later, on camera, the Duke told the kids that he and Mr BB "went to school together." Luther Henderson and I looked at each in disbelief. I thoroughly enjoyed that moment with the quietest belly laugh I have ever had. 

Mr. Dodson must have taught Duke Ellington very early in his teaching career and me just before his retirement. (My mother and Duke Ellington were about the same age.) I think Duke's faux pas ended up on the cutting room floor. 

On the same show I was honored when I got to draw a picture with the Duke. He would draw one thing and I would draw something else that was separate but related. Thanks to my wife's tenacity in a tug of war with an Ellington agent, the drawing is still ours. That composite work of art is now framed and is proudly displayed periodically in my home. 

Mr. Dodson would have been very pleased with both of us, former students, I am sure. 

There is a summary of the episode on the same web page here. Sound files of the episode are also available for download but do not seem to play on my computer. Nil desperandum... Here is the audio for the episode, courtesy of YouTube...

You can read more about the artist Brumsic Brandon Jr and his daughter Barbara here...

Earliest Date with the Duke?

What was Duke Ellington up to in 1921 while Bubber Miley was variously recording sides with blues singers?

A  clue to Ellington's activities was recently discovered by researcher Steve Bowie who broadcasts the excellent podcast Ellington Reflections.

Duke Ellington's Jazz Bandits played for dancing on 30 September, 1921 at Assembly Rooms, Annapolis, MD, returning for an engagement on 24 October.

Here are two pictures of the venue at 150 Duke of Gloucester Street, Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, MD.

From the billing in the newspaper ad, it is significant to note that one of the players is Otto Hardwick, a key player in such a small ensemble since he could play bass as well as saxophone.

Further speculation on the description in the ad from the Duke-LYM internet discussion group is that the claim Duke Ellington: world’s greatest piano player probably relates to the growing reputation Ellington had in the Washington area (Annapolis is just 32 miles from Washington) after he memorized James P. Johnson’s piano roll of Carolina Shout. The GRS piano roll had been cut in May, 1921 and Ellington worked on memorizing it using a slowed down player piano during the summer of 1921. Duke would actually appear on the same program as James P. Johnson on 25 November, 1921 in Washington DC. 

'Idolized Paris' and 'Two years London's scream' is advertising hyperbole likely less a reference to Duke than the 'banjorean' William White whose fame was 'international'.

Poor Bubber 10: Discography

The last post in our Bubber series brings us full circle to the soundtrack at least - the full video is not presently available - of the Vitaphone short that Bubber Miley recorded with Leo Reisman. 

We have now catalogued all of Bubber Miley's recordings - so far as are known, to date - outside of his work with Duke Ellington. The earliest of them are virtually a century old. Indeed, this week gone by, 10 August, 1920 saw one of Bubber's collaborators, Mamie Smith record Crazy Blues, changing the course of recording history.

A comprehensive discography of all Bubber Miley's known recordings outside his work with Duke may be downloaded here.

Poor Bubber 9: Side Trip

While Bubber was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, he participated in a recording session accompanying the singer Martha Copeland. The session took place on 28 August, 1928 for Columbia. J.C. Johnson is on piano. Two tunes were recorded and here they are.

Poor Bubber 8: Vocal Interregnum 1925-26

Does what it says on the tin: the remaining vocal sides graced by Bubber Miley's cornet, 1925- 26 prior to his 'residency' with the Ellington Orchestra...

Poor Bubber 7: Vocal Interregnum 1924

Here are the remaining vocal sessions in which Bubber Miley participated during the 'interregnum' between his first recording session with Duke Ellington in November, 1924 and his taking up permanent residency with the Orchestra in his session on 21 June, 1926...

Poor Bubber 6: Instrumental Interregnum

 Here are the instrumental sides with which Bubber Miley was involved between his first and second sessions with Duke Ellington, 1924-6. They include sessions with the Kansas City Five and Clarence Williams' Stompers...

Poor Bubber 5: The Uncollected Part Two

 Here is the balance of the vocal sides on which Bubber Miley played prior to his first recording session with Duke Ellington on 24 October, 1924.

Poor Bubber 4: The Uncollected Part One

Here is the first part of two, collecting those vocal sides for which Bubber Miley was part of the band providing the accompaniment. The records were made between October 1923 and August 1924. 

Poor Bubber 3: Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds

Here are the complete recorded works of Bubber Miley with Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds, 14 sides in total including the very first entry in Bubber's discography, Let's Agree to Disagree, recorded on 12 October, 1921, New York, a mere ninety-nine years ago...

Poor Bubber: 2

Bubber Miley: The Works

Some sides with Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds aside, these recordings constitute the bookends of Bubber's career - before and after Duke. Bubber's first recording session with Ellington was in November 1924 and it was another eighteen months on 21 June, 1926 before he became a full-time Ellingtonian. There are a clutch of sides accompanying vocalists I will track down in due course.

Poor Bubber

I have been digging in to the discography of James Wesley 'Bubber' Miley recently, trying to sort out the various takes on various labels of classics with the Ellington Orchestra such as Black and Tan Fantasy and The Mooche.

Bubber was the 'big bang' of Ellington's music as we know it and while the universe of Ellingtonia continued to expand for another forty five years following the cornetist/ trumpet player's summary dismissal in 1929, its genesis was in those remarkable recording sessions some two years earlier which produced suddenly as if out of nowhere, the Orchestra's first essay on  East St Louis Toodle-oo.

Almost a century later and courtesy of the Cathode Ray U-Tube, it's an easy job to assemble a collection of Bubber's recordings for and aft his tenure with Ellington. I'll publish the sets tomorrow but for now, to begin at the ending, his final recording session which took place with the Leo Reisman Orchestra on 30 August, 1931. The vocalist is Ben Gordon, the sides rather on sweet than hot but then the scientists tell us that the universe is cooling down from its initial explosion.

Before that Victor 78 as an hors d'oeuvre and from about twelve months previously, Bubber with Leo Reisman on The Mooche, the only fragment from a Vitaphone medley currently available on line...