"Sitting in that starship..."

 

Winter Trees

 

They say that history is written by the winning side. It's also dependent on the extent of its distribution. So, the dance date played by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra at The Crystal ballroom, North Dakota, 7 November, 1940 is rightly celebrated on an annual basis among Ellington aficionado because the recording made that night by two young sound engineers, Dick Burris and Jack Towers has been released and re-released numerous times and on a plethora of recorded formats - from vinyl to streaming.

Another Ellington engagement which was also captured by students and to a similarly high sonic standard has fared rather less well in the annals of Ellingtonia. That is because this particular recording was issued only once and on their own college label. The engagement took place sixty-four years ago on "a snowbound Thursday evening" 10 January, 1957 at Grinnell College, Iowa. I've written about the evening previously.

The romanticism of this date for me is confirmed, in part, by the rarity of the resultant album, pictured here:

I assume the whole evening was recorded. That which was released was not done so in the order the numbers were performed and appears to offer a sort of 'greatest hits'. I realised only recently that the band, in fact, returned to Grinnell just a couple of weeks later. Courtesy of the redoubtable website ellingtonia.com then, we can post an idea of the what the full programme was like and its correct running order:

There is romanticism, too, about that first date at Grinnell in the photographs of the college on the album cover. 

The view of the bare arms of winter trees is not entirely dissimilar looking from my window here, with a distant hint of the Blue Skies of the opening number on the album...

And that puts in mind of the Winter Trees of Sylvia plate's poem...

The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.

On their blotter of fog the trees

Seem a botanical drawing --

Memories growing, ring on ring,

A series of weddings.

The photograph at the top of this post is of Ellington with assembled Grinnell students (Left to right: Duke Ellington, Robert Weitzman (class of 1959), Unknown, Phil Spelt '(class of 1959), Dennis Furbush (class of 1959), Unknown.) Source

All Helsinki Breaks Loose

 

I don't know if these recordings have done the rounds before. I seem to have burnt CD versions already and a version also on DVD-A but I discovered this website the other day and thought it worth sharing here: a concert from Duke Ellington's European Tour, Helsinki, 5 February, 1963.

The CD cover images posted above are provided on the site and I've copied also the text, below. The links in the text below take you directly to each track and the site itself may be found here.

DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA
Helsinki 1963 [no label, 2CD]
Live at the House of Culture, Helsinki, Finland; February 5, 1963. Very good web stream.

Duke Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death [in 1974] over a career spanning more than six decades. Although widely considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington embraced the phrase “beyond category” as a liberating principle and referred to his music as part of the more general category of American Music rather than to a musical genre such as jazz. - wikipedia

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Thanks to Lewojazz; Marc; and goody for sharing the show at Dime.

Lineage:
AudioEdit Deluxe > wav > dBpoweramp > flac
wavtrim by goody > flac
from the Series of Jazz Legends in Finland by the finnish radio Station Yle-1

Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (192kbps). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released on CD.

Please Do Not Hammer The Links. Due to the size of some of the files, please be very patient when downloading the tracks. It could be that the server was very busy. The tracks should still be around. Please try again later.

Kindly email us if you encounter persistent problems downloading the files. Also email us if you have any rarities you’d like to share with our readers.

Disc 1 (Set 1)
Track 101. Intro 0:21
Track 102. Take the A Train (by Billy Strayhorn) 0:55
Track 103. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:27
Track 104. Asphalt Jungle Theme (Duke Ellington) 4:25
Track 105. annoucement - Duke Ellington 1:09
Track 106. Guitar Amour (Duke Ellington) 6:35
Track 107. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:09
Track 108. Jam with Sam (Duke Ellington) 3:50
Track 109. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:10
Track 110. Cop-out + Cop-out Extension (Duke Ellington) 7:38
Track 111. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:22
Track 112. New Concerto for Cootie (Cootie Williams) 2:42
Track 113. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:36
Track 114. Star-Crossed Lovers (Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn) 4:20
Track 115. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:10
Track 116. Perdido (Juan Tizol) 10:16
Track 117. One More Once - Milt Grayson, vocals (Duke Ellington) 3:38
Track 118. Take the A Train 0:39
49 mins

Disc 2 (Set 2)
Track 201. Take the A Train (by Billy Strayhorn) 1:0
Track 202. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:45
Track 203. Bula/Afro Bossa (Duke Ellington) 4:31
Track 204. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:11
Track 205. Kinda Dukish/Rockin’ in Rhythm (Duke Ellington) 6:02
Track 206. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:20
Track 207. Caline/Silk Lace (Duke Ellington) 4:37
Track 208. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:12
Track 209. The Eight Veil (Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn) 2:46
Track 210. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:20
Track 211. Pyramid (Duke Ellington, Juan Tizol) 4:00
Track 212. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:17
Track 213. New Concerto for Cootie (Cootie Williams) 2:44
Track 214. Tootie for Cootie (Duke Ellington) 5:04
Track 215. Things Ain’t What They Used To Be (Mercer Ellington) 3:17
Track 216. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:16
Track 217. Perdido (Juan Tizol) 12:24
Track 218. The Blues (Duke Ellington) 3:45
Track 219. Do Nothin ‘Till You Hear From Me (Duke Ellington, San. Bob Russell) 5:22
Track 220. annoucement - Duke Ellington 0:47
Track 221. Caravan (Juan Tizol) 6:40
Track 222. Take the A Train 0:43
66 mins

Performers:
Duke Ellington - piano
Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Roy Burrows, Ray Nance (also violin) - trumpet
Lawrence Brown, Buster Cooper, Chuck Connors - trombone
Johnny Hodges, Russell Procope, Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy Hamilton, Harry Carney - saxophone
Ernie Shepard - bass
Sam Woodyard - drums
Milt Grayson - vocals

Compose yourself...

Exciting news for the New Year - a new online course on the compositions of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn is to be led by Michele Corcella. I have quoted below extracts and illustrations from Michele's Facebook page, detailing the new course of studies.

I had the pleasure of observing Michele working 'live' with students on Ellington's music which I wrote about here.

I will email Michele to find out more details of the starting date for this new course of studies and bring an update as soon as I can...

Michele writes on his Facebook page...

New Online Course: Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn Music 

My new composition course based entirely on the original manuscript of the two great composers is finally ready. After attending three editions of the Duke Ellington International Conference (Amsterdam 2014, New York 2016, Birmingham 2018), and having rebuilt and directed several Ellingtonian works (Anatomy of a Murder, New Orleans Suite, etc.), I have decided to make my decennial studies and access to my archive available, anyone interested in deepening the music of Ellington and Strayhorn. The course is aimed at composers, musicologists, instrumentalists and singers not only jazz but throughout Black Music. Inbox me for info!

Further exciting news about a live performance of Ellington's music as Michele writes also...

Many of you have written me for Duke Ellington's music class that will start in a few weeks. In the meantime I'll leave you with a goodie.

During the holiday season many choirs and orchestras, in Italy and around the world, perform the Duke's famous Sacred Concerts. However, what you usually perform is NOT the original version, but it's rearrangements of the same compositions, but by other musicians.

The original version, the only one written by Duke Ellington's hand, is this one of which you see some pages in the photo, also characterized by all the indications of the names (and even nicknames) of his orchestra musicians who would have played the various parts.

For 2021 I plan to perform these manuscript live but in the meantime I invite everyone interested to write to me.