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