Ebony Rhapsody

The edition of the magazine Ebony pictured above was recently put up for auction on eBay  for about $250. Rather out of my price range, but fortunately the vendor included scans of some of the pages so we can see at least something of the article.

Further photos pasted below. I have typed out the first page of the article, however, for ease of reading.

The third and final page of the article refers to Lena Horne as you can see from the final image. The middle page of the article was not included in the scans the vendor put on line.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for a copy of the magazine at a more attainable price but for now here is an extract, at least, of Ellington's thinking in 1952...  

THE STRONGEST OPINION that I have about women is that they belong to the realm of subjects which are better enjoyed than discussed. 

 

Nevertheless, I am going to talk about what I think an exciting woman is and tell about the most exciting women I have known.

 

An exciting woman is a lot of things.

 

She is like the lost chord which is a favourite device of mine in creating music. Actually there really is such a thing as a lost chord and it reminds one of an exciting because this chord has an intriguing sound – and a holding value. It arrests your attention. It is dominant wherever it turns up. It seems about to conclude yet it never does. It gives the same effect which Louis Armstrong would give if he didn’t play that very last note of I Can’t Give You Anything But Love– the deafening pause which comes just before that last note.

 

An exciting woman is also like a train. A train always looks as though it is going somewhere – even when it is standing still. A plane on the ground is a plane on the ground and that is all. It doesn’t give you the feeling of velocity, but a train always does. That feeling of velocity is the same feeling an exciting woman arouses with her chic and dash and every other attribute of her feminine appeal. She sways seductively through your consciousness with the same subtle power with which a train moves through the night. And when she leaves you, you have that same desolated, abandoned sensation which you get watching the twin red lights of a train disappearing over the horizon.

 

An exciting woman has no race. She has no age. There is no formula for her creation, no pattern for her mannerisms or her conduct.

 

Physically she appeals to all the senses.

 

The contours of her legs, hips and ankles, the lines of her face are pleasant to the sight. Her words are believable to the sound. She is a fuzzy piece of fluff gratifying to the touch. The delicate, delightful, flower-like fragrance of her is enchanting. The taste of her lips is the nectar which can make every man a god.

 

Spiritually, she is even prettier inside than the glitter and veneer of her attractive face and form. The greatest thing that makes her exciting is a nameless internal thing. It is the quality with which she has affected history from the dawn of the ages down to six o’clock this evening. It is the quality which made the mighty Samson lie down trustingly so that Delilah could shave him and sap his strength. It is the quality which made Paris war ceaselessly for Helen’s satisfaction. It is the quality which made great Antony the slave of Cleopatra and the formidable napoleon the captive of Josephine. It made a King of England thrust aside the power and tradition of his throne.

 

But all that is the history of yesterday. Who are the most exciting women of our own day, and what makes them exciting? Of course, every man has – in his arms, in his heart, or his memory – his own choice of the ultimate woman. But there are women today who have the mystic qualities which give them that peculiar power to touch us all. I have selected several of them and I will tell you why they are at the top of my list. 

 

Marian Anderson is on my list. Think of her, straight and tall and groomed. Think of the ease with which she tilts her magnificent head, arches her priceless throat and sends forth richness and warmth which has all the colour and richness of a rainbow or a sunset. Think of her commanding manner which has all the essence of real aristocracy – it expects and deserves tribute without demanding it. Think of the Anderson excitement which made a whole nation bow its head in shame when those who called themselves real Americans denied the world the right to see her in the nation’s capital.

 

Think of the christine purity of the Anderson soul which survived this indignity to return triumphantly in song under the Lincoln Memorial, represented by one of the country’s most highly placed statesmen and heard with a hush of admiration by the hundreds of thousands who could have never crammed their way into Constitution Hall. Yes, Marian Anderson is an exciting woman, so exciting that the very range of that perfect voice is a range impossible to measure, running the gamut from sweet and low to full-timbered profundity – she sounds as pretty as she looks…