Ellington 2021

 

April 29

7:00 PM CET Ulf Lundin and Bo Haufman (SE) 

Welcome to Ellington 2021

7:10 PM CET Invited keynote speaker: Dr. John E. Haase (U.S.) 

Unmasking Ellington: How The Smithsonian Opened His Massive Archive

7:40 PM CET Leila  Olivesi (FR) 

Ellington's Piano Performances : A Laboratory for Composition 

8:25PM CET Music Break 10 min

8:35PM CET Samantha Wright (UK) 

Ellington’s Clarinet Players 

9:20 PM CET Bent Persson (SE)

Kustbandet - 60 Years With Duke Ellington

May 3

7:00PM CET David Berger (U.S.) 

Flaming Youth: Ellington’s 1920s compositions

8:00PM CET Music Break 10 min

8:10PM CET David Berger Q&A 

8:30PM CET Ken Steiner (U.S.A) 

Never-issued rarities from Steven Lasker's collection.

9:10PM CET Marilyn Lester (U.S.A)

Duke Ellington and The Great American Songbook

9:50PM CET End of Day Music  15 min

May 5

7:00PM CET Loren Schoenberg (U.S.A) 

Truly Wonderful: The Lesser-Known Ellington Small Band Recordings, 1936-1941

7:45PM CET Brian Priestley (UK)

Ellington and the Sound of Africa

8:30PM CET Music Break 15 min

8:45PM CET Michael Kilpatrick (UK) 

The New Ellington of the 1930s: Identifying and Hearing The Manuscripts

9: 30PM CET Laurent Mignard Duke Orchestra (FR)

Performing Duke Ellington today - From Ellington French Touch To Duke's Ladies

May 7

7:00PM CET Steve Bowie (U.S.A) 45 min

Cootie Williams - The Bandleader Years 1942-1962

7:45PM CET Music Break 10 min

7:55PM CET Jan Bruér (SE) 

Otto – Hotter Than Sweet (preliminary title)

8:40PM CET Music Break 

8:50PM CET Jack Chambers (CAN)

Figuring It Out. Working With Ellington 1969-1973

9:35PM CET Invited closing address speaker Dr. Matthias Heyman (BE)

Are You Stickin’ (Around)?: Ellington in the 21st Century

Registration Details here.

Having a Ball

Another date for Duke's diary, 11 April, 1947 when the Orchestra played for the Class of '47, Northwestern University at their senior dance in The Grand Ballroom of the Stevens Hotel in Chicago.

This was recorded in the Northwestern Yearbook for 1948, a copy of which is currently for sale on eBay and from the listing for which, these images are taken. The vendor's description is also posted here.

Vtg 1948 Northwestern University Syllabus Yearbook, Paul Lynde, Duke Ellington

You are bidding on a vintage original 1948 Syllabus yearbook, from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It was published by the Junior Class (Class of 1949) in 1948 and contains individual photos of the Junior Class.

Four notable students who went on to become successful actors or actresses are pictured in the book. Claude Akins was a character actor with a long career on stage, screen and television. Paul Lynde would become a comedian and was known for his role as Uncle Arthur in Bewitched and as a regular on Hollywood Squares. Jeffrey Hunter (Henry McKinnies Jr.) was a film and television actor best known for his role as Jesus in the box office hit King of Kings. Charlotte Rae Lubotsky, shown in a group photo, was best known as Edna Garrett on TV sitcoms, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life.

Also pictured in the book are composer, pianist and jazz orchestra leader Duke Ellington, who performed at the Senior Ball; actor, singer and dancer Ray Bolger(the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz), who performed at the Junior Prom; and Charlie Spivak, trumpeter and big band leader who also performed at the Junior prom.

The yearbook has these features:

• Dark blue and gray fabric over hardcover boards, with gold lettering/decoration on front cover and spine
  
• Special section of photos of campus beauties
  
• Illustrated with individual photos of all junior students, and many group photos of sports teams, clubs, activities, fraternities, sororities and much more
  
• 398 pages, including an extensive advertising section
  
• 12.25 inches by 9.25 inches by 1 - 3/8 inches
  

This 73-year-old book has a tight binding with no missing pages. One page is partially torn from the binding but is still attached. There is no handwriting, underlining or highlighting. The interior colors of the graphics remain bright. The cover has some wear with scuffing, bumping, small tears and losses, mostly at corners and edges.

Ellington 2021

Ellington 2021

Duke Ellington Society of Sweden (DESS) and DESScafé will organise an Ellington 2021 Meeting April 29 and May 3, 5, 7.

 

It is a Zoom-based event building on the experience of DESScafé launched in October last year as a place for DESS members to meet and listen to Ellington music.

 

The Ellington 2021 event will offer presentations by leading Ellington experts on different aspects of his music.

 

Themes like Ellington – The Composer, Ellington On Records, Performing Ellington and Ellington’s Sidemen will be covered in the program.

 

It will also include reflections on Ellington’s music in today’s world and in the future.

 

Daily sessions will last three hours and take place from 7 PM to 9 PM CET. The time has been chosen to make it convenient for Ellington friends in as many time zones as possible to attend the event.

 

The Organising Committee responsible for the event is composed of

 

Ulf Lundin – Editor ellington.se and DESScafé owner, Bo Haufman – Chairman of DESS and Editor of the DESS Bulletin, Göran Wallén – Founder of DESS and Member of DESS Board and Anders Asplund – Co-editor of ellington.se and Treasurer of DESS.

 

The committee has had valuable and much appreciated support and advice from a Program Advisory Group with Ian Bradley (London), Marilyn Lester (New York, NY) and Joe Medjuk (Santa Barbara, CA) as members.

 

More details here.

Terry's All Gold

From Faine Books...

Every once in a while a book arrives that offers new insights—sheds new light—on the personalities that populate the sub-milieu that is jazz. One such recently published book is Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends: On and Off the Record with Jazz Greats by Italian jazz singer, radio and TV journalist, and producer Lilian Terry.

Making an artist feel at ease came naturally to her, and that, along with a superb journalistic sense, allowed her to uncover fresh understandings of the likes of Duke Ellington, Abby Lincoln and Max Roach, Horace Silver, Ray Charles, Bill Evans, and Dizzy Gillespie.

You can sense that her subjects admired her for her talent, as well as for her innate ability to give as well as take without a trace of intimidation felt by either party. We learn anew of the various ticks, quirks, and idiosyncrasies of Master Ellington as if learning about them for the very first time—his playfulness, flirty attitude, attentiveness, literary sense, generosity, and superstitions.

We also learn how “La plus belle Lil” came to record one of the gems in the Ellington/Strayhorn canon, the focus of this review.

“Star-Crossed Lovers”
In July 1966, Lilian arrived at the Antibes Juan-les-Pins Jazz Festival on the French Riviera where she would sing with her trio and conduct interviews with Duke Ellington and other artists for her weekly radio show on the Italian radio network.

Backstage one afternoon, she approached her favorite soloist with the Ellington orchestra, altoist Johnny Hodges:

“I’m a passionate fan of your rendition of ‘Star-Crossed Lovers.’ . . . Is there any chance you could play it tonight?”

“Nope, sorry, we haven’t played it in years . . . Let’s go ask [Duke].” [1]

They did, and received his go-ahead.

That night, our inquisitive interviewer joined the French TV crew in the wings to watch the band’s performance. The maestro steered the orchestra through their lengthy set, wrapping it all up with a long closing number featuring Johnny Hodges:

The audience sent wave after wave of enthusiastic applause [in his direction]. Hodges, standing in front of the orchestra, turned to Ellington and then motioned with his head toward [Lillian in the wings. With an amused smile, Ellington then went to the microphone.] “A lady has come all the way from Rome and she’s asked for a couple of numbers from our Shakespearean Suite “Such Sweet Thunder” . . . let’s do the one which is Romeo and Juliet. And the Bard called them the star-crossed lovers!” [2]

At concert’s close, Lil waited for the orchestra leader to descend the stage steps. Duke graciously acknowledged her thanks and invited her to an after-party at his hotel suite where he introduced her to the song’s composer, Billy Strayhorn. She took the opportunity to confirm her passion for “Star-Crossed Lovers”:

“I’m glad you asked for it; it’s one of my favorites too.”

“I’m only sorry that it has no lyrics. I would love to sing it. And I would try to have that special, sensuous ‘Hodges sound.’ Heavens, when he blows those long, languid notes . . . it’s an actual caress.”

“And you would like to sing it? . . . Tell you what I’ll do . . . I promise I’ll send you some lyrics as soon as I get back to New York.” [3]

And he did.

Six months after the Antibes festival concluded and out of the blue, Duke informed Lil that she would be receiving an air ticket to join him and the band in Milano, Italy, for a Teatro Lirico concert in January 1967. She accepted, and when she arrived, Ellington fussed over her as other members of the band waved by, trumpeter Cat Anderson calling out: “There we go again . . . star-crossed lovers, I bet!”

The evening concert [at the Teatro] was excellent . . . Ellington was  enjoying himself, smiling at [Ms. Terry] from time to time as she stood in the wings, waiting for the moment when Hodges would play . . . Suddenly [she] realized they were actually playing their closing signature tune. [She stepped on the stage and] whispered to Ellington as he sat at the piano. “If there is no ‘Star-Crossed Lovers’, then I’ll take my sandals back” [she had gifted them to him the prior evening] . . .

The very moment the signature tune ended [Duke] went to the microphone and informed the public. “We have a request from Miss Lillian Terry, the greatest singer in Italy. She would like to hear the Romeo and Juliet theme from ‘Star-Crossed Lovers,’ the melody played by Johnny Hodges!”

Hodges got up with his alto sax and smiled at [Terry], going to the microphone. [4]

As the Bard would say, all’s well that ends well.

Some 15 years later, Lil found herself sitting at a dinner table across from jazz pianist Tommy Flanagan, Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist for several years. A lively conversation ensued that led to Tommy asking her what songs she’d like to sing with him at the piano. “Loverman” and Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” came up first, and then Lil said,

“Ellington and Strayhorn bring to mind Johnny Hodges and his sensuous way of playing a particular ballad that has never been sung before. I told Billy of my disappointment that it had no lyrics; he promised to send me a text, and a month later . . . there it was.”
“And what song was that?”

“It’s from the suite Such Sweet Thunder” . . . Lil leaned over the table toward pianist Flanagan and he met her halfway to say in unison: ”Star-Crossed Lovers.”

He exclaimed, “I knew it! Why, do you know that’s my favorite ballad and hardly anybody plays it? And [Strayhorn] gave you the words himself? OK, let’s do it. Now which recording date would you have in mind?” [5]

On April 17, 1982, Lil recorded Lilian Terry Meets Tommy Flanagan—A Dream Come True with the Tommy Flanagan Trio, with Jesper Lindgaard on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums, for the Italian Soul Note label. Six songs were recorded, including those mentioned above plus Peggy Lee’s “Black Coffee,” Benny Golson’s “I Remember Clifford,” Monk’s “Round About Midnight” and a Billie Holiday favorite, “You’ve Changed.” [6]

George Avakian, at the time an independent record producer and top-line jazz artist manager, wrote flattering liner notes for the album. He noted that Europe had produced many fine instrumentalists but very few vocalists. Among them, Lilian Terry sounds the most American.

He cited her appearances at the prestigious Antibes Festival, where Lillian was the only European singer to participate, sharing the stage with Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, Nina Simone, and Mahalia Jackson [7].

The recording was an immediate success, especially in Japan but also in the United States. The ballad that surpassed—and therefore was played on the air—was “Star-Crossed Lovers. [8]”

NOTES

1. Lilian Terry, Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray and Friends: On and Off the Record with Jazz Greats(Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 4.
2. Ibid., 5–6.
3. Ibid., 6–7.
   
4. Ibid., 14–17.
5. Ibid., 18.
6. Ibid., 19.
7. George Avakian, Liner Notes, Lilian Terry Meets Tommy Flanagan: A Dream Comes True, 1982, Soul Note LP.
   
8. Terry, Dizzy, Duke, 19.

More on Lilian Terry here.

Strings Attached

 

I am currently in the midst of preparing another presentation for the Duke Ellington Society UK video cast series Uptown Lockdown entitled From Chelsea Bridge to Hammersmith Flyover,  look at the various connections between Duke Ellington, His Famous Orchestra and London.

In the course of my researches, I happened across a reference to this album, Ellington For Strings with The Leon Young String Chorale. The album was released/ recorded during the period I am principally interested in for my presentation, 1963/64. It's interesting to note (and I could wish for a larger scan of the album covers)the inclusion of What Else Can You Do With A Drum? This is a fairly obscure Ellington song from his album A Drum Is A Woman, recorded in 1956 but I suspect only just, or still, current in the UK some eight years later.

With the exception of his brief involvement with NBC;s Symphony of the Air in 1955 and the album related in terms of repertoire from (again) 1963, The Symphonic Ellington, Duke had little time for strings (Ray Nance's violin aside), believing he could say all he wished to say through the instrumentation of his band. The presence of British tenor Tony Coe on these sessions, a disciple of Paul Gonsalves in many respects, would surely have given Ellington pause for thought here.

I imagine this album, recorded at the famous  Lansdowne Studios, Holland Park (and more about that in my Uptown Lockdown presentation)was destined for the 'easy listening' market rather than the 'jazz fan'. The presence of a 'jazz' musician on the session, however, his no surprise, these sorts of recordings bread and butter for musicians such as Tony Coe and his contemporary Tubby Hayes. There is a fascinating series of posts about the jazz musician's uneasy relationship to easy listening  on Simpon Spillett's highly recommended blog, the first of  which may be found here.

The Seventies: 17 March, 1970

Russell McNeil 1 · Duke Ellington: Voice of the Pioneer Bill McNeil Interview March 17, 1970

Lost in Mediation

 

I have added links in the right hand column of Ellington Live to our platforms on social media, Ellington Live on Facebook and Twitter.

There are so many 'live' events happening at the moment in the world of Ellingtonia and so many connections to follow across the web which are not really material for full blog posts, that links to our social media accounts seem to be the most effective way of pointing readers in the right direction.

I share the ambivalence many people have towards social media and certainly believe it is best served with a long spoon... In theory, you should not need to have signed up to Facebook nor twitter to access Ellington Live's pages should you wish to do so. The links are available if you are viewing the blog via a desktop or laptop computer. Just scroll down the panels to see the contents or click through. it is certainly worth stopping by regularly for updates.

Any feedback welcome via the comment section...

Beggars belief...

I never knew that the original title for Ellington's 1947 musical Beggar's Holiday was Twilight Alley but here is proof from a recent auction oneBay, the handbill for the initial Boston tryout...

Original handbill flyer for the Boston Tryout of Duke Ellington's only Broadway 

 

Opening Date

Dec 26, 1946

Closing Date

Mar 29, 1947

• Approx. 6" x 9"
• Play summary on the reverse.
• Ships packed in a rigid plastic holder

Duke Ellington wrote for Broadway only once, for Beggar’s Holiday in 1946. It wasn’t called that during its three-week tryout at the Boston Opera House, though. That December, it was called Twilight Alley, a street described by Boston Post critic Elliot Norton as “a generally handsome thoroughfare.” But, he immediately added, “It leads nowhere, and it is uphill most of the way, in a dull neighborhood where the folks are rather tired and tiresome, and the jokes are dull.”

Ellington wrote the music, and John LaTouche wrote the book and lyrics to Twilight Alley,  “a parallel in tempo to John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera,” a classic satire from the 18th century. Ellington sent Billy Strayhorn to Boston as arranger.

Twilight Alley boasted an impressive cast and crew. Director John Houseman was a leading light on stage, screen, and radio. Playgoers knew leading man Alfred Drake as Curly from the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! Libby Holman, the bane of social conservatives, was then touring with bluesman Josh White. Zero Mostel played the thoroughly corrupt Peachum, and fellow actor Thomas Gomez would be the first Hispanic nominated for an Oscar, in 1947. It was dancer Valerie Bettis’s first production as choreographer, and music director Max Meth would win Tony awards as best musical director in 1949 and 1952. Dancer and singer Avon Long, a Boston Conservatory graduate, had become synonymous with the Gershwin character Sportin’ Life, and dancer and singer Marie Bryant, who did both in the short film Jammin’ the Blues, had worked with Ellington on Jump for Joy.

They weren’t enough. Columnist George Clarke wrote that Twilight Alley “came in for a pretty general shellacking,” and one of the critics was Ellington himself. The Duke was in Boston on December 1 to play a concert at Symphony Hall with Django Reinhart. He remained in Boston, and wrote in Music Is My Mistress that he attended a matinee, and afterwards told the crew the show was too long, the orchestra too loud, and some elements in the staging wouldn’t even be found in a high-school play!

The producers altered the show. It was shortened, songs were changed, and director Houseman was replaced by Nicholas Ray, in what was his only stage production. Playwright and director George Abbott was called in as a script doctor, and he promptly fired Libby Holman and replaced her with Bernice Parks. And between Boston and New York, the name was changed to Beggar’s Holiday.

Little of Ellington-LaTouche music is known today. Duke recorded Brown Penny and Maybe I Should Change My Ways. Lena Horne had success with Tomorrow Mountain, and various singers have recorded Take Love Easy. But The Scrimmage of Life? Ore from a Gold Mine? Quarrel for Three?

And here is an invaluable look at the programme for the original production of Beggar's Holiday...