Gentleman's Relish?

 

A curio listed as a recent lot on a certain Internet auction house. The  vendor has included several snaps which allow us a peek behind the magic curtain in the era of white-walled car tyres, fedoras, suburban easy listening and 'Hi, honey, I'm home'. Whilst relatively innocent in the 1950s,  the encouragement provided by these pictorial papers to chase bunny girls will take the pursuer down a rabbit hole and into some very dark corners from which they are unlikely yet to have been able to emerge.

The objectification of women is a topic beyond the scope of this blog so suffice it to say, it is the picture of Duke Ellington which draws the eye here and is new to me, I must admit. Duke gets top billing in an article which the vendor's photographs allow us to read in full. Since the asking price of the publication is $99, I'm grateful to have been spared the cost of buying the original in order to read it.

The article, entitled Playboy's All-Time All-Star Jazz Band by one Jack Tracy offers some interesting contemporary perspective on the history of jazz and its stars and one particularly poignant line, that Charlie parker "died of a heart attack while this article was being prepared."

The writer's assignment is to assemble an all star aggregation, built around the instrumentation of a big band (a somewhat passé form itself in terms of contemporary jazz in 1955 I would have said). Needless to say, Duke is appointed the (titular?) leader of this speculative orchestra. Call it the big band theory?

It is interesting to reflect that were Ellington to command such an organisation of star-crossed players, would it have been any more sublime than the actual Duke Ellington orchestra we got in its evolving iterations over half a century? I think not. The Duke Ellington Orchestra at any point in its history was as unique as a fingerprint. And as irreplaceable.

Click on the images to enlarge and to read the original piece...

Bringing Home The Bacon

 Photographs of a couple of newspaper clippings for sale recently on eBay tell the interesting story of Louis bacon's travails on the continent of Europe as war clouds continued gather throughout 1939. I thought the clippings and a write-up of the text, were interesting to post here.

Bacon played in the Ellington Orchestra for about a year from 1933 to 1934 returning, according to Tom Lord's discography, for a one-off date with a group led by Rex Stewart on 20 March, 1939. bacon's brush with fascism was perhaps not too dissimilar from Ellington's own. The Ellington band toured continental Europe not too long after this small group date. As Thomas Cunniffe recounts in his review of Riding on Duke's Train by Mick Carlon, "... the orchestra did not schedule any concerts in Germany, but they were forced to travel through that country to get to their gigs in Sweden. The orchestra's train was held by the Gestapo for several hours in Hamburg beforebeing allowed to pass through."

From Downbeat, Autumn, 1939:

Chicago – Ivie Anderson, singer with Duke Ellington’s band, was in a gay mood during the band’s Sherman Hotel engagement here. After waiting in vain for news of her husband, Louis Bacon, the trumpet player, she received two letters from him in which he said all was well and that he was ready to return to the United States.

Bacon, a former horn artist with Ellington, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong and Benny Carter, left Carter’s band in July of 1939and went to Europe, where he played with Willie Lewis’ band in Holland. According to Ivie, Louis worked up until May 10 of this year, when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in a brutal blitzkrieg which destroyed Rotterdam and damaged other cities. Then for months Ivie had no word from her husband until two weeks ago. His letters were dated July 19 and August 16.

“Louis wants to come home,” said Ivie, “but he can’t find a w ay to get here. He says he has only worked tow or three days since the Nazis took over Holland. His letters were mailed from The Hague.”

Ivie and Bacon were married in 1934 shortly after he joined the Ellington band. Ivie has been sending him money since the invasion and believes he will get transportation home before Thanksgiving.

 

Sacré Blues

Somebody really (reely?) wanted a rare tape recording of a performance of The Second Sacred Concert on 1 October 1972 at The Presbyterian Church of Madison NJ on 1 ). In the early hours of yesterday morning (2:00am UK time), it sold for a hefty $570.00...

The details of the auction ran...

The Presbyterian Church of Madison N.J. in Celebration Duke Ellinton & his Orch in 225th Anniversary sacred concert October 1,1972 Drew University live reel to reel tape with Program.

Speed:7 1/2” feet : 1800 FT -Low Noise .two track .(vintage tape )

This is a live tape of the 2nd out of 3 performances of this controversial monumental and historical piece . 

Condition : very good vintage condition. sounds great .come with program.

All details see photos .

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On Dec-08-21 at 06:23:32 PST, seller added the following information:

P.S. The manufacturer of tape and box is different. The manufacturer of tape is Reeves Soundcraft.

I'm sure anyone prepared to pay that sort of price will look after the tape and we can only hope one day the contents find their way into the public domain - perhaps with a legitimate official release? 

For the record, here are the images of the tape and the copy of the programme for the concert which was also included in the lot. A copy of the programme at least is lodged in the Ellington Collection at The Smithsonian. As for the contents of the tape, we can only live in faith, hope and charity... the greatest of these, on this occasion, being hope...