Duke Ladies - the Telescriptions!

 

Celebration

The third edition of Tone Parallel is published today. To view, or to subscribe, please visit here.

Astral Plane

On 26 August, 1964, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra went into the studio in Atlantic City, New Jersey to record a suite of music as soundtrack to a short film called Astrofreight for American Air Lines.

They recorded five compositions. Volupté had already featured on the album Afro Bossa recorded less than a year earlier. Following their recent tour of Japan, the second title up was Igoo which was to become part of Ad Lib On Nippon. The remaining compositions were titled Shufflelady, Soul Train and Spon.

A 16mm print of the film recently sold on eBay for $73.55. The vendor's description read:

"I’m pleased to offer a 16mm IB Technicolor print of Astrofreight by American Airlines. Shows how the planes are built and used, also shows luggage and goods packed on the plane for safety. Has great music by Duke Ellington . Stunning Technicolor . vg. No opening titles and Few lines and splices not but bad. On an 800”reel, no odors."

Factor in shipping costs (possibly by Asttrofreight?) and import charges and this goodie was certainly beyond my pocket.

It's possible to view the film, however, courtesy of YouTube, and I've posted the video above. Unfortunately, the soundtrack betrays something of a Washington wobble but at least the viewer may see what the images looked like fitted to Ellington's music.

The soundtrack itself is available in much better fidelity, however, courtesy of La Maison Du Duke on their members only CD, Theatre, TV, Cinema. Details here.

And here, for the record, are the dozen screen grabs included in the original auction post.