Live: May 2023

Tuesday, 9 May, 21:30 (EST) 

Ellington Suites and Rare Gems, Julliard Jazz Orchestra

• Dizzy's Club, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019

  
  

  Programme information:

  Andy Farber, Conductor; Alto Saxophones Adam Stein, Lead; Kelvin Walters,Tenor Saxophone;

  Abdias Armenteros, Lead; Daniel Cohen, Baritone Saxophone, Ian Munoz; 

  Trumpets James Haddad, Lead; David Sneider; Geoffrey Gallante; Ace Williams;

  Voice, Georgia Heers Trombones, Nicholas Mesler, Lead; Ilai Macaggi; Nate Jones; Joseph Giordano

  Rhythm, Bruce Acosta, Guitar; Matthew Whitaker, Piano; Felix Moseholm, Bass; Peter Glynn,

  Drums

  
  

  Details here.

  
  

  

  
  
  

  By Nick Mesler

Evocative music transcends genre, time, and concept. It conjures images the mind could not otherwise produce and shapes feelings into such profound emotions that they cannot be expressed solely by the spoken word. Few artists have truly embodied the creation of pure evocative music, and when I come across the work of those who do, I’m always struck by the raw emotions they elicit. How do they convey such feelings? How do they remain so original, so individual, yet manage to enthrall audiences with their aural paintings?

A project I recently completed—the transcription/ arrangement of 13+ Duke Ellington original compositions and arrangements, which the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra will perform May 9-12 at Dizzy’s Club—has everything to do with this question. I consider Ellington to be of the highest category of composers. In terms of composing evocative music, he is beyond classification. His music is one of my greatest motivations, something that inspires me daily and something that, over time, I’ve gathered an increasing amount of knowledge about.

As something of an Ellingtonian, I began last year to take note of some of the more obscure works from across his five-decade career. I wanted to know more, but the more I looked, the more it became apparent that, for most of the charts I found, little to no information existed. Ellington’s nature was to continuously compose, which left him with thousands of charts at the end of his life, many of which were played perhaps once or twice, maybe recorded once, or in some cases never played. After hearing such beautiful compositions and arrangements, I found myself wanting to play them, to hear them live, to understand their appeal from a personal perspective. The biggest problem with this? Practically all of the charts I was most drawn to had no surviving scores, parts, or progressions. No written music remained. Just the recordings, some professionally done, some simply taken off the radio from a dance engagement, some from live concerts at Carnegie Hall.

So I wrote out the music myself. I compiled a concert’s worth of obscure charts from the Ellington band book from across his career that represent that type of writing and arranging I mentioned earlier. The key to the music I chose was, above all, that the charts either hadn’t been written out by others or hadn’t been played since he did with the band. I began painstakingly listening to each song, trying to capture every voicing, every detail while retaining the artistic liberty I know he wrote with. I had never transcribed any big band repertoire before, so this was no easy feat, but over time, I grew more invested and better-versed in the musicians who made up his ensembles throughout the years. With each score and part, I tried to emulate the individual recordings and personalities I had chosen.

Before beginning this endeavor last spring, I talked with the Jazz Studies administration about perhaps reading through this music. They offered to premiere it this year, and I’m eternally grateful for their support and generosity throughout the project. Having finished the transcriptions in February, I’m thrilled the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra will premiere them in May. Ellington masterpieces range from soft, ethereal ballads like On a Turquoise Cloud to crazy, intense numbers like Tootin’ Through the Roof, but one thing remains consistent; they’re all ingenious compositions by a genius composer, and they have all been largely untouched since he played them decades ago. We’ll be playing them over the course of eight sets, two per night, at Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and I’ll be lead trombone on two of the days. Please join us and immerse yourself in this wonderful music I’ve tried to do justice to.

Nick Mesler is a second-year jazz trombonist

Source.

Thursday, 11 May - Saturday, 13 May 2023

Essentially Ellington, Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York

And this year's finalists are...

Join us for the 28th Annual Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival, May 11-13, and watch the next generation of jazz artists compete on stage! This annual event is one of the most innovative jazz education events in the world. Each year, high school musicians from across North America travel to New York City to spend three days immersed in workshops, jam sessions, rehearsals, and performances at the House of Swing. Buy tickets for the festival performances or tune in on Jazz Live.

Friday, May 12, 14:00  (EST)

Festival Performances Part I 

Saturday, May 13, 10:00  (EST)

Festival Performances Part II

Saturday, May 13, 13:00  (EST)

Festival Performances Part III

Saturday, May 13, 19:30  (EST)

EE Concert and Awards Ceremony

Details here.

Sunday, 27 May 2023, 15:00(EDT)

Such Sweet Thunder Workshop with David Berger

Lady Mac

Ellington Effect Workshop #27: Lady Mac Join us for the 27th Zoom webinar in David Berger's Ellington Effect workshop series, which will focus on Ellington's iconic composition Lady Mac. The Ellington Effect workshops are monthly Zoom meetings where David dives into a single composition each time, analyzing it musically line by line, as well as relating pertinent stories about Duke and the band, and answering questions from attendees.  This one will take place on Sunday, May 21st at 3:00 PM EDT.  Get a ticket here, or an annual membership here. Facebook event - please share and let us know you'll be attending! See below for a brief introduction to the piece David will analyze this month.

Lady Mac (From Such Sweet Thunder)  "I never heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder." So says Puck in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1956 Duke Ellington was performing with his orchestra in Stratford, Ontario and took the opportunity to propose to the Shakespeare Festival that he and Billy Strayhorn compose a Shakespearean suite to be premiered the following summer at the festival.   A few months later, Anahid Ajemian and her husband George Avakian, Duke’s producer at Columbia Records, were producing a concert series at Town Hall in New York entitled Music for Moderns, which involved musicians and composers from different genres performing on the same concert but not with each other.   He asked Duke to compose a new piece and premiere it for one half of one of the concerts. Ellington responded that he would love to perform, but he and Billy were too busy finishing composing their Shakespearean suite to write anything else. The Shakespeare Festival then agreed to permit Duke to premiere the suite in New York. The concert was an artistic success, but a financial disaster.   Of the twelve movements, only seven were performed (Duke hadn’t written the sonnets and Circle Of Fourths yet)—four by Ellington and three by Strayhorn. Two of Strayhorn’s had been written earlier and retitled: Pretty Girl became The Star-Crossed Lovers (Romeo and Juliet) and Lately became Half The Fun (Cleopatra). Ellington’s unfinished Fuzzy was reworked to become The Telecasters replacing the aborted Three Bitches And A Moor.   What began as The Shakespearean Suite was recorded for Columbia and retitled Such Sweet Thunder, which also serves as the title of the first movement. Although Strayhorn was extremely knowledgeable when it came to Shakespeare—he had a number of sonnets and scenes from the plays committed to memory, Ellington, on the other hand, needed some help and was given a set of synopses of the plays. Rather than describe the narratives of the plays, Ellington decided to base the music on Shakespearean characters, much in the tradition of his earlier musical portraits of real-life people like Black Beauty, Bojangles, Bert Williams, The Lion, and Satin Doll.   Originally entitled Cleo (for Cleopatra), Such Sweet Thunder describes Othello’s charm and uncontrollable jealous rage. Cleopatra was reassigned to the seductive Half The Fun. The only character to appear in more than one movement of the suite was Othello, who returns in Sonnet In Search Of A Moor, which most likely is due to Othello being the only Shakespearean character of African descent. Also, my guess is that Ellington, a lover of word play, couldn’t resist the pun (“a moor” and “amour”).   Puck, the character who gave us the famous lines “such sweet thunder” and “Oh what fools these mortals be!”, is placed in the more than capable hands of Clark Terry in Strayhorn’s Up And Down, Up And Down (I Will Lead Them Up And Down), which in its description of the romantic couples is musically reminiscent of Bartok’s Concerto For Orchestra, Second Movement, The Play Of The Pairs.   Lady Mac is the fourth section of the suite. Named for the ambitious, murderous Lady MacBeth who ultimately is driven to insanity and suicide by her feelings of guilt, Ellington has said that he suspected some ragtime in her soul. I never felt that, but Ellington bares the ragtime (more like gospel and blues) in his soul in this piece.   The soloists are Ellington, Russell Procope (who rarely soloed on alto sax) and Clark Terry on flugelhorn. His flugelhorn solos around this time inspired many other trumpet players to double on this forgotten brass instrument that, due to its conical bore, creates a mellow tone similar to the French horn.   Besides flugelhorns, in 1957, jazz waltzes were rare. Fats Waller’s Jitterbug Waltzwas an outlier for many years until Mary Lou Williams’ Waltz Boogie came along in 1946 and then Valse Hot by Sonny Rollins in 1956. Lady Mac (1957) never entered the repertoire of other jazz musicians. By the time Toots Thielemans’ Bluesette came along in 1962, jazz waltzes were ubiquitous.   It’s odd that Ellington didn’t venture into this territory earlier. There is a section of Black, Brown And Beige (Cy Runs Rock Waltz) that is a waltz, but it was written by Strayhorn, as was the waltz section of Mood Indigo on the 1950 Masterpieces by Ellington. After Lady Mac, Ellington had success with a number of waltzes including Paris Stairs (from the soundtrack of Paris Blues in 1961) and 1970’s The Aristocracy Of Jean LaFitte (from New Orleans Suite).   Personnel: Recorded NYC April 24, 1957 Reeds: Johnny Hodges, Russell Procope, Jimmy Hamilton, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney Trumpets: Cat Anderson, Willie Cook, Clark Terry, Ray Nance Trombones: Britt Woodman, Quentin Jackson, John Sanders Piano: Duke Ellington Bass: Jimmy Woode Drums: Sam Woodyard    Form: A          20 bars (8+4+8) Tag      8 bars (4+4) B          16 bars (8+8)   Here’s how it plays out:   A          Piano Solo A          Sax soli melody A          Ensemble counterpoint—Trombone unis melody Tag      Ensemble B          Alto Sax solo A          Flugelhorn solo B          Flugelhorn solo Tag      Ensemble Reprise A          Ensemble Shout Coda    2 bars Ominous Resolution