Here is a post from 2017 republished here with some further information new to me. I recently discovered another reference to The jaywalker, a play written by Barbara waring and performed in Coventry I can now confirm on 24 June, 1967. In fact, as the photograph below proves, the play was performed on the steps of the cathedral where Ellington and his Orchestra had given a Sacred Concert some 18 months earlier...
The caption to the photograph reads:
"Long haired leather jacketed girls and boys watching a scene from this rehearsal of the first of the Coventry Cathedral Drama Porch Plays 67 The Jay Walker, which has music specialty written by Duke Ellington.
The play will be presented on the Cathedral steps tomorrow."
Date taken: 23rd June 1967
Here is the original post...
The
recent reissue of the Storyville album The
Jaywalker, anthologised in Duke Box 2 set me thinking about the play for which
Ellington composed this music. With 2017 being the fiftieth anniversary of the work’s alleged première at Coventry
Cathedral in July 1967, it seemed appropriate to look a little
further into this theatrical piece.
Research into the background of the play
reveals the fascinating confluence of high art and high living centred around
the ‘bright young things’ of the twenties and thirties who could well have
stepped from the pages of a novel by Evelyn Waugh.
The
Jaywalker was written by the former actress Barbara Waring who eventually
became Lady Cunliffe through her second marriage to the chairman of British
Aluminium, Geoffrey Cunliffe. Her first marriage was to the theatrical agent
Lawrence Evans and Barbara Waring was steeped in theatre. She had appeared in
Nöel Coward’s Cavalcade and graduated
to work in the film industry, her most famous appearance being made in the film
In Which We Serve. She was also an
habitué of art critic Arthur Jeffress’ social circles, going on from clubs such
as the Blue Angel to frequent parties he held at Orchard Court. Was it at one
of these gatherings she first heard Ellington’s music? The critic was used to
auditioning ‘hot’ records he had brought back from America on such occasions in
the company of fellow jazz enthusiasts like Constant Lambert. When Ellington
first visited Britain in 1933, he had been lionised by and later met teenager
Renee Gertler, neice of the artist Mark Gertler. As Mrs Leslie Diamond, in the
1950s Renee entertained Ellington at her Park Lane home and it was through this
mutual friendship that Ellington came to write the music for Waring’s The Jaywalker.
In
his book Duke Ellington’s Music for the
Theatre, John Franceschina describes the plot of The Jaywalker as follows:
“The
play tells the simple story of a boy named Mac who wants to stop the traffic on
the highway so that people on one side of the road can have the freedom to
cross to the other side. After being bullied by a gestapo-like policeman, and
witnessing the callousness of the crowd at the sight of a hit-and-run accident,
Mac decides to take it upon himself to stop the traffic by running out into the
road where he is ‘crucified between a lorry and a Rolls Royce.’ ”
The tune Kixx subsequently found its way into
Ellington’s Second Sacred Concert as The Biggest and Busiest Intersection.
Whilst the connection to Ellington’s sacred work is, of course, obvious, I’m
sure there are connections to be discovered, too, to the narrative drive of
other Ellington works as diverse as Monologue
(Pretty and the Wolf), A Drum is a Woman and The Golden Broom and the Green Apple,
all works which might be said to address the idea of congress in the widest
sense of the word: the nature of the exchange between man and woman; man and
God – Morality
and mortality, if you will. I’m sure there’s an academic paper in there
somewhere… Duke Ellington and his Orchestra recorded the music for The Jaywalker in a single ‘stockpile’
recording session in New York City on 23 March, 1967.
What of the play itself, however, for
which the music was destined originally? John Franceschina writes:
“… for some reason by 17 July, the author
had not yet received permission from Ellington to use the score in production.
With Duke’s touring schedule during the summer of 1967, it comes as no surprise
that Lady Cunliffe had difficulty in pinning him down. Ultimately the
production proceeded as planned, received warm notices, and except for the
echoes of the score in Ellington’s Second
Sacred Concert, disappeared forever.”
It
remains a mystery still…
There is further reading on Barbara Waring and The Jaywalkerhere.
When Duke Ellington took his Sacred Concerts abroad, the choral parts were taken by groups of singers local to the venue. This, I assume, explains the involvement of Bob Sharples, for example, at the performance in Coventry Cathedral in 1966. 'Uncle Bob' was better known on these islands as the musical director for television personality Hughie Green of Opportunity Knocks fame (click on the linked title to see 'Uncle Bob' introduce the show...)
When Ellington performed parts of The Second Sacred Concert (and click the link here to watch the recording on a Japanese website) on 16 November, 1969 at The Church of St-Sulpice, just days before celebrations in Paris for his 70th birthday, the local vocal group was The Swingle Singers.
The Ecclesiastical, other-worldly sound of The Swingles (as they were later known when Ward Swingle re-founded the group in London in 1974) is suited perfectly to Ellington's Sacred music and, a staple of mainstream variety shows as they were on TV in the UK, perfect as the days of Autumn turn ashen in the run up to Christmas. So, with this in mind, I compiled a complete playlist of the eleven albums the original Parisian edition of The Swingles recorded for the Philips label during the Swingling(?) sixties, the period when they appeared with Ellington.
If you have access to Spotify, the playlist is here:
In my researching of the group's history, I was delighted to discover a hitherto unpublished recording from this period. The recording may be found on a blog called Dans l'ombre des studios. It is Pavane for a Dead princess' by Ravel, recorded by The Swingles in 1967. The recording may be found here.
I recently happened upon a page of the website of Radiotelevisión Española, or RTVE, with the broadcast recordings of Duke Ellington's performances in the Basilica de Santa Maria Del Mar, Barcelona from 1969 and 1973.
The following descriptions from the website have been put through Google Translate which may explain any peculiarities in the translation.
50 years ago, Duke Ellington shouted 'Liberty' in Barcelona
It is 50 years since Duke Ellington's first concert at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona. The audience was amazed by the spectacle and surprised by the performance of the song Freedom in the midst of Franco's regime. The musician returned to offer another concert there. place and with the same critical and public success in 1974(sic)
Shocked, the public heard in Santa Maria del Mar, in the historic Born neighborhood of Barcelona, at the concert of Duke Ellington and his orchestra, the interpretation of the song Freedom. It was 1969. The closing of the IV Barcelona International Jazz Festival was being celebrated and one of its featured shows was this concert.
Along with the great Duke Ellington (Washington, 1899) and his great orchestra, their vocalists Alice Babs and Tony Watkins sang, and the Sant Jordi Choir completed the staging with its founder and director Oriol Martorell at the helm. Also among the musicians were a group of jazz fans who two years later would form the legendary band La Locomotora Negra.
The concerto belongs to those of sacred music composed by Ellington. A musician who, to compose, drank from his roots in show business and of course African-American culture, but also from his religious faith.
And this is how the Study in Black program captured it. The TVE teams recorded the event on November 24, 1969 and it was broadcast at Christmas. It was directed by Jose Carlos Garrido and the narrator was Albert Mallofré. The recording is in two parts and bears little resemblance to the familiar themes of those dates on our television.