Rough Diamond

Work is coming along for the next edition of Tone Parallel. 'Surfing the 'net' yesterday afternoon researching Ellington's visits to the UK in the late Autumn of 1973, I chanced upon a reference to the work of photographer Harry Diamond whose portrait of Duke from 1973 is posted above.

And as a result of that, I happened across an anecdote new to me about Ellington's UK driver and factotum,  Larry Westland who subsequently founded Music for Youth.

The following is information unlikely to find its way into my next essay for Tone Parallel so I thought it I would share it here as further evidence of the local colour Ellington encountered on his travels... 

...just as one door closed another opened with the most extraordinary opportunity. Through his acquaintance Robert Patterson, a successful impresario who had worked for Stravinsky, he was invited to a party at the house of Renee Diamond, a friend of Duke Ellington who provided him with a London base when he was in the UK (her maiden name was Renee Gertler, and she was the neice of the painter Mark Gertler). 

 

"The person who looked after Duke like a personal assistant had died and Renee turned round to Robert and said 'Who's this bloke?', and Robert said 'He's just back from South Africa and doesn't have a job'." 

 

And so Westland found himself employed as personal minder to one of the most famous names in 20th century music during his 1969 European tour. 

 

"I didn't really know Duke Ellington that much. I wasn't into that kind of music at all. I travelled in the car with him, stayed in the hotel. We had our fights and we had our good moments. He wanted me to go on the next tour in 1971, but Music for Youth had started by then." 

 

He sums up Ellington, whom he came to address, unusually, as Edward, as "ornery, difficult, brilliant and loveable at times." 

 

"We used to do the most amazing things. In hotels in Manchester and a few other places we would order something like 20 cream caramels, or all the cream caramels that were left in the kitchen, and we'd eat ten each. This was at 2, 3, 4 in the morning.

 

Westland's recollections of the tour include assisting Ellington's star tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves on to the stage at the Wintergardens, Bournemouth, propping him up with one hand while attaching his saxophone to its sling with the other. Once ushered to his place Gonsalves, who had hit the bottle after his wife left him, promptly fell asleep, only to burst miraculously into life when his cue arrived. 

 

"Another bonus for Robert was that in the first year, Duke became independent of his American agents there were fears that someone might come looking for him, and I'd earned a green belt in karate while I was in South Africa." 

 

There was only one occasion, though, when it seemed that his services as a bodyguard might be required. 

 

"We did a working men's club in Harrogate, I think it was, and I got into the limo and someone ripped the door open on Duke's side. In fact what he did was he screamed at Ellington 'Don't forget Billy Strayhorn!' I realised it was just a nutter. Ellington sat there for a little while, looked at me and said 'What a f - idiot. How could I ever forget Billy Strayhorn?' 

 

"We had our fights. I remember on one occasion we were going up the MI to Leeds and he was being awful, really awful. So I banged on the window and told the chauffeur to pull over. I jumped out and said 'f**k you' and walked up the hard shoulder -you know, not knowing what I was going to do. My bags were in the car. 

 

"So I'm walking up the MI and suddenly this car drives up alongside me and the window comes down and Edward says 'OK, I'm sorry Larry -get back in'." 

 

So did he get to like Ellington's music? "Oh God, did I! I loved it. I still love it."