Live: October 2024

Sunday 13 October 2024 15:00 (BST)

Harmony In Harlem, directed by Michael Kilpatrick

Overture to a Jam Session

St John's Walk, Market Street, Harlow, Essex CM17 0AJ

Tel: 01279 417575

Tickets: £15/£5/£0 online or cash/card on the door

Harmony In Harlem is returning to St John's ARC in October for a second performance of their feature Overture to a Jam Session, a two-part exposition of the genius of Billy Strayhorn. We are also presenting a couple of new songs with Jane Mayo and revisiting some of our older repertoire of up-tempo 1930s/40s swing from the maestro, Duke Ellington.

Tickets may be ordered here or by phoning St John's ARC at the number above. Doors open at 2:30pm.

Monday 14 October 2024, 20:00-21:30 (BST)

North West Duke Ellington Orchestra 

Christ The King Parish Club, Score Lane, Childwall, Liverpool L16 6AW

The NW Duke Ellington Orchestra welcomes you to their second concert at Christ The King Parish Club! Directed by Phil Shotton, join us for a night of Duke Ellington's finest music. Get ready to be swept off your feet by the timeless tunes of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, performed by this talented 15 piece big band. Don't miss out on this unforgettable evening filled with jazz, swing, and soulful melodies. Bring your friends and family for an unforgettably fabulous night out!

Tickets here.

Play On

Everyman and Playhouse, Liverpool, 15- 19 October

What does it take for a woman to make it in a man's world? 

Meet Vy, a talented songwriter looking to make it big in the 1940's Harlem scene. She quickly learns from her uncle Jester that women will never be taken seriously in a man’s world. But, like many a strong hero, she refuses to accept defeat. Through her gender fluid cunning, she meets club owner The Duke and sensational nightclub singer Lady Liv and is swept up in a syncopated symphony of melodies, mistaken identities and romance. Who will come out on top? 

Play On! is set in the jazz scene of New York's Cotton Club. This stylish retelling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, directed by Talawa’s Artistic Director Michael Buffong (A Kind of People, Royal Court; All My Sons, Talawa and Royal Exchange) fuses the thrilling music of Duke Ellington with street dance choreography. Prepare to be wowed by this musical spectacular that will have your toes tapping and hands clapping along with the timeless soundtrack.  

www.talawa.com

A new Jazz musical based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Conceived by Sheldon Epps and Book by Cheryl L.West
Music by Duke Ellington 
Produced by Talawa Theatre Company and The Belgrade Theatre
Co-produced with Birmingham Hippodrome, Bristol Old Vic, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Wiltshire Creative
Artwork by Feast Creative 

Details here.

Friday 18 October 2024, 19:30 (BST)

Rebel Yell Jazz Orchestra, The Far East Suite

St Nicholas Church, Church Street, Chiswick, W4 2PJ

The Rebel Yell Jazz Orchestra is returning to St Nicholas Church for a fantastic evening of Jazz.

Rebel Yell Jazz Orchestra will be playing the masters of Big Band, including Francy Boland and featuring Duke Ellington’s legendary Far East Suite. ‘One of the nicest acoustics a band can play in and with the most supportive audiences’.

Apart from pieces from the canon of the Clarke/Boland Big Band, the orchestra will also play the entirety of Duke Ellington’s Impressions of the Far East Suite. It should make for a memorable evening.

St Nicholas’ Church, a treasure by the Thames is an inclusive Anglo-Catholic (CofE) West London church serving the people of Chiswick and beyond. They offer beautiful, traditional worship and spirituality alongside a commitment to the complexity of 21 century life, as well as free children’s activities, silent prayer and outreach projects in the community.

Tickets:

£12 on the door. £7 for under 25s. Friends of St Nicholas Church go free.

Sunday, 10 October 2024 15:00 (EDT)

Ellington Effect Workshop No. 44 with David Berger

Happy Go Lucky Local

About Happy Go Lucky Local

Following in his tradition of train pieces like Choo Choo (1924) and Daybreak Express (1933), Ellington now must follow Strayhorn’s formidable Take The 'A' Train (1941). Happy Go-Lucky Local is the opposite of Daybreak Express. Instead of the overwhelming speed and power threatening everything in its path, this broken-down train rumbles through the sleepy countryside at a soulful easy-going pace bringing a smile to every face and as Jimmy Maxwell used to say, “making you want to wiggle your hands, shake your ass and holler.” 

Originally conceived as the fourth and final movement of the Deep South Suite, this is the only part of the suite that was recorded commercially. Ellington’s recording contract with RCA Victor ended in January of 1946, and he wouldn’t return to Columbia until September of 1947. In the nearly 2-year interim, he recorded for a number of small labels as well as V-discs for the armed forces.

The most important of these recordings were made for Musicraft in a 1-month period between November and December, 1946. Musicraft’s catalog was sold over and over to other small labels, so that these important sides appeared in many bargain compilations over the years.

The Musicraft sides document Ellington and Strayhorn’s postwar shift from the dancehall to the concert hall. Aside from a couple of straight forward ballad features for Johnny Hodges and Marylou Williams’ Trumpets No End, the music consists of longer pieces that couldn’t fit on one side of a 78 rpm disc. Jam-a-ditty was the only movement recorded from the Tonal Suite. Strayhorn’s Overture To A Jam Session, Ellington’s The Beautiful Indians,  the 1937 Diminuendo In Blue minus its finale (Crescendo In Blue), and Happy Go-Lucky Local. Ellington had experimented more than a few times with pieces spanning more than one side going all the way back to Tiger Rag in 1929.

Happy Go-Lucky Local was planned as a 2-parter. Both parts were recorded on the same day, but Part 2 was recorded first. The entire Deep South Suite had already been rehearsed and performed. The original score for Part 1 had been discarded and replaced with completely different (mostly repetitive vamp) material that was likely dictated at rehearsal. The 5-chord transition/modulation appears at the end of Part 1 and then again at the beginning of Part 2. In live performance, there is not repeat.

The blues theme of Part 2 became a Rhythm and Blues hit several years later under the title of Night Train, credited to Jimmy Forrest. Forrest played tenor sax with Ellington from August, 1949 to January, 1950. Curiously, Ellington never contested the authorship.

Tickets available here.

And from Luca Bragalini...

For the Ellington 50-year-old here, focused in October, my bow to the Duke:

From 30 September to 11 October my episodes of the Ellington Special for Italian Swiss Radio (RSI-Rete 2) will be broadcast daily at 17:40 (CET).

The whole 15 episode special will be available in podcast later.

4 and 6 October 20:00 (CET) Ellington 50, Verdi Conservatorio, Milan.

4 October 20:00 (CET), Introduction to the concert for which I curated the programme.

VJ Orchestra directed by Pino Jodice, with arrangements by Jodice and Oscar del Barba.

Gianluca Petrella special guest.

5 October 18:00 (CET) Birdland Library, Milan. Walter Gaeta’s book launch, Duke Ellington and Alvin Ailey. Jazz and dance

6 October 11.00 (CET), Verdi Conservatorio, Sala Puccini, conference The inheritance of a Jazz Duke.

9-15 October Ellington Festival, Brescia Conservatory and Grand Theatre.

10 October, 17:00 (CET) Brescia Conservatory, conference The Musical Universe of Duke Ellington.

12 October, 17:00 (CET), Brescia Conservatory, conference Duke Ellington’s Symphonic Dreams

15 October 20:00 (CET), Teatro Grande in Brescia, Introduction to the Symphonic Ellington concert for which I curated the program. Orchestra of the conservatory directed and arranged by Corrado Guarino. Tino Tracanna special guest.

11-16 October

Jazz In Castle, Duke Ellington & George Gershwin, Melegnano

An initiative supported by the Department of Culture of Melegnano in the person of the deputy mayor Simone Passerini, a kermesse that last year was sold out for the three evenings planned. The formula is the same: two of my captivating storytellings and a final concert that will amplify what was discussed in the conferences.

This year a double celebration: George Gershwin whose Rhapsody in Blue turns 100 years old and Duke Ellington who left us 50 years ago.

18 October 21:00 (CET) Mediceo Castle in Melegnano, conference Duke Ellington: The Man and the Musician

26 October, 21.00 (CET) Theater La Corte dei Miracoli, Melegnano.

Introduction to the concert for which I curated the programme.

Jodice Jazz Sextet & Sunrise String Quartet, arrangements and direction by Jodice.

I'll be waiting for you!

A Piece of Pie

A new series of essays in Tone Parallel on Substack starts next week. Subscription is free here:

https://toneparallel.substack.com/

Twist and (Carolina) Shout

 

In celebration of the fact that next month the Northwest Duke Ellington Orchestra is performing in Liverpool next month (click on hyperlink for details) and the first UK production of Play On is coming to The Everyman and Playhouse, here is the man himself in Liverpool.

This recording of Ellington's solo piano on James P. Johnson's Carolina Shout comes from a concert at the University of Liverpool, 17 February, 1966.

Patrons could enjoy this performance for the princely sum of 7/6 - forty two and a half pence in modern money!

Things ain't what they used to be!

 

 

Queenie Pie Eyed

We are at present engaged in research into Duke Ellington's 'street opera' Queenie Pie which remained unfinished at his death in May 1974.

A major contributor to the process of completing a version of Ellington's last work which came closest to his original vision is Marc T. Gaspard Bolin. 

In April 2009, Dr Bolin addressed a conference at University of Texas on the process of working with the 'fragments' of the opera which Ellington had left. We are presently trying to track down a copy of the paper he wrote on this, Realizing The Duke.

Until then, here is a blog entry Dr Bolin wrote which comprised a transcription of the address he gave at the 2009 conference. 

No copyright infringement is intended, the copyright remaining of course with Marc T. Gaspar Bolin. The source for this post is here.

Below is an unedited transcript of the presentation Realizing the Duke I gave recently at the Echoes of Ellington Conference University of Texas Butler School of Music. A run of Duke Ellington’s Queenie Pie, which I was the arranger, was the centrepiece of this musicological conference. Only a portion of the presentation is available here as I have a forthcoming paper where you’ll be able to read all I know on the subject of Duke Ellington and his romance with Opera as a genre.

Good afternoon everyone. 

My name is Marc Bolin.  I don’t expect anyone to have heard my name before – except for those who are into  the British rock band T-Rex, who burst onto the charts in the 60’s with songs like Hot Love and Get It On, and whose lead singer and I just happen to share a name.

I was asked to speak here today because I share, with all of you, a particular affinity toward Duke Ellington and his music. But  —  more to point, my perspective is unique in that – I have a very  —-  personal relationship with the Duke and, in particular —  his music.

In the fall of 2007, I was asked to realize Duke Ellington’s unfinished opera, Queenie Pie. And, by realizing, I mean: finishing the opera – picking up where he left off… continuing his legacy.

I had spoken to Tom Dean (the Owner and Founding Director of Oakland Opera,) and had expressed interest in the project, but when the moment was upon me, when Tom asked if I would realize Queenie Pie, I felt dreadfully ill equipped for the task. Certainly I recognized the learning potential of this project, and, by accepting the commission, I would be afforded the listening and transcribing time needed to achieve my own long-term goals even still, the thought of not fulfilling the potential of Duke’s music loomed over me as does the Chiristian’s fear of God! 

Ultimately, I was awarded the commission, and completed the score in April of 2007 (which included the needed additions of: an Overture, an Entr’acte, Underscoring, Bows and other thematic material). The opera was subsequently performed from May 9th through  May 25th of that same year.

It’s been two years now since I completed the score, and I continue to learn every single day through Duke’s music. 

Two weeks ago, these arrangements where heard again as I conducted an un-staged, concert version of Queenie Pie  at UCLA in a weekend of free public concerts that were part of the Friends of Jazz celebration of the Duke, which was produced by Kenny Burrell. 

We will all hear these arrangements this weekend  as the Butler Schools treatment is based on Oakland Opera’s production which is of course, these same arrangements and orchestrations. 

As it stands today, Oakland Opera’s treatment  is  the first and only published score of the complete opera Queenie Pie.

My purpose in this presentation is to provide a comprehensive history of Duke Ellington’s Queenie Pie,  that clarifies its convoluted history leading to Oakland Opera’s production in May of 2008, to document the process of realizing and arranging Ellington’s stillborn opera and to provide a foundation for further erudition. 

Presented are insights gained through research of the Ellington collection from the Smithsonian Institute annotations from the study and transcription from Ellington’s oeuvre and the steps taken to assemble the scattered manuscript. 

I will highlight my perspective and  experience as the arranger, and, more importantly, the empirical that I have knowledge gained through the process of realizing a large-scale operatic work, conceived but never completed by America’s most prolific and highly regarded composer Edward Kennedy Ellington. 

Please note that for the sake of narrative flow, I will not be giving a blow-by-blow analysis of Queenie Pie. In my forthcoming article, I will be able to go in-depth about some of the topics,   that I barely seem to scratch the surface here. You see, the saga of Queenie Pie is a seeming taradiddle in itself, awash with details, rumors, false claims and unanswered questions. 

It is my hope, that this paper will help to demystify this opera’s diary without spoiling the fun of the search.

The Book and the Score

Ellington would refer to Queenie Pie as an opéra comique, since the narrative was to be advanced primarily through song and recitative.  He would also call Queenie Pie  a street opera, and others still, a folk opera. 

This particular mixture of words or labels and the search for how to best describe Queenie Pie —  suggests that, —  while the work has its popular elements, it has very serious artistic aims as well.

This duality was at the core of Ellington’s modus operandi and would pervade throughout his body of work.

Duke would spend his entire life looking for ways to better represent the new sounds of his fellow African-Americans whose music was yet to be considered equal among the more serious music of the European concert tradition.

Of the score, what remained could be referred to as “pieces of a score.”

I estimate that ninety-five percent of the melodies and lyrics and about twenty-five percent of the piano score were completed, — no orchestration and a minimum of arrangement ideas were available.  Although, every note that Mr. Ellington wrote is here in the music. I tried my best to complete the ideas that Mr. Ellington had initiated and, as for the libretto, it was nowhere near complete enough to ascertain where? or even how?  the drama would unfold.

Harkening back on cliff-hanger TV shows…I will end this post here. You will just have to wait until my paper is published to read the rest of this story!!!

Further reading:

Dr Bolin's recent paper Congo Square and the Second Line: Their Relevance to Shifting Narratives about Jazz History may be accessed here.

For other posts at Ellington Live on the subject of Queenie Pie, they may be accessed here.

Raiders of the Lost Archive: 3

Dr Theodore A. Shell was the President of the Washington Chapter of the Duke Ellington Society. He was a lifelong devotee and personal acquaintance of Duke Ellington. He passed away in 2016 and much of his collection is housed at the Smithsonian Institution.

His collection of reel-to-reel recordings of the Ellington Orchestra was recently offered privately for sale. Here are scans of part of the collection. We do not have a photograph of at least one page from the Shell catalogue (nos. 192 in the inventory to 217). Nevertheless, these scans do give some idea of the extent and scope of the late Mr Shell's collection. They make an interesting comparison to the website ellingtonia.com

It is from private collections such as this and the exchange of recordings that went on between collectors throughout the late twentieth century that the information on ellingtonia.com is drawn.

We are posting the scans of some of the contents of Dr Shell's collection here for the record...

(Click on the images to enlarge)

One In A Million

Million Years. Autograph musical manuscript.    Condensed score for saxophone, bass and horn

Author: ELLINGTON, Duke 1899-1974

Title: Million Years. Autograph musical manuscript. Condensed score for saxophone, bass and horn

Description: 

Folio (ca. 320 x 240 mm). Unbound. 1-1/3 pp. Notated in pencil on 4 systems of 3 staves per page on one side of a bifolium of 12-stave "Passantino Brand" music manuscript paper. Complete. Unsigned and undated, but ca. 1950. 

With some corrections, alterations, and autograph performance notes including solo cue for Juan Tizol (1900-1984), the Puerto Rican trombonist who performed regularly with Ellington. 

Together with:

A typed statement dated February 21, 2006 confirming that the manuscript was given to J. Bradley Shigeta by the composer's son Mercer Ellington in 1995 "as a personal gift for my assistance with the Duke Ellington Orchestra."

"Duke Ellington was possessed by music. He acknowledged his lifelong obsession in these words: 

Roaming through the jungle of 'oohs' and 'ahs,' searching for a more agreeable noise, I life a life of primitivity, with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats. The more consonant, the more appetizing and delectable they are. Cacophony is hard to swallow. Living in a cave, I am almost a hermit, but there is a difference, for I have a mistress. Lovers have come and gone, but only my mistress stays. She is beautiful and gentle. She waits on me hand and foot. She is a swinger. She has grace. To hear her speak, you cant believe your ears. She is ten thousand years old. She is as modern as tomorrow, a brand-new woman every day, and as endless as time mathematics. Living with her is a labyrinth of ramifications. I look forward to her every gesture. Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no-one." Rattenbury: Duke Ellington, p. 1.

Ellington is widely recognized as the most important composer in jazz history.

Seller ID: 39932

Subject: Autographs & Manuscripts, New Arrivals

Raiders of the Lost Archive: 2

Saving every recorded note the Ellington orchestra ever blew is probably an impossible task on a Herculean scale. Archival work on the recorded and printed legacy of Duke Ellington is something we take great interest in. 

Here is one that got away in a recent eBay auction, the details posted here for the record...

From the vendor's description...

2 Vintage Reel to Reel Audio Recordings Duke Ellington Jazz 30's 60's Music

Item description from the seller

2 Vintage Reel to Reel Duke Ellington Audio Recordings

Concert    9/7/1961 

Concert    7/26/1939

NOT TESTED

Trusting What is on Box is Actually What's on Reel in Box

The 26 July 1939 recording is readily available. The interesting 'find' in this listing is the recording from Houston, Texas, 1961.

This, too, has clearly done the rounds on the collectors' circuit, back in the day.

Discographical details here come from ellingtonia.com

Most of the non-commercial recordings listed on this site originate from privately held recordings which exchanged hands on the collectors' circuit. To what extent a 'complete' set of these recordings is held in one place, an archive which could be accessed by researchers, we do not know. To quote the Bard, however, " 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished"!

DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA Houston, TX  7 September 1961

Dance, Music Hall

Willie Cook, Edward Mullens, Cat Anderson(t); Ray Nance(t,vl,v); Louis Blackburn, Lawrence Brown(tb); Chuck Connors(btb); Jimmy Hamilton(cl,ts); Russell Procope (cl,as); Johnny Hodges(as); Paul Gonsalves(ts); Harry Carney(cl,bcl,as,bar); Duke Ellington(p); Aaron Bell(sb); Sam Woodyard(d); Milt Grayson(v)

Take The ‘A’ Train (theme)                        

¬ Black And Tan Fantasy               

 | Creole Love Call               

_|The Mooche                      

Newport Up              

Tenderly                    

Cops (Asphalt Jungle)                   

Congo Square                     

Summertime                        

Autumn Leaves                    

Rockin' In Rhythm               

Passion Flower                   

All Of Me                    

Day In, Day Out - vMG                     

Why Was I Born - vMG                    

One More once - vMG                     

Jones             

Take The "A" Train (theme)                       

V.I.P. Boogie             

Jam With Sam                     

Skin Deep                 

Medley                       

1. In A Sentimental Mood               

2. Don't Get Around Much Anymore                     

3. Mood Indigo                     

4. I'm Beginning To See The Light                       

5. Sophisticated Lady                     

6. Caravan                

7. Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me - vMG                    

8. Just Squeeze Me - vRN              

9. It Don't Mean A Thing - vRN                   

10. I Let A Song & Don't Get Around Much                      

 

¬ Diminuendo In Blue                    

_| Wailing Interval                

Take The ‘A’ Train (theme)