Live: March 2025

Sunday, 2 March 2025 15:00 (EST)

Ellington Effect Workshop #49 with David Berger

The Gal From Joe's

About The Gal From Joe's

Minor key tunes with minimal chord progressions trace back to New Orleans. By the late 1930s several, like St. James Infirmary, Minnie The Moocher and Sing, Sing, Sing entered the American vernacular. Ellington composed quite a few minor key numbers himself including his theme (East St. Louis Toodle-oo), The Mooche, Black And Tan Fantasy and It Don’t Mean A Thing. Like East St. Louis Toodle-oo, The Gal From Joe’s is a big AB form—A section is in Bb minor and the B section is in Db (the relative major). The minor section is mostly very spare harmonically, alternating between tonic and leading tone diminished. The occasional use of tonic diminished, V/V, and shoulder chords create surprise. The major section mainly alternates between tonic and leading tone diminished chords. Both A and B have 8-bar bridges for relief.

Johnny Hodges plays the sketchy melody, taking liberties and making it his own while alternating with the pep section. He is the only soloist in the entire piece. The brass and saxes develop the A material with the pep section returning for the vamp ending. The studio recordings all end with a board fade. Subsequent airchecks extend the vamp and cadence in the relative major.

There is far more repetition in this chart than we are used to from Ellington. Sometimes the repeats change octaves and/or dynamics. Coupled with the simplicity of melody and harmony, one would think this recording would have become a Swing Era hit. Evidently, Ellington had faith in it and kept it in the band’s book through 1940. Hodges recorded it in the ‘50s with Strayhorn, and finally, Duke brought it back for a minute in 1971.

The main appeal is the relaxed swing groove. I don’t know who this gal was (Ellington would say, “A gentleman would never tell,”) but we can assume that she wasn’t flashy, dangerous, threatening, high maintenance, or terribly exciting, but she was so cool and comfortable to be with that she was irresistible.

Tickets available here.

Monday 3 March, 2025 18:30 (GMT)

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Repertory Big Band plays Ellington's New Orleans Suite

Director Ed Puddick

Eastside Jazz Club, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire 200 Jennens Road, B4 7XR

Tickets available here.

Saturday 22 March, 19:30 (GMT)

Harmony In Harlem Directed by Michael Kilpatrick

St Andrew's St Baptist Church, Cambridge CB2 3AR

Harmony In Harlem return to St Andrew's Street Baptist Church for more vibrant swing, exotica and jazz from the great composers Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, including two movements from The Far East Suite. Doors open at 7:00pm.

Tickets, £17.50/£7.50/£0  cash/card on the door or available online here.

The Jasmine Releases: Discography 2

 

Duke Ellington On Mercer

Oscar Pettiford, his Cello and Quartet 

New York City, NY 13 September 1950

Duke Ellington(p); Oscar Pettiford(ce); Lloyd Trottman(sb); Jo Jones(d)

Perdido

Add Billy Strayhorn(cs)

Take The 'A' Train

Oscalypso

Billy Strayhorn out

Blues For Blanton

Blues No. 3

The Ellingtonians

New York City, NY 21 September 1950

Red Rodney(t); Johnny Hodges(as); Harry Carney(bar); Duke Ellington(mandolin piano); Wendell Marshall(sb); Max Roach(d)

The New Piano Roll Blues

Billy Strayhorn Trio

New York City, NY 3 October 1950

Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn(p); Wendell Marshall(sb)

Cotton Tail

C-Jam Blues

Flamingo

Bang Up Blues

Wild Bill Davis and his Real Gone Organ

New York City, NY October 1950

Wild Bill Davis(o);Duke Ellington(p); John Collins(g); Wendell Marshall(sb); Jo Jones(d)

Things Ain’t What They Used To Be

Billy Strayhorn Trio

New York City, NY November 1950

Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn(p); Joe Shulman(sb)

Tonk

Johnny Come Lately

In A Blue Summer Garden

Great Times

The Coronets

Detroit, MI 17 April 1951

Cat Anderson(t); Juan Tizol(tb); Jimmy Hamilton(cl,ts); Willie Smith(as); Paul Gonsalves(ts); Billy Strayhorn(p); Wendell Marshall(sb); Louie Bellson(d)

Night Walk

Moonlight Fiesta

She

The Happening

The Coronets

Boston, MA 18 May 1951

Britt Woodman, Quentin Jackson, Juan Tizol(tb); Jimmy Hamilton(cl,ts); Russell Procope(cl,as); Willie Smith(as);Duke Ellington(p); Wendell Marshall(sb); Louie Bellson(d)

Swamp Drum

Sultry Serenade

Duke Ellington out. Add Billy Strayhorn(p)

Indian Summer

Billy Strayhorn out. Add Duke Ellington(p)

Britt-And-Butter Blues

The Coronets

New York City, NY 1 June 1951

Juan Tizol(tb); Willie Smith(as); Duke Ellington(p); Billy Strayhorn(o); Wendell Marshall(sb); Louie Bellson(d)

Caravan

The Coronets

New York City, NY 19 June 1951

Juan Tizol(tb); Jimmy Hamilton(cl,ts); Willie Smith(as); Duke Ellington(p); Wendell Marshall(sb); Louie Bellson(d)

Alternate

Hoppin’ John

Duke Ellington out. Add Billy Strayhorn(p)

Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid

The Jasmine releases: Capitol Singles Plus

Take The A Tone...

Jack Chambers' groundbreaking new book A Tone Parallel to Duke Ellington The man in the Music sees publication on 17 March 2025. Details of the book are printed below. Copies may be pre-ordered here.

A Tone Parallel to Duke Ellington

The Man in the Music

Jack Chambers 

Ellington’s music with fresh thematic explorations to delight music lovers

Description

In this insightful new volume, Jack Chambers explores Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington’s music thematically, collating motifs, memes, and predilections that caught Ellington's attention and inspired his restless muse. In presenting Ellington’s work in this manner, Chambers situates the music in the context in which it was created—historical, political, musical, biographic, and personal. Chambers offers a novel kind of access to the man and the music.

Ellington’s music presents a daunting task for listeners because of its sheer volume. The numbers defy credulity. Ellington (1899–1974) wrote more than two thousand compositions in numerous genres, including pop songs, big band swing, revues, hymns, tone poems, soundtracks, suites, ballets, concertos, and symphonies. Where to start? The themes in this book offer natural entry points. They provide the context in which the music came into being, with enough biography to satisfy music lovers, even those who come to the book knowing very little about Ellington’s life. Each chapter features its own playlist as a guide to the music discussed, and, in some cases, fuller listings in case readers might want to pursue a topic further. In the early chapters, Chambers covers topics that occupied Ellington through much of his career, and in later chapters he covers more specific themes, some of them from Ellington's last decades, which are less well studied. The music, Ellington said, is his “continuing autobiography,” and it reveals the man behind it.

Reviews

"A Tone Parallel to Duke Ellington is original and stimulating, a significant contribution to the literature on the music of Duke Ellington. Written in an elegant and engaging style, the book offers new insight to Ellington scholars but at the same time offers an accessible point of entry to readers new to Ellington’s work, life, and times. Demonstrating exemplary knowledge and expertise, Jack Chambers’ thematic approach sheds new light on Ellington’s achievements, making astute observations on their limits and offering much food for thought on Ellington’s legacy and its future. This is a book for scholars, students, Ellington’s legion of admirers, and anyone interested in one of the most culturally significant figures of the twentieth century."

- Ian Bradley, former editor of Blue Light, the Duke Ellington Society UK journal

"As we mark the 125th anniversary of Duke Ellington’s birth, and the 50th year since his passing, Jack Chambers’s book will be a focal point for the attention generated about Ellington. It is a valuable entry point for new Ellington fans."

- Steven C. Bowie, author of Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams

JACK CHAMBERS is professor at the University of Toronto and an acclaimed author and teacher of music and language. He is a longtime con- tributor to the Globe and Mail (Toronto), Coda magazine, and other jazz journals, and a participant in annual conferences. His jazz writings include the prizewinning biography Milestones:  e Music and Times of Miles Davis; Bouncin’ with Bartok:  e Incomplete Works of Richard Twardzik; and numerous articles and reviews.

Live: February 2025

Michael Hashim All Billy Strayhorn Concert

8 February, 2025 

Joe Solomon Studio, 53 East 34th St., Room 201, New York, NY  🎷

The wonderful Neal Kirkwood is hosting and playing piano with your humble narrator on saxophones, the mighty Jennifer Vincent on contrabass and Jazz Legend Steve Little on drums.

We invite you to Joe Solomon Studio, 53 East 34th St., Room 201. Enter left of Pasteur Pharmacy Display, scroll to Joe Solomon Room 201, press buzzer. We start at 7:30pm and the space is very small so you might want to RSVP at hashimoo2@gmail.com. We will be concentrating on rarities like Absinthe, Something to Live For, Smada, Ballad for Very Tired and Very Sad Lotus Eaters, Snibor, Blood Count

...be seeing you!

Sunday, February 16th 15:00 (EST)

Ellington Effect Workshop #48 with David Berger

Join us for the 48th Zoom webinar in David Berger's Ellington Effect workshop series, which will focus on Ellington's iconic composition Jack The Bear. 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.  

Get a ticket here, or an annual membership here.

About Jack The Bear

Originally written in 1939, the story told to me by Mercer Ellington goes that Ellington wasn’t happy with it and put it aside. While Strayhorn was staying with Mercer, he studied Duke’s scores that were laying around the apartment. When he came across this one, he understood the problem Ellington was having with it and offered a solution. 

Two major changes were made: adding an intro using the reed soli from the first shout chorus in call-and-response with bass solo and replacing the opening tutti call-and-response with piano/tutti call-and-response. In the recap the new bass player replaces the piano and continues to play a cadenza in time. This was Jimmy Blanton’s spectacular debut on vinyl with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Jazz bass playing would never be the same.

Between Blanton’s huge sound, virtuosity, propulsive, swinging time, and adventurous harmonic and melodic ideas he eclipsed every bassist on earth. After Sonny Greer heard Blanton in a club in St. Louis, he brought Ellington to hear this 19-year-old phenom. Duke hired him on the spot. On his first gig with the band, he stood next to Billy Taylor, who approached Ellington at the end of the night with his resignation saying that sharing the bandstand with this kid would be too embarrassing. 

Immediately, Ellington knew he had the next innovation in jazz. On November 22, 1939 he recorded three duet tracks with Blanton, two of which were released by Columbia. Not being big band recordings, Columbia didn’t push them, so they didn’t reach a wide audience, but Blanton was playing with the band nightly and lighting a fire under everyone. Count Basie’s rhythm section had been the standard for the past three years, but now Ellington was pushing the boundaries of swing. 

In January, 1940 Ben Webster joined the band. This gave Ellington a great tenor saxophone soloist for the first time and a fifth voice in the sax section, which would now rival Jimmie Lunceford’s 5-man sax section. Ellington began writing new charts to feature Blanton and Webster, but he needed to continue to play some of the older charts written for four saxes, two, of which, were not recorded: Ko-Ko and Jack The Bear. For Ko-Ko Ellington wrote Ben a new part, but for Jack The Bear and all the other charts the band played, Ben, who sat between Hardwick and Bigard doubled their lead parts down a octave. 

Like many other Ellington charts, he combines the 12-bar blues form with other forms. The solos, accompaniment, ensemble playing, composition and arranging are all at the highest level. Recorded in tandem with Ko-Ko, Ellington ushered in a new era, which has come to be called The Blanton-Webster Band. 

Although Ellington had great bands before and afterwards, this 3-year period from 1940-43 is recognized as not only his best band, but the best large ensemble in the history of jazz. With the exception of the two newcomers, the personnel has been steady for years, with the core of the band going back to the 1920s. 

Ellington’s writing became more inspired and mature. In his personal life, Cotton Club dancer Evie Ellis moved in with him and would stay for the rest of his life. These first three years were fulfilling for him with her, but like all his other relationships, he got tired of the same thing. His aversion to confrontation and not wanting to hurt Evie, he never asked her to leave, but it was never the same. A few years earlier with Mildred, he just moved and neglected to tell her. Apparently, that wouldn’t work with Evie. 

In the meantime, for these first three years, Ellington is at the top of his game—a man possessed. The experimentation of the 1930s has led to everything coming together in ways that the other bands and arrangers have never even dreamed possible, while serving the swing dancers and listeners. 

He has become a cultural icon displaying elegance and sophistication in dress, manners, elocution and intelligence. Orson Welles said that Ellington was the only genius he knew besides himself.  The two of them planned to make a movie about the history of jazz at this time, but it never came to fruition. 

Although the public was unaware, the Duke Ellington Orchestra was the first racially integrated band since Juan Tizol joined in 1929. In January, 1940 Herb Jeffries joined. He previously sang with Earl Hines and acted in films, where he was billed the Bronze Buckaroo, but in reality Herb was of Sicilian decent, which means that somewhere in his family’s history there were some Africans, but not recently. Herb was in the vernacular “passing”.