La Dolce Vita

I recently discovered, via Spotify, a recording of a Duke Ellington performance which has not been made available before. 

My best guess is that the recording is taken from Duke Ellington's appearance at XIV FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DEL JAZZ which took place in Bolgogna, Italy in 1973 whilst Ellington was on his final European tour.

The festival continues, annually, to this day and the website  says:

Nei giorni 8-9-10 novembre 1973 si tenne il XIV Festival Internazionale del Jazz che presentò interessanti gruppi di giovani: uno italiano, la Big Band degli allievi del Conservatorio di Bologna diretta da Ettore Ballotta, l’altro americano, “The Young Giants of Jazz” con Jimmy Owens, Gary Burton, Cedar Walton e Roy Haynes. Furono inoltre presentati alcuni dei miti che negli ultimi cinquant’anni avevano fatto grande e reso popolare il jazz: la celebre orchestra di Duke Ellington, B.B. King, Sarah Vaughan, e, infine, Miles Davis.

Google translates this - very loosely - as:

'In the days 8-9-10 November 1973 was held the XIV International Festival of Jazz which showed interesting groups of young people: one Italian, the Big Band of the students of the Conservatory of Bologna, directed by Ettore Ballotta, the other American, "The Young Giants of Jazz "with Jimmy Owens, Gary Burton, Cedar Walton and Roy Haynes. They were also presented some of the myths that over the past fifty years had made great and popularized the jazz orchestra of the famous Duke Ellington, BB King, Sarah Vaughan, and finally, Miles Davis.'

From the ever-reliable Ellingtonia discography, full details of the engagement are as follows:

DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA  Bologna, I       8 November 1973

Concert, Palasport

Mercer Ellington(t); Harold "Money" Johnson(t,v); Barry Lee Hall, Johnny Coles(t,flh); Vincente Prudente, Art Baron(tb); Chuck Connors(btb); Russell

Procope(cl,as); Harold Minerve(cl,as,fl,pic); Harold Ashby(ts,cl); Paul Gonsalves, Percy Marion(ts); Harry Carney(cl,bcl,as,bar); Duke Ellington(p); Joe Benjamin(sb); Quentin White(d); Anita Moore, Tony Watkins(v)

¬ Kinda Dukish                                    

_| Rockin' In Rhythm

Creole Love Call        

Satin Doll       

Spacemen     

In A Sentimental Mood        

¬ Caravan     

_| In Triplicate (In Duplicate)         

New York, New York - vAMo           

I Got It Bad - vAMo   

Blem - vAMo 

Chinoiserie    

Basin Street Blues - vMJ      

Hello, Dolly! - vMJ     

Medley          

1. Don't Get Around Much Anymore          

2. Mood Indigo         

3. I'm Beginning To See The Light 

4. Sophisticated Lady           

Love You Madly - vTW        

Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me - vTW  

One More Time For The People - vAMo,TW          

Things Ain't What They Used To Be    

Courtesy of Spotify, here is the album, with half an hour's worth of selections from the concert programme, recorded - and released - by RAI Radio in Italy.

       

Solo Responsibilities...

Must I Fight City Hall?

Sights and sounds from New York City Hall. Forty five years ago today, a reception was held for Duke Ellington. Video footage from the event is posted below.

And from the same venue, some four years earlier, another civic reception in sound only.

Ring Dobell's

Gone are the days when Saturday mornings might be spent browsing the local record shop. (Picture above, the famous Dobell's Record Shop in London).

The death knell was sounded, I suppose, by the internet and rummaging around recently on Spotify, it's not difficult to see why. 

There must be every album imaginable by every major artist available : everything the casual listener could want.

Scratch the surface, though - particularly for any music recorded fifty years or more ago, and one is confronted with a plethora of 'grey area', mis-labelled mis-catalogued recordings, the provenance of much of which is unknown. 

And for the listener whose attitude is less than casual, the catalogue does not run particularly deep. 

However, posts here are occasionally illustrated by tracks embedded from the Spotify service.

Do browse the racks. If you haven't joined Spotify, you'll be prompted to do so by clicking on the links and you will have to download the Spotify gizmo. There's always a price to pay, of course: the music is interrupted by 'a word from our sponsor' between tracks, unless you choose to pay for an 'upgrade'. It gets the music out there - and legitimately so - that's the main thing. 

Feedback welcome via the 'Comments' section.

La Douceur du Tonnerre

In 1960, Joachim-Ernst Brendt heard Duke Ellington's album Such Sweet Thunder and convinced choreographer Maurice Béjart to stage the album as a ballet. La Douceur du Tonnerre was performed in the television studios of Südwestfunk, Baden-Baden and broadcast originally on 12 September, 1960.

Fifty-four years to the day, here is a video recording of that kinescope which originated with the splendid Crownpropeller's blog.

... the Plaza, man

One of the rarest Ellington albums on the Columbia label is Jazz At the Plaza Volume II. The recording remained unreleased, I think, until the 1970s. Whilst what is essentially a needle drop of the album appeared in France in the eighties, the recording has never been released on compact disc in Duke's native USA.

It still hasn't but on 22 October, it is being released by Sony Japan who - one presumes - will have access to the master tapes. The CBS France release is, in any event, long out of print so this is an exciting release. It is a limited edition - available only until December 2015. It costs 1 000¥ - or about a fiver. Shipping costs are another issue, of course - but a desirable item for the Ellington aficionado nevertheless. Details from CDJapan here.

Maisonette

Maison du Duke, the Ellington study group which headquarters in Paris, have just released a CD of hitherto unreleased performances by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra themed around les girls!

The disc comprises a medley with Ella Fitzgerald in 1959, the first performance of The Girls' Suite, the studio recording of which is rare enough, a couple of numbers where the orchestra accompanies Dinah Washington, from 1961, Jam With Sam from 1963 and a performance of Toot Suite from 1959.

This is the fourth CD of material issued by Maison du Duke, all from the Clavié collection, purchased by the organisation. It is available exclusively as a free gift for 'adhérents', those who sign up for membership for twelve months. Full details here. Add 5 euros in the 'make a donation' box to receive the CD. I renewed membership Sunday last and the CD was with me by Tuesday.