For collectors of Ellingtonia, it is interesting to note that the first disc is comprised entirely of sessions in which Ben Webster
participates and which were recorded for the Decca label in November 1943. The sides were also issued by the World Transcription service . Webster had left the Duke Ellington orchestra under something of a cloud in August of that year. Coincidentally, Ellington himself recorded for World Transcriptions and his very first session for the label was on the same day that Webster was in the studio with the Herman Orchestra. From the ever-reliable Lord's discography, here is a 'screen shot' of the Herman sessions with Webster...
The Mosaic collection anthologises these recordings which are obtainable otherwise only across numerous obscure LPs.
Outside of the collection's remit is one final encounter in the recording studio between herman and Webster in the forties which took place for a V-Disc session on 24 January, 1945, one title recorded: Somebody Loves Me. That particular track was published on the album Ben and the Boys.
An even more rare encounter between Herman and the Ellingtonians is also included on this seven disc set. Another session for World Transcriptions on 4 April, 1944 was recorded with a group that included Ray Nance and Johnny Hodges. From Lord, here are the details...
Twelve months earlier to the day, or as good as, Ben Webster had been a member of the Ellington Orchestra and they were appearing 'in residence' at The Hurricane Club, Broadway. Ironically, the Orchestra was again playing the Hurricane when Nance and Hodges must have 'moonlighted' to play the session with Herman. It's a small World!
Recordings of the Ellington Orchestra with Nance and Hodges at the Hurricane from that same week or so were included on a CD released by Duke Ellington Society UK at the end of 2017.
Notice of a new book on the music of Duke Ellington: Sweet Thunder by Jack Chambers.
This is not a review. I am lucky to consider Professor Jack Chambers of Toronto University a friend and had the privilege of helping to prepare proofs of original versions of two of the essays included in this collection for publication in DESUK's Blue Light when I was Editor.
I enjoyed reading the book immensely. Jack's knowledge of Ellington's music is extensive. The style is conversational and sends the reader straight in search of the music, listening again with enhanced appreciation.
From the publicity poster...
Sweet Thunder explores the music of Duke Ellington by tracing nine themes through his amazingly productive 50 year career as composer, orchestrator, pianist, and cultural icon. Lifelong listeners to Ellington and newcomers seeking an entry point into Ellington’s voluminous works will find this book stimulating, illuminating, and entertaining.
1 Ellington’s Harlem... “...the world’s most glamorous atmosphere” 2 Sweet and Pungent Duke and the Plunger Mutes 3 The Fifth Reed Ben Webster and the Tenor Ascent 4 Lotus Eaters Unite! The Spectral Alliance of Johnny Hodges and Billy Strayhorn 5 Panther Patter Duke Ellington at the Piano 6 Bardland Shakespeare in Ellington’s World 7 Afro Eurasian Ellington 8 Duke Ellington’s Parallel Universe: The Stockpile 9 Three Steps into The River
One aspect of Jack's Ellingtonian studies not covered by the book is the research he did on Ellington's 1972 composition Celebration which he presented at the Ellington conference last year in Birmingham. I'm holding out, then, in hope of a sequel to this marvellous collection of essays.
Such is the generosity of Professor Chambers, it is possible to sample quite extensively the essays in this book. While the definitive versions of Jack's essays can be read only in the book, an earlier version of Bardland may be read in an edition of the Duke Ellington Music Society Bulletin here.
A valuable supplement to the Con Chapman biography of Johnny Hodges reviewed here previously, an early version of my favourite chapter in the book, Lotus Eaters Unite! entitled Sweet as Bear Meat: The Paradox of Johnny Hodges may be read here.
Full details of the presentations Jack Chambers has made to TDES 40: The Toronto Chapter of the Duke Ellington Society may be found (2000-2012) here and (2013-present) here.
Just finished reading Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges by Con Chapman (Oxford University Press).
It left me with the impression, as do all the best biographies, that I have spent time in the company of the subject. This is some achievement given that Hodges gave very little away, his face while he spun those ineffable creamy solos from his alto sax as immobile and enigmatic as that of an Easter Island statue; and a man in the very few interviews in which he participated, neither given to candour nor introspection. What sources are available, however, Chapman has gleaned like a prospector panning for gold. The book is scholarly and thorough, the presentation and organisation of the facts and material sympathetic to its subject.
The biography is organized largely chronologically. Chapman draws the musician’s early history and family background very effectively. While the political aspects of Hodges’s story are not particularly emphasized in this study, the casual, careless nature of the paperwork surrounding his birth, upbringing – down to the accuracy and order of his forenames and whether his surname ended in an ‘s’ or not – speaks to the, at best, indifference of the authorities to his heritage. Like many young black men of his age, music was the way for Hodges to aspire, threatening to steal a particularly beautiful soprano saxophone upon which his attention had fallen if his mother did not buy it for him.
Equally evocative is the way in which Chapman also draws the musical milieu of the jazz age in New York as the young man goes to the big city, ‘scuffling; in search of useful employment. While bracketing the story of Hodges’s life in a largely linear and chronological fashion, the biography also comprises a number of ‘side trips’, largely self-contained essays on subjects as diverse as Women and Children, Food and Drink.
One particular chapter on His Tone is both instructive and important. Chapman has certainly done his homework. The book is researched meticulously and the writer’s scrupulous approach is evident in the close observation he has brought even to watching videos of the artist at work in order to explain the various positioning of the mouthpiece Hodges employed in order to achieve his varying effects.
And it is that tone which is the essence of Hodges’s place in the pantheon of great musicians, as instantly recognizable and inimitable as the deft stroke of a charcoal pencil in the hand of Picasso, a true master; an artist. The modernists make fleeting appearances in the Hodges story. One chapter is entitled The Coming of Bird though between Johnny’s collaboration with Parker in the Norman Granz jam sessions in the early fifties and his series of albums on the Verve label in the late fifties following his return to the Ellington fold, the younger man had perished. Coltrane has a walk on part in Hodges’s life also (see photograph), being Coltrane’s employer during Hodges’s brief flirtation with early rhythm and blues and his solo career as bandleader. Throughout all the twists and turns of modernism, Hodges sailed on serenely, his essential style unchanged.
Johnny Hodges with Shorty Baker and John Coltrane
Like that of his own main employer. What of Hodges’s return to Ellington in the mid-fifties? Occasionally, as Chapman catalogues Ellington’s successes post- Newport and the albums that followed immediately in its wake, for instance, Hodges is in danger of dissolving like Disprin in his own story. As he felt once again the gravitational pull of Ellington’s orbit, that, I suppose, is the point, however. How did Hodges feel about Paul Gonsalves effectively stealing the thunder with his incendiary tenor solo at Newport? Or having to return to the Ellington Orchestra at all following the soul destroying accumulations of the business end of the music business when he fronted his own units? We will never know. In his exhaustive research, Con Chapman has found much that is interesting in what Hodges had to say about the ‘external’, practical reasons for his return to Ellington. Hodges argues that he could have settled for a lucrative career as a session musician but, rather, he chose to return to Duke’s aggregation. We must allow Johnny that little conceit, given such an option may have been difficult in that he was not the most facile sight-reader, a necessary condition for such studio work.
Hodges knew his own worth and despite – perhaps because of – the hardships of life on the road, he kept his own counsel and stood by his own standards. In defining and defending his artistry, he was uncompromising in what sort of music he would and would not play. In the penultimate chapter of the book entitled The Blues, Chapman makes an incisive assessment of what this phrase means in terms of popular music and how it was understood by Johnny Hodges. The great gift of Con Chapman’s book is to remind us that as an artist, Hodges was rooted, via the music of his great mentor Sidney Bechet forever faithfully and uncompromisingly in the blues. This was the yardstick against which he invariably measured the worth of any music upon which he was called to essay. His tenacious hold on the form, Chapman tells us, ensured that Ellington’s music itself, too, remained ‘earthed’.
Last December, I attended Coventry Cathedral for a screening of a Sacred Concert telecast filmed there fifty-two years earlier and unseen since. At one point in the broadcast, Harry Carney is soloing when suddenly, unnecessarily and yet knowingly, Johnny Hodges leans conspicuously into shot to tidy the sheets on his music stand. It is almost as if, in his impish fashion, Hodges is intruding just to remind us that he is still there. Con Chapman’s excellent biography does just the same, rendering Hodges present for us again.
President and Mrs Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, His Excellency The President of Liberia and Mrs Tubman, Duke Ellington
A recent interesting item for sale on eBay confirms the spelling of the first name of vocalist (to use an antique term) Toney Watkins who was a fixture of the personnel of the late period of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. His name was often spelled 'Tony' even here on the programme for a concert given at The White House on 27 March, 1968. There is signatory evidence to the contrary, however, since this particular document had been autographed by Watkins himself, as the photographs show.
Here is a screen shot from the ever-reliable Duke Where and When website, with information about the White House concert...
The reception was held in honour of the President of Liberia, William Tubman and the music was played by the Duke Ellington Octet. I should certainly like to hear those selections from Liberian Suite played with that instrumentation. It is unlikely any recording was made of the event.
There is a fascinating link on the Where and When website to an article about the reception entitled Jeff Castleman: Bass Player and Lone Survivor. The colour photograph which headlines this post is taken from that source.
Here are the photographs of the programme for the concert...
Recently listed on eBay, this inscribed powder compact...
The vendor describes the item as follows:
"Guaranteed legitimate Duke Ellington signature. My mother was born in 1921 went to a show that featured Duke Ellington. She had him sign the powder puff from her compact. She kept this all her life, but gave it to me shortly before she died in 2015. I am going to guess that this was probably signed around 1940. Could be shortly before or shortly after. It was signed in Evansville Indiana but I don’t know at what venue. It has been stored out of the sunlight and separate from the compact. There are still powder in the compact."
I don't know about Ellington's appearance in Evansville around 1940. Numerous broadcast performances from 1945 survive, however, from the Treasury series... "your Saturday Date with the Duke."
It isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that the owner of that compact was in the audience for the recording of one of the shows and one could hear today, in the words of the poet, her hands "tiny in all that air applauding..."
And on the subject of Date with Duke, to round out this reminiscence, here is the George Pal 'puppetoon' of that title from 1947, Duke and the orchestra playing, appropriately enough, selections from The Perfume Suite...
This performance of selections from Duke Ellington's Sacred music was streamed live midnight UK time Wednesday. Principal soloist is DeVonne Gardner who, of course, performed this music with Ellington himself. Ms Gardner reminisces about her audition for Ellington with Billy Strayhorn at the piano and her involvement with the Orchestra.
For ur readers in the USA, this intimate chamber performance is a precursor of a full concert of Sacred music by Bucks County Choral Society on 1 and 2 June. All the details below from the website here.
2018-2019 Spring Concert
Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts
Saturday, June 1, 2019 at 4:00 PM
Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, 38th St. between Chestnut and Market, University City
[free parking available in the lot at the corner of 38th St. and Powelton Avenue (across from Penn/Presbyterian Hospital,
a 7-minute walk down 38th from the Cathedral]
Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 at the door - See the Purchase Tickets page for info on Group Sales.
“Everyone prays in his own language.” The final concert of the season features an uplifting program of music from Duke Ellington’s ground-breaking Sacred Concerts. Along with the beloved musicality of Jay Fluellen and his ensemble, we will be inspired by two exciting new voices on the scene, soprano Brittany Rumph and baritone Shafiq Hicks, who in turn will be listening very carefully to the return of Choral Society favorite, original Ellington soloist DeVonne Gardner. We will also be joined by two guest choirs, the Intermezzo Choir, directed by Carrie Lessene, and the Philadelphia Community Mass Choir directed by Jay Fluellen.
Choral Society: Ellington - In the Beginning (Shafiq Hicks)
Philadelphia Community Mass Choir: Spiritual, arr. Fluellen/Stevenson – Wade in the Water
Choral Society:Ellington - Will you be there / Ain’t but the one (Brittany Rumph)
Intermezzo Choir Ministry: Thomas A. Dorsey, arr. Arnold Sevier - Precious Lord
Choral Society: Ellington - Father Forgive (all soloists)
Solo: Ellington – My Love (DeVonne Gardner)
Combined choirs: Ellington - The Majesty (Beauty) of God (DeVonne Gardner)
Intermission
Combined choirs: Ellington - Come Sunday (all soloists)
Choral Society: Ellington - Don’t get down on your knees and pray (Shafiq Hicks)
Philadelphia Community Mass Choir: Clayton White – Psalm 150
Choral Society: Ellington - Freedom (Sweet fat and that)
Intermezzo Choir Ministry: Don’t you want to go
Choral Society: Roscoe Gill - Hallelujah! Salvation and Glory!
Combined choirs: Ellington - Praise God and Dance (Brittany Rumph)
Notes on the program:
The Choral Society first performed a program of music from Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts in 2005, which was also our first program introducing original Ellington soloist DeVonne Gardner to our audiences. Fifteen years later, DeVonne voice is as lustrous as ever, and she continues a busy schedule of Ellington performances both in the US and Europe. Ellington and DeVonne have been a part of several Choral Society programs in the intervening years, and we treasure both her artistry and friendship.
A concert like ours today is exactly the environment Ellington had in mind for these autumnal works at the end of a long creative life at the center of American and world music. He conceived of this music not as a Sunday morning church service, not as a performance in a concert hall, not as a late night set in a jazz club; but as a concert in a sacred space where all are welcome, no questions asked.
Ellington wanted to write something free of the expectations of the commercial side of the music business, free of pretention, that would express his most deeply held values: love, justice, humility, and the freedom to be the person he believed God called each one of us to be. And he delivered this with a colloquial wit and self-awareness not commonly found in conversations about faith and religion.
This afternoon, we hope this music fills you with hope and renewal, regardless of your own religious or secular perspective. As much if not more than all of the great sacred masterworks we perform, Ellington’s music has a universality that speaks to the human condition in ways accessible to all.
I contacted the collection's owner, expressing a particular interest in the Ellington recordings in his collection and hoping to find out their destination for future reference. In his reply, Dr John Altman sent along a scan of the photograph at the top of this post and told me:
"My uncle conducted for Duke at the Palladium in 1948 when he was only able to bring Kay Davis and Ray Nance - thereafter Duke referred to my uncle Woolf Phillips as ‘my bandleader!’ "
"It was... an age when British musicians were worrying about transatlantic competition and the Musicians' Union placed impossible restrictions on visits by their American counterparts - which meant no Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman orchestras. So the two men played the Palladium as "visiting artists" and the band that was to Take The 'A' Train with Ellington, and accompany Goodman's clarinet was Phillips's. A British orchestra never had such an opportunity."
Quite a connection and a fascinating bit of Ducal history. There is a little more reference to the UK part of the tour in an earlier post here.
The video collection has found safe harbour and will be curated by Hamilton College in the USA.
