On July 3, 1966, Duke Ellington was back at the Newport Jazz Festival after a couple of years of absence. His previous performance at the Festival was in 1963. He did not mark it as the 10th anniversary of his 1956 success. Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue was not even on the program but he stayed with his standard program of the time.
Take The “A” Train
The Swedish photographer and DESS member Olle Lindholm, who lived in New York at the time, attended the Festival and took some photos during Ellington’s concert even if the light conditions were not ideal.
One of them was of Johnny Hodges, who played a 10 minute set of “I Got It Bad, “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be” and “Wings and Things” during the concert.
Lindholm also got a good shot of the sax section when it played its part of the “Kind A Dukish”/”Rockin’ In Rhythm” combination.
“West Indian Pancake” entered the repertoire as a feature for Paul Gonsalves during the European tour earlier in the year and Olle Lindholm managed to catch him with his camera when Gonsalves played it at Newport as well.
Norman Granz brought together Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald in a package several times in 1966 and 1967 and the Newport Jazz Festival was one of them (followed by a couple of concerts in Washington D.C. immediately thereafter). As on other occasions, she performed “Cotton Tail” and “Imagine My Frustration” with the Ellington band.
The rest of her songs she sung with the Jimmy Jones Trio.
