DR Ellington Broadcasts (21)
The third ”goodie” for January is program 21 in the Duke Ellington series broadcasted by the Danish Radio in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. The broadcast is available in the “Goodies” section of the website.
The program was broadcasted on June 14, 1985 and the announcer is Bjarne Busk
The program is focused on “stockpile” recordings. It starts with a selection from one in February 1957.
It is a little bit unusual since Ellington added a choir to the band in some of the tunes recorded. We hear “Take The ‘A’ Train” and “Perdido” in this format. Paul Gonsalves was quite featured in this recording session and the broadcasts let us hear an unusual version of “Moon Mist” with Gonsalves as soloist.
The broadcast then continues with the “stockpile” session, from March 19, 1956. Selections from this session have been included in earlier broadcasts. This time we hear “Miss Lucy” and “Prelude To A Kiss” with the full band with solos by Ray Nance and Johnny Hodges respectively.
Next, the broadcast moves to the July 18, 1963 “stockpile” session. Busk has selected an untitled blues for the listeners. In NDESOR and other discographies it is called “July 18th Blues”.
Finally, the broadcast ends with two selections from the stockpile session of June 6, 1962 – “Cottontail” with Jimmy Hamilton as soloist and “Taffy Twist” with Ray Nance and – once again – Jimmy Hamilton soloing.
“Taffy Twist” is a Mercer Ellington composition and in the broadcast he tells how it became included in “The River” ballet suite. Earlier in the broadcast, Mercer had talked about the relationship between Ellington and Paul Gonsalves.
Läsning om Black, Brown and Beige
Webbplatsen har uppmärksammat Black, Brown & Beige (BB&B) den här månaden. För den som ännu inte fördjupat sig i ämnet kommer här några lästips.
Det finns en rikhaltig litteratur om verket. Mycket av den tidigare finns samlad i Mark Tuckers enastående antologi med artiklar om Ellington – “The Ellington Reader”.
I kapitel fem i boken hittar man recensioner från samtida recensioner, programmet från premiärkonserten och liknande men framför allt Brian Priestlys och Alan Cohens långa analys av verket fråm mitten av 1970-talet. Där hittar man också en artikel av Robert D. Crowley, där han jämför Columbias inspelning med Mahalia Jacksons från 1958 med Victors inspelning av verket 1944.
1993 ägnade “Black Music Research Journal” ett helt nummer åt Black, Brown & Beige. I sex långa artiklar belyser prominenta Ellington-specialister verket och dess framföranden från olika vinklar. Bl.a. skriver huvudredaktören för specialnumret, Mark Tucker, om BB&Bs ursprung och Andrew Homzy gör en genomgång hur sviten funnits med i Ellingtons repertoar. DESS-medlemmar kan hitta båda dessa artiklar i Ellington-arkivet.
För den som vill ha en snabb men gedigen överblick av BB&B från olika synpukter rekommenderas en uppdatering av “The Duke – Where And When (www.tdwaw.ca), som David Palmquist publicerade vid årsskifter.
Gå till den här länken http://tdwaw.ellingtonweb.ca/TDWAW.html#Yr1943 och scrolla ner till den 22 januari 1943.
De, som inte har Columbia-LPn med Mahalia Jackson, kan läsa Irving Townsends baksidestext på bloggen “Jerry Jazz Musician” (http://jerryjazzmusician.com/2013/11/liner-notes-irving-townsend-black-brown-beige-duke-ellington-orchestra-featuring-mahalia-jackson/). Tack till Steven Lasker och David Palmquist för tipset.
Den tidigare chefen för avdelningen för “American Music” på Smithsonian i Washington D.C. och författare till standardverker om Ellington “Beyond Categories”, John Edward Hasse, skrev nyligen en artikel i Wall Street Journal om BB&B. Också den finns i Ellington-arkivet.
Tribute to Buster Cooper
For 18 years, Bill Saxonis – a long-term member of The Duke Ellington Society, New York, an eminent Ellington scholar and a frequent presenter at the Ellington Study Group conferences – has celebrated Duke Ellington’s birthday with an annual four-hour program on radio station WCDB (90.9-FM) in Albany, New York.
In his program last year, Saxonis included a nice tribute to Buster Cooper, who passed away in 2017.
He met Cooper at the Ellington ’08 conference in London and got the opportunity make a long interview with him.
This is included in the program together with musical examples from Cooper’s time with Ellington. There is also a duet beetween Cooper and John Lamb from the Ellington ’08 conference.
New Issue of the DESS Bulletin
The new issue of the Bulletin was sent to the DESS members a couple of days ago.
The cover story is about Britt Woodman.
In a two-page article, Thomas Harne gives us the life and career of this “master of balance and team player” as Harne calls him.
His article is accompanied by an interview of Woodman by Göran Wallén, a discography of recordings with Woodman as a soloist outside the Ellington orchestra and an excerpt about Woodman from Kurt Dietrich’s book “Duke’s Bones – Ellington’s Great Trombonists”.
Another main feature in the new Bulletin is Bo Haufman’s five-page article about trumpeters, who played with Ellington during shorter periods like Jabbo Smith, Louis Metcalf, Shorty Baker, Al Killian, Rolf Ericson, Herbie Jones, Jimmy Coles and a hand-full of others.
There is also an interesting article by the late comic book writer and music critic Harvey Pekar about Ellington’s bassists. It is a reprint from the “Bass Player” magazine from 2000.
Besides these three articles, there is, of course, a lot of other good reading in the new Bulletin.
Particularly, the Swedish readers shouldn’t miss Thomas Harne’s report from the December meeting of DESS. It tells in an elegant way what all DESS members, who did not show up for the meeting, missed.
Smått och gott / Bits and Pieces
Nästa DESS-möte 12 februari 2018
Det äger som vanligt rum i på Franska Skolans Aula, Döbelnsgatan 3 i Stockholm som vanligt. Peter Lee , styrelseledamot i DESS och mycket annat svarar för kvällens föredrag. Han kommer att prata om Wynton Marsalis och hans Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, som är en av de orkestrar som håller Ellington-arvet ledande.
Föredraget föregås av årsmötet för DESS med val av styrelse och annat.
Duon Fredrik Lindborg på saxofon/klarinett och Martin Sjöstedt på piano/bas svarar för kvällens musik.
Slut upp mangrant!
Youtube
From time to time DESS members contact the website about Ellington concerts and broadcasts on YouTube. We will pass them on if we consider that they are worthwhile.
Recently David Palmquist passed on the following link to the Duke-LYM mailing list https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa6uaE2oYj4.
It is a telecast from the Australian Broadcast Corporation, which was recorded by the French ORTF on July 2 and 6, 1970 (NDESOR 7050) and broadcasted on July 7, 1970. The ABC clip is a shorter version of the telecast.
Another YouTube recommendation comes from Göran Axelsson , who frequently harvests YouTube. It is “Blue Reverie” from Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert in 1938 played by a small group from the Ellington orchestra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kELNBR8V_28. Possibly, the sound file is ripped from the Columbia Legacy CD box released in 1999. It has all the Goodman introductions recorded in 1950.
YouTube also has a “Blue Reverie” video claimed to originate from a Columbia 78 promo issued in 1951 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ7bW-SRuLc.
Blue Light
The last 2017 issue of DESUK’s Blue Light recently reached its subscribers, i.e. the DESUK members.
The key feature is the second install of the series on Irving Mills’ publicity manuals for Duke Ellington.
This time the article is written by Carl Woideck, who gave a presentation on the 1933-1934 manual to the Ellington Conference in New York in 2016. The full manual is reprinted in Blue Light in a beautiful way.
In addition to record reviews and DESUK “cuisine”, the new issue of Blue Light also has a review of the book “Duke Ellington Studies” published by Cambridge University Press. The two page article takes a positive position on the book, which unfortunately has been neglected by the Ellington community because of its price.
Ellington and Dixie Girl Revue 1923
Ken Steiner has, together with Steven Lasker and David Palmquist, an impressive record of finding information about the early career of Duke Ellington by harvesting newspapers and journals. Recently he reported on Facebook that he had found an ad in New York Evening Telegram of November 8, 1923 in which Ellington is mentioned as composer. It is an ad for the opening of the “Dixie Girl Revue”.
In his Facebook post, Ken says that it is the earliest reference in print to Ellington as a composer that he has seen so far.
Well done, Ken!
Black, Brown and Beige (2)
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra at Carnegie Hall 1943
Joe Williams i The Blues
Black, som är den första delen av Black, Brown and Beige tar c:a 20-21 minuter att spela och de övriga, Brown och Beige är tillsammans något längre så att hela verket tar mellan 45 och 50 minuter att framföra, beroende på vilken version man lyssnar på. För en publik som var van att höra jazzorkestrar spela en standardrepertoar av 3 minuters-nummer, blev detta kanske lite tråkigt. Black blir genom sina motiv i slaveriet ganska tung musik att lyssna på, men bilden förändras när vi kommer till nästa avsnitt som då kallas Brown. Här ges en bild av afro-amerikanernas bidrag under krigen mot spanjorerna i Karibien (West Indian Dance), scener från amerikanska inbördeskriget samt därefter “the lighter attitude” som rådde ett tag därefter. Brown avlutas med The Blues (Ain’t Nothin’). Den sjöngs vid konserten av Betty Roché som vid tillfället var ny i orkestern. Ivie Anderson hade ju dragit sig tillbaka strax dessförinnan. (more…)
Black, Brown and Beige
Duke Ellingtons introduktion till Black, Brown and Beige
Den 23 januari 1943, alltså för i dagarna 75 år sedan, gjorde Duke Ellington och hans orkester sitt första framträdande i New Yorks välkända Carnegie Hall i vad som skulle bli en serie av årliga händelser under 1940-talet. Denna konsert har blivit legendarisk av flera skäl, men det kanske främsta var att här presenterades Ellingtons kanske viktigaste komposition, Black, Brown and Beige, för första gången och i sin helhet.
Den kompletta kompositionen lär har framförts endast tre gånger, förutom vid detta tillfälle också i Boston den 28 januari samt i Cleveland den 20 februari. Konserterna från NYC och Boston finns bevarade, men ljudkvaliteten är inte direkt överväldigande, särskilt inte vad gäller Black.
Någon studioinspelning av det kompletta verket gjordes aldrig, varför det tog många år innan det gick att lyssna på live-inspelningen från Carnegie Hall som utgavs på Prestige 1977. Däremot skapades en svit som likaledes kallades Black, Brown and Beige, och senare gavs ut fyra 78-varvssidor, med utvalt och något omarbetat material jämfört med originalkompositionen. Senare kom Ellington att “låna” åtskilliga avsnitt ur B, B & B för t. ex. My People, Sacred Concerts etc. och vissa av scenerna i samband med konserter senare under åren. Dessutom gjordes 1965 en studioinspelning av Black som hamnade i Ellingtons berömda “stockpile” och sedermera gavs ut på “The Private Collection” (more…)
Mercer Ellington with Marian McPartland
For many years, the jazz pianist Marian McPartland – once married to the trumpeter Jimmy McPartland – had a weekly program – “Piano Jazz” – on National Public Radio in the United States.
In the program she interviewed fellow pianists (and sometimes other instrumentalists) and performed music related to them. McPartland stayed with the program for 23 years from 1978 to 2011.
Mercer Ellington was the guest on the program broadcast on May 21, 1994.
In a relaxed atmosphere, Mercer talks about Duke Ellington but also Billy Strayhorn and shares thoughts with McPartland on their approach to music. In-between, McPartland gives personal interpretations of some of their songs like “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be”, “Chelsea Bridge” and “In My Solitude”.
They also sit down together at the piano to play a version of “C Jam Blues”.
Smått och gott / Bits and Pieces
Next Ellington Study Group Conference
The next Ellington Study Group Conference will take place in Birmingham, England on 25-27 May 2018.
The conference is organized jointly by the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the Birmingham City University in cooperation with DESUK. The main conference venue will be the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Details about the conference is in the announcement (attached) in the latest issue of DESUK’s Blue Light.
Member CDs
Maison du Duke has issued a new CD – “Mingus Chez Duke” – to the benefit of its members. It has 20 tracks from the appearance of the Duke Ellington orchestra at Bandbox in New York Jan. 30-Feb. 9, 1953. To get the CD, one only has to pay the 20 EUR membership fee plus 5 EUR to cover the postage. Follow this link http://maison-du-duke.com/espace-membres/adherer-2/ to learn how to do it.
With the new issue of Blue Light, also DESUK provides its members with a CD. It is a copy of the CD of Hurricane airshots from the Timme Rosenkrantz collection, which Frits Schjøtt put together for the benefit of the participants at the 2016 Ellington conference.
Ellington article
In its August 17, 2017 issue, The New Yorker published an Ellington article by the pianist and composer Ethan Iverson, which is highly recommended for reading.
It is titled “Duke Ellington, Bill Evans and A Night in New York” and can be found at this link:
It is also available to DESS members in the Ellington Archive.
Ellington-serie på Sveriges Radio 1994 (3)
Så är det dags för tredje programmet i Lars Westins och Jan Bruérs radioserie om Ellington och hans musik.
Den här gången är handlar det om den svängiga delen av Ellingtons musik och programrubriken är följaktligen “It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”.
Liksom det föregåendet programmet finns det tillgängligt för DESS-medlemmar i radiodelen av Elllington-arkivet.