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Ted Hudson In Memoriam
With the passing away of Theodore (Ted) R. Hudson on April 27 at the age of 99, the Ellington community lost an important member and a good friend to many of us. He was a wonderful person and a true gentleman.
In his gentle way, Ted was always there to give a helping hand when one needed a piece of information on Duke Ellington, help to open doors to archives in Washington D.C. or photos from Ellington meetings and conferences.
He had a distinguished academic career and was Professor of English at the Howard University in Washington D.C. for many years with Afro-American literature as a speciality.
Ted was one of the pillars of Chapter 90 of the Duke Ellington Society in Washington as its vice-president and editor of its newsletter for many years.
When the Ellington conferences got off the ground in 1983, he also became a regular participant in and a presenter at many of them. His presentations often reflected his commitment to the black cause and his knowledge of Afro American literature.
Here are two examples of Ted’s presentations at Ellington conferences. But there are others on the website.
At Ellington ’93 in New York, his topic was Toward an Ellington Aesthetic.
And at Ellington ’94 in Stockholm, his presentation was on Ellington’s childhood in Washington D.C. or rather the racial, religious and educational and social settings in which he grew up.
Ted, thank you for what you have given us. We will miss you.
Stockholm 1994 (8)
This is the final part of videos from the Ellington ’94 conference in Stockholm.
At the end of the first day, Professor Ted Hudson, at that time vice-president of the Washington D.C. Chapter of Duke Ellington Society, gave a presentation on Ellington’s childhood in Washington D.C. In it, he depicted the cultural, religious and racial environment, in which Ellington grew up.
On the last day, Walter van de Leur – the Billy Strayhorn specialist and nowadays professor Jazz and Improvised Music at the University of Amsterdam – gave his first Ellington conference presentation on his research work on Billy Strayhorn. He would give presentations on this topic at many other Ellington conferences and academic musicologist gatherings.
Also Dr. John Edward Hasse, Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., took the stage the last day. His topic was “Ellington Storms Sweden” and he presented press and and public reactions to Ellington’s Swedish and European tour in 1939. He also talked about the work of his department at the Smithsonian to preserve the legacy of Ellington and sold many copies of his book “Beyond Categories – The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington”, which had been published in 1993.
And then, after three full days of presentations, concerts and social mingling, it was time to thank the organizers, say good-bye and announce Ellington ’95.
Stockholm 1994 (7)
This is the last installment of presentations at the conference – at least for now. They are all presentations from its last day.
Thanks to hard work by Patricia Willard and the generosity of Klaus Strateman, the participants got the opportunity to watch the full TV-version of “A Drum Is Woman”. Unfortunately, because of the copyright issues involved it can not be shared on the website.
However, the showing was followed by a panel discussion chaired by Patricia Willard and you can enjoy it here. The members of the panel were Clark Terry, Willie Cook, Louis Bellson, Joya Sherrill and Jimmy Woode.
After the panel, Joya Sherrill was interviwed by Patricia Willard about her time with Ellington and particularily her participation in “My People”
The last presentation at the conference was given by Sjef Hoefsmit, who spoke about his love for Duke and Billy Strayhorn and shared some of his films of Ellington’s appearances in Europe.
Given that the Ellington 1994 series on the website has been possibly thanks to Hoefsmit’s shooting of seven videos during the conference, it seems appropriate to it in this was. However, there are still some more presentations to published and this will be done once we have received permission to do so.
Stockholm 1994 (5)
Here is some more from the Ellington ’94 conference in Stockholm.
One of the afternoon presentations on the second day was by Jan Bruér. He talked about “Duke Ellington in Sweden”.
Later in the afternoon on that day, Andrew Homzy talked about “Duke Ellington in the Avant Garde”.
In the morning of the last day of the conference, Alice Babs and Nils Lindberg sat down together to talk about “There Is Something About Me” – a composition which Ellington gave to Alice Babs on a cassette tape one day in New York and which she later recorded with Nils Lindberg.
Stockholm 1994 (4)
Richard Wang, director of the jazz ensemble at the University of Illinois, gave the last presentation of the first day. He talked about the 1994 revival in Chicago of Ellington’s Beggar’s Opera.
The second day of the conference included a presentation by the English trumpeter and musicologist, Ken Rattenbury, on Ellington’s method of composition. The result of his research work was later publish in the book, “Duke Ellington, Jazz Composer”.
In the afternoon, Lawrence H. Lawrence talked about Bubber Miley. Unfortunately, only about 30 minutes of his presentation was taped. The beginning part is missing.
Ellington ’94 (3)
After the lunch at the Stockholm Town Hall, the conference participants enjoyed, among others a presentation by the French jazz critic and record producer Alexandre Rado on his friend Cat Anderson, and to what Nils Lindberg, the Swedish jazz musician and composer, had to say about Dalecarlia and African influences in the orchestral arrangement he wrote for Duke and which was recorded as Far Away Star
The next morning, after having recovered from the gala concert at the Stockholm Concert Hall (where among others Clark Terry performed), they could listen to Klaus Stratemen talking about Ellington on film and showing some goodies from his archive.
Stockholm 1994 (2)
After the opening of the conference, the first morning had a very strong Swedish accent.
It started with a panel talking about “Ellington in Sweden 1939”. Participants in the panel were Alice Babs, Rolf Dahlgren, Bertil Lyttkens och Hans-Henrik Åberg.
Thanks to a change in the program, the audience could then enjoy an improvised concert by the Swedish pianist Berndt Egerbladh, who also brought Alice Babs onto the stage.
The morning session ended with Benny Åslund – appropriately – giving his greetings to the conference and showing some of his films of the Ellington band’s visits to Sweden.
Stockholm 1994 (1) revised
After almost two years of preparations, the official opening of the Ellington ’94 conference in Stockholm took place on May 20, 1994. It was the 12th one in the series of Study Group Conferences.
The conference was opened by Göran Wallén, Chairman of the organizing committee and of The Duke Ellington Swedish Society, and Alice Babs.
Video: Sjef Hoefsmit
The night before, the participants had got acquinted at a “Get-Together-Party” at the Scandic Hotel, where the conference took place, and had time to read the 40 pages program provided to all.
Program 94 (pdf downloadable)
Ads about the conference had been in the Stockholm newspapers well in advance thanks to a sponsorship by Dagens Nyheter, the leading Stockholm newspaper
Göran Wallén has kindly provided the DESS website with the story how “Stockholm ’94” came about. Below is a summary in English. The full version in Swedish is available in the Ellington Archive.
Göran Wallén
“The 10th Ellington Study Group Conference took place in Copenhagen on May 19-22, 1992. We were some 30 Ellington-interested participants from Sweden. During the first night of the conference, Arne Domnérus and Bengt Hallberg played at the Montmartre Jazz Club together with Clark Terry, NHOP and Peter Danemo.
During the conference, I talked to Leif ”Smoke Rings” Anderson – the well-known radio voice and jazz journalist with a particular interest in Ellington. I had known him for several years and I told him that I was thinking about doing a similar conference in Sweden.
I asked him if this could be done and his direct answer was “It can’t be done; it is too much work; we will not manage.” I replied: “But if the Danes could do it, why not the Swedes? Shall we arrange the conference in Malmö (where Leif lived)”, I asked? “No, it is not possible”, he said, “Then we have to do it in Stockholm” I replied, and that was how it came to be done. But Leif was not convinced and very skeptical.
Back in Stockholm, I brought together Rolf Dahlgren, Olle Lindholm and Lennart Landström, who had been with me in Copenhagen, to discuss the idea. They were all very positive and we shared thoughts on how to make it happen.
The 1993 Ellington Conference was already scheduled to take place in New York so we decided to go for 1994, which would give us time to organize the conference and find the funding needed.
After the meeting, I told Benny Åslund about our intentions and he was very positive about having a conference in Stockholm.
In August 1993, I went to New York together with Alice Babs and a couple of others to participate in the 11th Ellington Study Group Conference (August 11-15, 1993). There Alice and I presented the program for Ellington ’94 in Stockholm the year thereafter and we got very positive responses.
In the end, more than 250 delegates from 22 countries came to Stockholm.
By that time a lot had happened in terms of getting the conference in place.
Organizations and government agencies in the field of arts and music like the Swedish Radio, the Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM), the Swedish Arts Council, the Swedish National Concert Institute and many others had started to realize what was going to happen and had come on board. They worked with us to make the conference a large-scale jazz event in Stockholm with concerts and club performances all over the city.
We had also secured funding for the conference thanks to support from local and regional authorities and sponsorships from different kinds of industrial companies, a bank (Nordbanken/Nordea), an insurance company (Wasa) and SAS, which provided tickets for our American guest musicians. DagensNyheter provided us with generous space for ads in the newspaper.
After the New York announcement of the conference all the practical work accelerated. The initial group of four had expanded to 12 people, each responsible for a particular set of tasks. It got some good help from Åke Edfeldt, who had agreed to be the presenter during the three days and also from Carl Gunnar Jansson, Lars Westin and Jan Bruér from the Swedish Jazz Federation. Early in the project, Alice Babs and Leif Anderson had accepted to be conferenciers at the concerts. I was very happy when Leif in one of our conversations said: “I was wrong regarding an Ellington conference in Sweden. It looks like it will be a success.”
The illustrator and author Olle Snismarck designed the logo for the conference and for DESS.
Scandic Crown Hotel (today Hilton Stockholm Slussen Hotel) was chosen as the main conference site and the National Concert Institute took care of printing the extensive 40 page program.
So when the date for the opening of the conference approached, everything was well prepared. More than 250 participants from 22 countries had registered and the concerts in the Stockholm Concert Hall and the Swedish Radio Concert Hall (Berwaldhallen) were sold out.
At 9 o’clock on May 20, 1994 I had the pleasure to open the conference together with Alice Babs and then followed three days full of presentations, concerts and other events. A nice surprise was the spontaneous concert that Alice Babs and Kenny Burrell provided at the luncheon at the Stockholm Town Hall.
The conference ended with a gala dinner with dancing to the music of Kustbandet and one of the conference participants, Austin Lawrence, who had toured with Luis Russell in the 1940s added to the entertainment by stepping up to the microphone to sing Call of the Freaks with Kustbandet.
At the end of the conference, we heard many nice words from the participants. Among them was Klaus Stratemann, who called it an “extraordinary conference”.
The conference was also a financial success. It had a surplus of almost 300.000 Swedish Crowns, which provided the base for setting up a Swedish Duke Ellington society.
All Swedish participants in the conference were invited to a founding meeting on May 22, 1994 at the Castle Hotel and the new organization was given the name “The Duke Ellington Swedish Society” which was later changed to “Duke Ellington Society of Sweden”.
So this is the story about the conference. Ten years later another Ellington Study Group Conference took place in Stockholm but that is another story.”
Stockholm 1994 (1)
After almost two years of preparations, the official opening of the Ellington ’94 conference in Stockholm took place on May 20, 1994. It was the 12th one in the series of Study Group Conferences.
The night before, the participants had got acquinted at a “Get-Together-Party” and had time to read the 40 pages program provided to all.
Program 94 (pdf downloadable)
Ads about the conference had been in the Stockholm newspapers well in advance.
Almost 250 Ellington experts and aficionados from 18 countries had registered for the conference. It took place in the Scandic Crown Hotel in the center of Stockholm, where the participants could listen to a lot of presentations and music and also to mingle with each other.
Music events also took place at the Stockholm Concert Hall , The Swedish Radio Concert Hall and in many other venues in Stockholm.
In November, the website will provide a number of snapshots from the conference. They will be based on contributions by Göran Wallén, the organiser and chairman of the conference, and Sjef Hoefsmit’s video from it.
Here is Hoefsmit’s video from the opening of the conference with Göran Wallén and Alice Babs.