Home » Duke Ellington 1969
Category Archives: Duke Ellington 1969
Concert In Bergen, Norway, Nov. 3 1969
Duke in front of the band in Bergen
Early this summer, NRK – Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation – published a video file with an Ellington concert from Bergen on November 3, 1969 on its web site. This concert was said to have been telecast only once (June 1970), which is a long time ago.
Probably only a few people outside Norway had the opportunity to watch it. Because of this and the good quality of the video, we decided to make this available to the DESS members in the Goodies Room.
The content of the programme is what can be expected from this tour, with the exception of the the closing number Acht O’Clock Rock with Tony Watkins performing a strange show as a dancer. In this number, Cat Anderson plays a very nice solo trumpet, mainly in the lower and medium registers.
Otherwise, Cootie is the soloist in Take The A Train and Paul Gonsalves in Cottontail.
What we see in the video is obviously the second part of the concert; the first part was probably not recorded, judging from its absence in discographies and Duke’s introductory remark about Cootie returning to the solo microphone.. The full programme is as follows:
*Take The A Train*Cottontail*Up Jump*La Plus Belle Africaine*Come Off The Veldt*El Gato*Medley*Acht O’Clock Rock*
Below is a sound recording of Up Jump from the concert:
We hope you will enjoy the show!
Happy Birthday – Ellington At The White House 1969
Pat
Den 29 april 1899 föddes Edward Kennedy Ellington i Washington DC. Föräldrarna tillhörde stadens svarta medelklass och Duke, som han tidigt kom att kallas, fick en solitt borgerlig uppfostran. Duke brukade inte fira sina födelsedagar med något överdåd, men då han skulle fylla 70 år, hade han uppnått en sådan status i sitt hemland och världen i övrigt att inte ens USAs president kunde blunda för faktum.
President Nixon bjöd därför in till en hejdundrande fest i Vita Huset, med deltagande av många kända jazzprofiler. Denna fest finns bl. a. dokumenterad dels i form av en film, med kommentarer av Willis Conover och en bok betitlad “Ellington At The White House 1969” författad av Edward Allan Faine. Filmen, som nu görs tillgänglig för DESS-medlemmarna i Godisrummet, skickades ursprungligen ut till ett antal olika USA-ambassader i världen i avsikt att användas i kulturellt propagandasyfte.
Den lades senare upp på YouTube av USAs kulturdepartement.
Dreaming
On March 3, 1965, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) aired an one-hour long television program with Duke Ellington. It included sections of an interview made on September 2, 1994 and of performances of the Ellington orchestra and dancer Bunny Briggs recorded on September 3 and 4. The interview was made by Byng Whittaker – a famous CBC announcer and interviewer – and he got Ellington to relax and open up to his questions.
One of his questions were: “Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?” and here is what Duke answered.
The tune on which Ellington improvises is “Blue Tune” from 1932.
Whittaker asked of course many more questions. Duke’s answers to them and the music he played to illustrate them further can be heard on a tape, which will be available on the website in a couple of days. It will be accompanied by comments by the Ellington scholar Louis Tavecchio, who presented the program and the recordings to the 21st Study Group Conference in Woking, England in 2012.