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DR Ellington Broadcasts (46)
Program 46 was broadcasted on May 28, 1991. It was produced and presented by Fleming Sjølund-Jensen.
It is the the first “goodie” this month and is available in the ”Goodies” section of the website.
The program starts with Love You Madly sung by Milt Grayson. It is from the March 19, 1962 stockpile session when Grayson recorded four songs.
In addition to Love You Madly, they are Solitude, You Better Know and There’s No One But You. The last song was made popular by Mills Brothers in the mid-1940’s and was apparently composed by Austen Croom-Johnson and Red Evans. Nothing from the session has been issued on vinyl or CD.
Next Sjølund-Jensen turns to the recording session July 18, 1966 when Ellington together with John Lamb and Sam Woodyard recorded six songs, which was later included in the album The Pianist.
However, he does not let the listeners hear any of the songs but focuses on the second part of the session when Ellington recorded Tingling Is A Happiness and Dancers in Love and a congratulatory talk to be included in an exclusive record for the participants in the 50 anniversary conference of Field Enterprises Educational Corporation
Sjølund-Jensen continues the broadcast with six selections from August 27, 1972. They are all issued on the Storyville CD An Intimate Piano Session (1018445)
He starts with a short version of I’m Afraid Of Loving You Too Much followed by what Sjølund-Jensen says is an unnamed improvisation but in discographies said to be The Anticipation from UWIS Suite and after that Le Sucrier Velours from Queen’s Suite.
Next in the broadcast is Come Sunday sung by Tony Watkins – in English and in Hebrew – and two more piano numbers by Ellington – first A Mural From Two Perspectives and then the Strayhorn composition My Little Brown Book, which someone asks him to play. Finally he does it but very reluctantly. “I don’t know it! I don’t remember it!”
After this, Sjølund-Jensen moves to the September 5, 1972 stockpile session, which is for Anita Moore accompanied by a tentet from the full Ellington orchestra.
In the broadcast one hears her sing New York, New York, I Got It Bad, I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart and Misty. In the last one, Moore is accompanied only by Ellington, Joe Benjamin and Rufus Jones. None of the songs have been issued on vinyl or CD.
The broadcast ends with a version of Take The “A” Train (nc) played by Ellington, Jeff Castlemans and Rufus Jones at Ellington’s concert at Stanford University with California Youth Symphony Orchestra on March 9, 1969. This is also unissued.
Copenhagen Sep. 30, 1959 corrected
The file with the Copenhagen Sep. 30, 1959 concert made available to DESS members on Jan. 26 turns out to be something totally different. It brings together selections from Ellington’s concert in Paris on Sep.20, 1959 (both first and second concerts) and the second concert in Stockholm on Sep. 26, 1959.
We apologize for having put it on the website and thank Bjarne Busk for bringing the issue to our attention.
However, when the file was published, it was believed to be a genuine recording of the Copenhagen concert.
It was found by the DESS group charged with cataloguing Benny Åslund’s tape collection, which had been donated to DESS.
In the fall of 2011, the group sent the file together with a number of files of Ellington concerts in Sweden to Sjef Hoefsmit, who wrote about them in the 2012-1 issue of the DEMS Bulletin.
Under the headline A lot of Swedish NEW FINDS, he reported what the group had found. Amongst other things Hoefsmit said “A totally unknown (to us) concert is from Copenhagen, 30Sep59, K.B. Hallen”.
He followed this up by publishing a correction sheet (1107) to NDESOR with the “new” information.
So, not surprisingly, the DESS group thought that they had found an unknown recording of the Copenhagen concert.
However, what Hoefsmit forgot when he said “a totally unknown concert to him was that 20 years earlier at the Ellington conference in Los Angeles in 1991, he had said and written that the concert was “a fake” in a review of the 3rd edition of the Willie Timner’s Ellingtonia”. He repeated this in comments on Timner’s 4th edition in the DEMS Newsletter 2001-3.
Hoefsmit built his view on a presentation Erik Wiedemann made at the Ellington conference in Washington D.C. in 1989. Wiedemann had by then published a very detailed paper on Ellington’s visits to Denmark and recordings made of the concerts there. As regards the 1959 concert, he says: “There seems to be no recordings of the concerts.”
The source of the “fake” file is not known to us but it was apparently rather widely circulated among Ellington collectors. Benny Åslund had it, Willie Timner had it and it is also listed in the catalogue for the auction of more than 100 reel-to-reel tapes belonging tho the French Ellington collector André Mahus, which Sjef Hoefsmit (!) organised for his widow.
The Jan. 26 article on the website has been deleted. However, the file in the Goodies Room will stay there for the time being and a list of its contents is here.
Soccer Club, US Army, Wiesbaden, May 25, 1963
Duke Ellington and Paul Gonsalves in 1963
(Photo is not from the Soccer Club)
Just before Duke Ellington and his orchestra played the week-long engagement at Gröna Lund in Stockholm in June 1963, a brief visit was made in Germany. We will let our members enjoy an unissued recording from a typical dance date for the US troops stationed in Germany. In this version of the Ellington band, Cat Anderson was missing and Rolf Ericson had just joined. The bass player was Eddie Shepard, who had a short stay with the band, a couple of years later he suffered a heart attack and died, but then he had already left the Ellington orchestra.
Diminuendo In Blue & Wailing Interval
The rest of this dance date (the long medley is omitted) can be found in the Goodies section. (more…)
DR Ellington Broadcasts (19)
The first ”goodie” for November is program 19 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 May 31 1985.
It brings the listeners excerpts from two “stockpile” recording sessions – one on July 25, 1962 and the other on April 4, 1967. All the selections in the program was later issued in the “Private Sessions” series.
The program starts with three tunes from the 1967 session – “Eggo”, “Amta” and “Little Purple Flower” (aka “The F.L.”). Eggo is mistakenly announced as “KIXX” (aka “Traffic Jam” or “The Biggest”) but it was recorded just before “Eggo”.
The 1962 session is the Ellington Orchestra without the trumpet section and in the second part of the session also Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney are out.
This part of the DR broadcast is a gem for fans of Paul Gonsalves. He is the featured soloist in all the numbers. We get the opportunity to hear him demonstrate his skills in different tempi but in particular in slow ones.
First we hear him in a number called “No. 1” but known in discographies as “Blue Too”; then comes No. 2 – aka “Tune Up” which is followed by “Tigress” and “Telstar” (aka “Tigress”).
The broadcast ends with “Like Late” and three Ellington compositions – “Major”, “Minor” and “G” (aka “G” for Groove”).
Duke at Cafe Zanzibar, Sept. 23, 1945
Duke Ellington på Hurricane Restaurant, senare omdöpt till Cafe Zanzibar
Lawrence Brown är solist i Love Letters
Bilden ovan är sannolikt från Hurricane Restaurant 1944. Ellington och hans orkester var engagerade där under ett stort antal veckor under år 1943 och 1944. Etablissemanget genomgick en renovering i början av 1945, och döptes därvid om till Cafe Zanzibar, där vi återigen återfinner Duke Ellington och hans mannar under sensommaren och hösten 1945. Från åren 1943 till 1946 finns en myckenhet radioutsändningar bevarade, varav många finns utgivna på DETS-serien . I det här fallet rör det sig om en MBS-utsändning,(MBS=Mutual Broadcasting System) som inte utgivits tidigare och som DESS-medlemmarna nu kan hitta i sin helhet i Godisrummet. (more…)
Trianon Ballroom, Seattle, May 1, 1954 (2)
Britt Woodman
Britt Woodman plays Theme For Trambean
We continue with some more music from the Ellington dance date att Trianon Ballroom on May 1, 1954 in Seattle for th Goodies Room. We start where we ended previously with In The Mood since that performance was not fully complete. Soloists are: Clark Terry, Russell Procope, Jimmy Hamilton and Ray Nance. Ultra Deluxe, which comes next and is written by Mercer Ellington, is a fine piece of Ellingtonia, which unfortunately did not stay in the reportoire for very long. It has solos by Harry Carney, Jimmy Hamilton, Ray Nance and Paul Gonsalves. The rest of this particular session is dedicated to solo performances by Rick Henderson, Britt Woodman, Ray Nance, Harry Carney and Jimmy Hamilton. (more…)
DR Ellington Broadcasts (18)
The fourth “goodie” for September is program 18 in the Duke Ellington series broadcasted by the Danish Radio in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.
As usual, it is available in the ”Goodies of the Month” section of the DESS Lobby (DESS-rummet).
The program was broadcasted on March 29, 1985 and the presenter is Erik Wiedeman. It is – like the broadcast on March 22, 1985 – entirely devoted to the music of the ballett “The River”. Together, the two programs includes all the movements of “The River” in different stages of development.
The program starts with the piano version of “The River” from May 25, 1970. It is followed by “The Meander” – also a piano version – from May 11, 1970. It was meant to be played in Program 17 but because of a mix-up “The Lake” was played instead. “The Meander” is the third movement
The orchestral version of “The Lake” (May 25, 1970) comes next. It is the fifth movement of the suite.
Trianon Ballroom, Seattle, May 1, 1954
Are Ellington and Strayhorn studying the UMMG Score?
Upper Manhattan Medical Group
In April and May 1954 Ellington and his orchestra were touring in western USA. This has been documented in a concert from Embassy Auditorium in Los Angeles on April 13, and from a dance date at McElroy’s Ballroom in Portland on April 29. In addition, songs from a Capitol Recording session on April 26 have been issued on the Capitol label.
On May 1, Duke and the orchestra were performing at a dance date at Trianon Ballroom in Seattle and the first part of this is rather interesting due to the the fact that the tunes played are not so common in the band’s repertoire. DESS members can enjoy this by logging into the Goodies Room.
(more…)
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!