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Blue Rose: The Clooney/Ellington Collaboration

2/28/2018

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In preparation for Duke Ellington’s 70th birthday tribute dinner at the White House in 1969, President Nixon asked the maestro to submit a list of people he would like to see invited. Ellington submitted 135 names, and the White House sent out invitations to all save one—Frank Sinatra (but that’s another blog).

Five female singers were invited, but only Mahalia Jackson accepted. The gospel diva had crossed Duke’s career path in 1957 when she lent her talents to his reworking of the Black, Brown and Beige suite for Columbia Records.
The songbirds who sent in their regrets:

  • Contralto Marion Anderson, who had known Duke for decades, and sat with him on President Nixon’s Advisory Council on the Arts
  • Diahann Carroll, who starred in the 1961 film Paris Blues that Duke scored
  • Leslie Uggams, who appeared with Duke on several televised variety shows
  • Rosemary Clooney, who collaborated with Duke and the orchestra on the 1956 Columbia album Blue Rose
Yes, that Rosemary Clooney, the one who starred with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Vera-Ellen in the movie musical White Christmas (1954) and recorded 1950s mega-sellers “Come On-a My House,” “Botcha Me,” “Hey There,” and “Mambo Italiano.”

Clooney was the first singer not drawn from the ranks of the Ellington orchestra to cut a full album with the Duke. Only two other singers had that honor: Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra.

Moreover, the idea for the project came not from Ellington, but from Rosemary. She wanted to break free of her pop chains, and Duke needed a boost in association with a high-flying AM radio and TV variety show pop star. At the time (early 1956) the maestro wandered in a frozen wilderness of public apathy and needed a breakout. Blue Rose, he must have thought, could be the icebreaker.
 
As it would turn out, Blue Rose would be the first album ever to be overdubbed. Ellington recorded the orchestra tracks in New York, and Rosemary added her vocals in Los Angeles.

This technical first was necessitated by the fact the singer was severely pregnant and unable to fly to New York—which also meant that the album’s designated arranger, Billy Strayhorn, had to fly back and forth between New York and California to work with Rosemary on song selection, setting of keys and tempo, and other musical matters.

The material the two chose consisted of six Ellington standards—“Sophisticated Lady,” “I Let a Song Go out of My Heart,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” “I Got It Bad,” “Mood Indigo,“ and “Just Sittin’ and A-Rockin’"—and three lesser known Ellington-Srayhorn collaborations—“Grievin’” and “I’m Checkin’ Out-Goombye” (both from 1939) and “If You Were in My Place” (1938)—as well as three new Ellington tunes, one of which, “Blue Rose,” had no lyrics, but came with instructions: just scat along with it.

Prominent critics Will Friedwald and Gary Giddins had nothing but high praise for the album, the latter declaring “Sophisticated Lady” to be one of the finest recorded versions ever.

To my ears, however, the results are disappointing. Ms. Clooney, known for her sultry voice, is not sultry enough, sounding a mite tense and more like pop icon Dinah Shore than any jazz singer one could name.

Rosemary chose not to stamp her mark on the famed doo-wah doo-wah riff on “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” avoiding it altogether, leaving it to the instrumentalists. Her “ba-bee  be-ba  be-ba  ba-ba” scatting on “Blue Rose” is amateurish, but Friedwald heard it differently, calling it “superlative.”

Nonetheless, one track, “Mood Indigo,” stands out, and could very well be one of the finest on record. Strayhorn rearranged the famous clarinet-trumpet-trombone-unison opening melody for Clooney’s wordless voice plus two trombones, which almost trumps the original.


Rosemary then sings the familiar lyrics in her most relaxed voice on the album. Outstanding solos follow by trumpeter Willie Cook and the two trombones (Britt Woodman and John Sanders) in unison again.

As Ken Crossland and Malcolm MacFarlane opine in their biography Late Life Jazz: The Life and Career of Rosemary Clooney:


[While] mid-1950s sales of Blue Rose were unspectacular . . . its importance in the careers of both its protagonists cannot be overstated. For Ellington, it took him back to Columbia and opened the door for Ellington at Newport ’56, which became the best selling album of his career and launched a resurgence that sustained him until his death in 1974. [Hence, the delayed thank-you from Duke to Rosemary in the form of a White House invitation.]

For Rosemary, it convinced the girl singer from Maysville [Ohio] that she was more than just a chirruping hit-maker. The experience of working with Ellington, she said, “validated me as an American singer. My work would not fade with my generation. I had now moved into a very exclusive group. [As her many late-life Concord albums would attest.]


Perhaps I have been a little harsh in my assessment of the album in question. Take a listen to the recently released Blue Rose CD on the Columbia Legacy label, and you decide.

One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that somebody passed up a golden opportunity to have Rosemary—when her late-life jazz voice had fully developed—to re-record over the original Ellington tracks, assuming the tapes could have been found in the vaults, of course.

Now that would have been something.
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Book Review: Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends

1/29/2018

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Left to right: Steve James (Duke's nephew), Lillian Terry, Billy Strayhorn, and Duke Ellington in his hotel suite, Juan-le-Pins, France, July, 1966. Photo by Herbie Jones.
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Every once in a while a book arrives that offers new insights—sheds new light—on the personalities that populate the sub-milieu that is jazz. One such recently published book is Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends: On and Off the Record with Jazz Greats by Italian jazz singer, radio and TV journalist, and producer Lilian Terry.

Making an artist feel at ease came naturally to her, and that, along with a superb journalistic sense, allowed her to uncover fresh understandings of the likes of Duke Ellington, Abby Lincoln and Max Roach, Horace Silver, Ray Charles, Bill Evans, and Dizzy Gillespie.

You can sense that her subjects admired her for her talent, as well as for her innate ability to give as well as take without a trace of intimidation felt by either party. We learn anew of the various ticks, quirks, and idiosyncrasies of Master Ellington as if learning about them for the very first time—his playfulness, flirty attitude, attentiveness, literary sense, generosity, and superstitions.

We also learn how “La plus belle Lil” came to record one of the gems in the Ellington/Strayhorn canon, the focus of this review.

“Star-Crossed Lovers”
In July 1966, Lilian arrived at the Antibes Juan-les-Pins Jazz Festival on the French Riviera where she would sing with her trio and conduct interviews with Duke Ellington and other artists for her weekly radio show on the Italian radio network.

Backstage one afternoon, she approached her favorite soloist with the Ellington orchestra, altoist Johnny Hodges:

“I’m a passionate fan of your rendition of ‘Star-Crossed Lovers.’ . . . Is there any chance you could play it tonight?”

“Nope, sorry, we haven’t played it in years . . . Let’s go ask [Duke].” [1]

They did, and received his go-ahead.

That night, our inquisitive interviewer joined the French TV crew in the wings to watch the band’s performance. The maestro steered the orchestra through their lengthy set, wrapping it all up with a long closing number featuring Johnny Hodges:

The audience sent wave after wave of enthusiastic applause [in his direction]. Hodges, standing in front of the orchestra, turned to Ellington and then motioned with his head toward [Lillian in the wings. With an amused smile, Ellington then went to the microphone.] “A lady has come all the way from Rome and she’s asked for a couple of numbers from our Shakespearean Suite “Such Sweet Thunder” . . . let’s do the one which is Romeo and Juliet. And the Bard called them the star-crossed lovers!” [2]

At concert’s close, Lil waited for the orchestra leader to descend the stage steps. Duke graciously acknowledged her thanks and invited her to an after-party at his hotel suite where he introduced her to the song’s composer, Billy Strayhorn. She took the opportunity to confirm her passion for “Star-Crossed Lovers”:

“I’m glad you asked for it; it’s one of my favorites too.”

“I’m only sorry that it has no lyrics. I would love to sing it. And I would try to have that special, sensuous ‘Hodges sound.’ Heavens, when he blows those long, languid notes . . . it’s an actual caress.”

“And you would like to sing it? . . . Tell you what I’ll do . . . I promise I’ll send you some lyrics as soon as I get back to New York.” [3]

And he did.

Six months after the Antibes festival concluded and out of the blue, Duke informed Lil that she would be receiving an air ticket to join him and the band in Milano, Italy, for a Teatro Lirico concert in January 1967. She accepted, and when she arrived, Ellington fussed over her as other members of the band waved by, trumpeter Cat Anderson calling out: “There we go again . . . star-crossed lovers, I bet!”

The evening concert [at the Teatro] was excellent . . . Ellington was  enjoying himself, smiling at [Ms. Terry] from time to time as she stood in the wings, waiting for the moment when Hodges would play . . . Suddenly [she] realized they were actually playing their closing signature tune. [She stepped on the stage and] whispered to Ellington as he sat at the piano. “If there is no ‘Star-Crossed Lovers’, then I’ll take my sandals back” [she had gifted them to him the prior evening] . . .

The very moment the signature tune ended [Duke] went to the microphone and informed the public. “We have a request from Miss Lillian Terry, the greatest singer in Italy. She would like to hear the Romeo and Juliet theme from ‘Star-Crossed Lovers,’ the melody played by Johnny Hodges!”

Hodges got up with his alto sax and smiled at [Terry], going to the microphone. [4]


As the Bard would say, all’s well that ends well.

Some 15 years later, Lil found herself sitting at a dinner table across from jazz pianist Tommy Flanagan, Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist for several years. A lively conversation ensued that led to Tommy asking her what songs she’d like to sing with him at the piano. “Loverman” and Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” came up first, and then Lil said,

“Ellington and Strayhorn bring to mind Johnny Hodges and his sensuous way of playing a particular ballad that has never been sung before. I told Billy of my disappointment that it had no lyrics; he promised to send me a text, and a month later . . . there it was.”
“And what song was that?”

“It’s from the suite Such Sweet Thunder” . . . Lil leaned over the table toward pianist Flanagan and he met her halfway to say in unison: ”Star-Crossed Lovers.”

He exclaimed, “I knew it! Why, do you know that’s my favorite ballad and hardly anybody plays it? And [Strayhorn] gave you the words himself? OK, let’s do it. Now which recording date would you have in mind?” [5]


On April 17, 1982, Lil recorded Lilian Terry Meets Tommy Flanagan—A Dream Come True with the Tommy Flanagan Trio, with Jesper Lindgaard on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums, for the Italian Soul Note label. Six songs were recorded, including those mentioned above plus Peggy Lee’s “Black Coffee,” Benny Golson’s “I Remember Clifford,” Monk’s “Round About Midnight” and a Billie Holiday favorite, “You’ve Changed.” [6]

George Avakian, at the time an independent record producer and top-line jazz artist manager, wrote flattering liner notes for the album. He noted that Europe had produced many fine instrumentalists but very few vocalists. Among them, Lilian Terry sounds the most American.

He cited her appearances at the prestigious Antibes Festival, where Lillian was the only European singer to participate, sharing the stage with Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, Nina Simone, and Mahalia Jackson [7].

The recording was an immediate success, especially in Japan but also in the United States. The ballad that surpassed—and therefore was played on the air—was “Star-Crossed Lovers. [8]”

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NOTES

  1. Lilian Terry, Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray and Friends: On and Off the Record with Jazz Greats (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 4.
  2. Ibid., 5–6.
  3. Ibid., 6–7.
  4. Ibid., 14–17.
  5. Ibid., 18.
  6. Ibid., 19.
  7. George Avakian, Liner Notes, Lilian Terry Meets Tommy Flanagan: A Dream Comes True, 1982, Soul Note LP.
  8. Terry, Dizzy, Duke, 19.
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Kennedy Center Honors Nominee Carmen de Lavallade

10/26/2017

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Carmen de Lavallade 1955Carmen de Lavallade 1955. © Carl Van Vechten.
The five artists nominated to receive the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors are television producer Norman Lear, singer/songwriter Gloria Estefan, singer/mogul Lionel Richie, rapper LL Cool J, and Duke Ellington’s favorite female dancer, Carmen de Lavallade, who starred in his A Drum Is a Woman, an hour-long CBS special nationally broadcast 60 years ago on May 8, 1957 [1].

A breezy, fairy tale–like tour of the history of jazz from the Caribbean jungle to the American urban centers of New Orleans, Chicago, and New York, Drum implicitly portrayed music as a historical and cultural link between African, African American, and Latin people. 

Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s compositions explored calypso, rhumba, bop, Dixieland, and other genres. The show revolved around Madame Zajj (danced by Carmen de Lavallade, and sung by Joya Sherrill and Margaret Tynes), who, in her travels through the jungle, falls in love with the conga drummer Caribee Joe (danced by Talley Beatty, and sung by Ozzie Bailey) [2].

Television critics greeted Drum with mixed reviews, with the more influential New York scribes weighing in negatively. See biographer Terry Teachout for details [3]. But in the black political and cultural communities, the show received extravagant praise, the observers noting the historic aspects of the program. See biographer Harvey Cohen for details [4]. 

Specifics on Ms. De Lavallade’s performance are hard to come by. Sadly, today’s audience is left in the dark since the only known visual is a fuzzy black-and-white kinescope [5]. Oh, if only someone would discover a “lost’ tape somewhere, restore it, and broadcast it on television so we all could see for ourselves.

Fortunately, we have the music (or at least a good approximation thereof) on a CD [6]. The score is programmatic, being closely tied to the stage action and narration by Duke. Yet half of its 16 two- to five-minute numbers are solid Ellington. The standouts:
“Hey, Buddy Bolden”: Uber-excellent trumpet work by Clark Terry and Ray Nance in support of chanting vocalists. A swinging, Dixie-flavored number Duke could have included in his standard concert repertoire. 

“Drum is a Woman (Part 2)”: A solo feature for altoist Johnny Hodges, who is at his best romantic and bluesy self. 

“You Better Know It”: Nicely sung by Ozzie Bailey with full orchestral backing, and a weaving obligato line by tenorist Paul Gonsalves. 

“Madam Zajj”: An excellent drum track from percussionists Candido Camero (bongos) and Terry Riley (drums). 

“Ballad of the Flying Saucers”: Duke’s Lennonesque—think “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”—narration followed by an up-tempo, rhythmic orchestral interlude melding into a Strayhorn-like, gorgeous Hodges solo with harp backing! Excellent Sam Woodward drums throughout. (“Flying Saucers”? Don’t ask.)
Examining the music and the dancing separately is instructive, but in a musical, it’s the whole that matters, how the dancing and music work with the libretto to push the story forward. As biographer Cohen summed it up, Drum marked such a departure from the usual treatment of music and African Americans on television that critical resistance and befuddlement were not surprising [7].

But Drum also marked a departure from the type of musical critics had grown accustomed to—the Rodgers and Hammerstein type musical—and this, as much as anything, led to their befuddlement.

Before Broadway’s West Side Story, and a half century before Hamilton, Ellington was celebrating the diversity of American identity through music on stage—and on television. ​
​
PictureAt the 1969 White House tribute, Duke bestowed his famous four kisses on dancer Carmen de Lavallade (center) as husband and fellow dancer Geoffrey Holder (center foreground) looked on. © Ollie Atkins.
And at its dancing center was Carmen de Lavallade, who (along with dancer and husband Geoffrey Holder) would go on to appear in Duke’s Sacred Concerts and at his 70th birthday tribute celebration at the White House on April 29, 1969 (above). The maestro graciously gifted his Madame Zajj with his famed four-kiss reward in the reception line, and then danced with her at the late night jam session in the East Room (below) [8].
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Duke dancing with Carmen de Lavallade at the jam session following 1969 White House tribute. © Ollie Atkins.
  1. Phillip Kennicott, “The Kennedy Center Honors Abandons the Arts for Pop Culture,”  Washington Post, August 3, 2017.
  2. Harvey G. Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 330–31. 
  3. Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington (New York: Gotham Books, 2013), 296–97.
  4.  Cohen, Ellington’s America, 233.
  5. Teachout, Duke, 246.
  6.  A Drum Is a Woman: Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, Jazz Track Records 923, CD.
  7. Cohen, Ellington’s America, 333.
  8. Edward Allan Faine, Ellington at the White House 1969 (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2013), 85, A-23.
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Ellington Standards: Most Widely Performed

8/31/2017

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Duke Ellington at his first East Room appearance on March 27, 1968.
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”Without dispute, [Duke Ellington] is the most widely performed of all jazz composers.” This statement from my book Ellington at the White House, 1969, was based in part on settled knowledge but also on the recent work of Ted Gioia in his five-star The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire.

In his book, Mr. Gioia delineates and discusses more than 250 standards. Top honors go to Ellington and associates (son Mercer, Billy Strayhorn, Juan Tizol), as shown below:
​
Duke Ellington 20
George Gershwin 15
Richard Rodgers 11
Cole Porter 9  
Jimmy Van Heusen 7
Carlos Jobim 7
Jerome Kern 7
Hoagy Carmichael 4
Harold Arlen 3
Fats Waller 3
Irving Berlin 1​
The 20 standards composed by Ellington and associates are:
​
Caravan
​Chelsea Bridge​
C-Jam Blues
Come Sunday
Cotton Tail
​Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)
I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart 
​In a Mellow Tone
​
In a Sentimental Mood
It Don’t Mean a Thing
Mood Indigo
Perdido
Prelude to a Kiss
Satin Doll
Solitude
Sophisticated Lady
Take the “A-Train”
​Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
​
All the above songs (save for “C-Jam Blues” and “Cotton Tail”) were played by the all-star band at the Nixon White House 70th birthday tribute concert for Duke Ellington on April 29, 1969. The US Army Strolling Strings played “Solitude” at the banquet. 

It was an Ellington standards night at the White House.
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The Ellington Tribute Jam Session: Military Band

6/22/2017

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Military musicians
Military musicians joined the jam session following the White House tribute to Duke Ellington, April 1969.
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History, someone once said, is never complete. Whenever it is recorded, there are always particulars one is never able to uncover. In time, these details seem to rise from their hidden places to the light of day.
           
​In assembling Ellington at the White House 1969, I searched unsuccessfully for the names of the military musicians who participated in the after-show jam session with the celebrity front liners: trumpeters Bill Berry, Dizzy Gillespie, and Clark Terry; trombonist Urbie Green; clarinetist Leonard Garment; saxophonist Gerry Mulligan; pianists Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Leonard Feather, Hank Jones, Marian McPartland, Billy Taylor, Willie “the Lion” Smith, and George Wein; and singers Billy Eckstine, Lou Rawls, and Joe Williams.

Courtesy of Kira Wharton, Gunnery Sergeant, US Marine Corps, Assistant Chief Librarian, US Marine Band, we now have the names:
 
Marine tenor saxophonist Phil Dire
Navy tenor saxophonist Larry Kreitner
Marine drummer Jim Nelson
Marine Bassist Dave Wundrow
Navy bongoist Gary Elliot
Navy bongoist Frank Carrusso
 
Members rank not indicated.

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Nixon White House: A President’s Taste in Music

4/27/2017

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Ellington and Nixon
Duke Ellington and President Nixon during the Medal of Freedom ceremony in the East Room, April 1969. Harvey Georges, Associated Press.
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I discuss Richard Nixon’s aesthetic tastes in music in my book Ellington at the White House, 1969:

By his own admission, and attested to by others, Nixon was a classical music devotee. [Moreover, and] no doubt influenced by his early training on violin and piano, his ardor extended to light or semi-classical (Mantovani, Boston Pops, and 1001 Strings) and musical soundtracks (Gone with the Wind, My Fair Lady, Carousel, Oklahoma, and King and I) . . . Nixon told Washington National Symphony conductor Antal Dorati that his favorite composition was the background music by Richard Rodgers for the motion picture Victory at Sea.

 
Henry Mancini provided additional evidence in his autobiography, Did They Mention the Music? On June 30, 1969, prior to his East Room performance for the moon-circling Apollo 11 astronauts, Henry and wife, Ginny, accompanied Nixon on a tour of the upstairs family quarters. Mancini asked, “What’s your favorite album, Mr. President?”
​
Nixon pulled an LP from the shelf [in his small private listening room] and handed it to me. It was Richard Rodgers music for the television series Victory at Sea. He said, “I sit here by the hour and listen to that album.” He had several Lawrence Welk albums, some Mantovani, and the Sound of Music, along with Tchaikovsky.
​

Duke Ellington, who took the same tour some eight weeks prior, recounted the following in his memoir (also from my book):
​
While taking us around various rooms on the family’s floor, he led us into one where there was an expensive stereo machine with many records and tapes. He proceeded to demonstrate all the audio possibilities—increasing the bass and the treble, one after the other, and showing how well the range was maintained at full and low volume. He was just like a kid with a new toy.
​
 
These two private peeks into Nixon’s study confirm that while he did have a genuine interest in music of the American idiom, he was not—in any way, shape, or form—a jazz fan. Yet, to paraphrase his 1968 campaign slogan, Nixon was the one, the first one, to honor jazz as an art form when he bestowed the nation’s highest civil honor on Duke Ellington—the most articulate spokesman, prolific composer, and honored personage in jazz for over four decades—on April 29, 1969, Duke’s 70th birthday.
​
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Nixon White House: The Record Library and Willis Conover

3/23/2017

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Willis Conover: jazz producer and broadcaster on the Voice of America radio program for over 40 years.
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In January 1970, First Lady Pat Nixon announced plans for a White House Record Library, naming a commission of five members to make selections in various musical categories: Paul Ackerman (country, folk, gospel), Irving Kolodin (classical); Johnny Mercer (popular), Helen Roach (spoken word), and Willis Conover (jazz). 

The ubiquitous Conover was also named chairman of the commission. Of greater interest, however, are the choices he made in the jazz category in light of his role as producer-narrator of the White House tribute to Duke Ellington the previous April. ​
​
Conover selected 229 LPs, spanning recorded jazz from its beginnings in 1917 through the 1960s. He singled out a broad range of artists from all styles, 108 represented by a single LP and another 36 by multiple LPs. Those with three or more:
​Duke Ellington   7
​John Coltrane   3
​Miles Davis   5
​Bill Evans   3
Earl Hines   5
​Stan Getz   3
Charles Mingus   5
Dizzy Gillespie   3
Charlie Parker   4
Benny Goodman   3
Louis Armstrong   3
​Coleman Hawkins   3
​Count Basie   3
Stan Kenton   3
​Sidney Bechet   3
​Gerry Mulligan   3
It should come as no surprise to readers of Ellington at the White House, 1969, that a rabid Ellington fan like Conover would favor him with the most selections. In some years, Ellingtonia represented a third of the music heard on his daily Music USA show over the VOA. 

Two of the participants in the all-star tribute at the White House—Earl Hines and Gerry Mulligan—are on the multiple LP list, as are invited guests Dizzy Gillespie (who played at the after-hours jam session) and Benny Goodman. Moreover, Conover awarded each all-star musician one or more LPs in the library, save for Mary Mayo and Billy Taylor. 

CODA
At a presentation in March 1973, Mrs. Nixon accepted the library on behalf of the White House Historical Association. The collection consisted of the commission-selected recordings donated by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 1979, producer John Hammond, music critic Bob Blumenthal, and Rolling Stone editor Paul Nelson led a commission to update the library for President Carter, delivering an updated collection only seven days before President Carter left office.

The Reagan administration later moved the LPs to the basement, possibly because of Nancy Reagan’s reported distaste for the musical selections. As of this writing, nobody seems to know if the record library is still in use—or if it is even at the White House.
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Ellington’s Far East Suite Revisited

1/12/2017

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Ellington Far East Suite
Over the years, numerous vocalists and instrumentalists have recorded Ellington tunes. Comparatively rare, however, are versions of his longer works by an individual artist or group. 

One thinks of Cannonball Adderley’s cover of the score for Jump for Joy (1), the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra’s many performances of Ellington-Strayhorn suites and thematic materials, including the Far East Suite (2) and recently, the Asian American Orchestra’s version of the Far East Suite, which earned a year 2000 Grammy nomination (3), and the Slovak Soul Party! (4) with its take on the one Ellington suite that would make nearly everyone’s top five (my number one). ​
Covering the Far East Suite is quite a challenge. Unlike the New Orleans Suite, for example, where the sound of the orchestra—the ensemble passages—dominate rather than the individual soloists, Far East flips that order with Duke’s prominent instrumentalists front and center delivering matchless, nearly-impossible-to-duplicate solos. 

The suite’s inspiration was mostly influenced by the sights, sounds, and smells absorbed by Ellington and co-composer Billy Strayhorn during the band’s 11-week tour of South Asia and the Middle East in 1963, which afterward, as Duke later said, seeped out on paper for the band’s musicians to elucidate.
​

Tourist Point of View

​The suite opens with an orchestral interpretation of the swirling jumble of previously unheard, unseen, and unfelt stimuli that Duke and his men encountered as they toured the ancient cities of Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Ceylon, India, and Pakistan. While this piece may not totally succeed in capturing that sensory overload, it does serve to introduce the band itself, as Neil Tesser wrote:

IN FIVE evocative minutes, Ellington and Strayhorn were able to highlight all the orchestra’s important elements: the scorching trumpet of Cat Anderson; the well-matched burnishes of the trombone section; the burry, shaded timbre of Gonsalves’s juggernaut tenor, rising from the rich textures of the reed section; the unmistakable touch and prominent accents of Ellington’s piano; and the dark energy that characterized much of his later writing. (5)
​
Ellington also introduces new star drummer Rufus “Speedy” Jones and bassist John Lamb—together they are the Suite’s unsung heroes, along with the leader’s wide-ranging piano. 

Familiar yet intriguing, “Tourist” prepares the listener for more unusual things to come.
​

​Blue Bird of Delhi (Mynah)

Clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton shines as the mynah bird that perched outside Billy Strayhorn’s hotel room during his several day stay in Delhi, India. The clarinetist replicates the blue bird’s intricate song, the “pretty lick” as Duke called it, then takes flight with his own bird song, a full-register solo based on the lick while the orchestra simmers along underneath. More than a novelty, this mid-tempo number is driven by an excellent arrangement that swings.
    

Isfahan

Named for the city in Persia (now Iran) where the American cultural ambassadors received their most exuberant welcome, “Isfahan” is, according to Cook and Morton, “arguably the most beautiful single item in Ellington’s and Strayhorn’s entire output.” (6) And I agree.

​Hodge’s stiletto sharp, crystalline pure sound slows the breath, wells the eyes, and stills the body while Ellington’s orchestra puffs occasional sound pontoons to keep the alto’s melodic line afloat, mimicking to some extent, what arranger Gil Evans did for Miles Davis. If perfection needed a definition, it can be found here.​​
​

Depk

The inspiration for “Depk” came from a dance by six boys and six girls Ellington witnessed in Amman, Jordan. The spirited and intricate arrangement, Duke later wrote, requires an interchange of musical progressions by the two sections, thinning out to a statement by Hamilton and Carney on clarinet and baritone saxophone, respectively. (7) 

The piece opens with the reed section articulating the eminently whistle-able theme, then a mirroring by the brass, and a back-and-forth between the sections that leads to a short piano interlude by the maestro. The piece retraces it steps back to the reed section opening before the denouement, the thinning out, Hamilton-Carney by themselves, whistling the happy theme to a fade. 

And how often, one wonders, has Ellington or anyone else for that matter, paired a high-register clarinet with a baritone sax so effectively?

Mount Harissa

Named for the mountain top fifteen miles from Beirut, Lebanon, “Mount Harissa” is notable on several counts: a haunting memorable theme delineated by Ellington’s expressive piano that bookends the piece, a hard-swinging middle section given over to a two-plus-minute solo by tenor man Paul Gonsalves (that one wants to call an interlude based on a reminiscence of his breakout 27-chorus R&B solo at Newport ’56), rising above a complimentary orchestral bottom, and the constant rhythmic drumming of Speedy Jones underneath, his timekeeping tick on the splash cymbal coupled with a nonstop snare/tom pattern—impossible to imagine how he did it with only two arms. 

Gonsalves to me has three voices: a lowing moan one hears on the “Tourist” opening and the R&B driving wail heard at Newport ’56 and another where he splits the difference between the two as heard here on “Mount Harissa.” 

Others have called his sound snaky, smoky, or serpentine, but in all cases, a swinging, “please don’t stop” songful moan. His spotlight partner Duke deserves most of the credit, however, for both the composition (along with Billy Stayhorn) and his magnificent, incomparable piano work. In an album full of jewels, this one shines the brightest. ​

Blue Pepper (Far East of the Blues)

If “Isfahan” brings a tear to your eye, then “Pepper” will bring a smile to your face—a rarity in jazz music—a piece of music that is actually funny. The band starts out rocking with a simple repetitive sing-songy Da Da Dah Dah da Dah Dah Dah melody atop a churning, rock-and-roll drum rhythm by Speedy Jones. 

This Eastern-tinged melody gives way to the flipside of the Hodges coin, the bluesy side, but in this instance, a solo of clipped, start-and-stop notes that suggests rather than delineates. In other words, a near parody of a typical Hodges blues solo. And it works! 

Enter high note trumpet specialist Cat Anderson. He takes his cue from the Rabbit (Hodges’s nickname) and sputters, squeaks and squeals over Speedy’s head-wagging, rock-steady groove. An absolute delight! And did anyone at the time think to release a 45 rpm single with “Pepper” on the A side and “Isfahan” on the B? It would have charted on college jukeboxes and radio stations for sure.   

Agra

Named for the Indian city that borders the Taj Mahal, this piece, as Ellington said, “takes in a little more territory than that marble edifice dedicated to the tremendous love for a beautiful woman. We consider the room in which the man who built it was imprisoned by his son. For the rest of his life he was forced to live there and look out at the Taj Mahal.” (8) 

Duke’s desire to “take in a little more territory” to musically portray the torment felt by the imprisoned man led to Harry Carney’s languorous, weighty voice on baritone saxophone to plumb the depths of amorous despair.

The number could have equally been assigned to altoist Johnny Hodges—it is a lovely Billy Strayhorn melody after all—but the result would have been more sweepingly romantic, not when anguished unrequited love is called for. 

As it stands, Carney delivers a performance to rival any of his ballad solos, including “Sophisticated Lady.” 

Amad

This is the most impressionistically Eastern number of the entire suite and incongruously the most swinging. Taken up-tempo and propelled forward by an overactive rhythm section consisting of John Lamb’s popping bass, Rufus Jones’s chattering drumming and the leader’s boppish chords splattering all over the tightly woven reed and brass sections make for one toe-tapping instrumental. 

The featured soloist, Lawrence Brown, mimics the high-pitched quivering Islamic call to prayer on his trombone, something he and the other members of the orchestra heard daily in many of the countries they visited.

Ad Lib on Nippon

Written after the orchestra’s 1964 visit to Japan, “Ad Lib” consists of four sections: “Fugi,” “Igoo,” “Nagoya,” and “Tokyo.” “Fugi” and “Nagoya” are largely pieces that showcase the maestro’s piano. “Igoo” was composed originally for an America Airlines short advertising film entitled AstroFreight, while Jimmy Hamilton is featured on his composition “Tokyo.” (9)

Fugi
This is a piano trio number with Ellington sharing the spotlight with bassist John Lamb. To start, Duke picks out a spare, repeating seven-note melody, while Lamb plucks out well-placed bass notes. 

This segment morphs into a lovely Dukish melody accompanied only by Lamb’s bowed bass. Duke next drops irregular dissonant chords as Lamb strums his bass like a koto (perhaps). The pair returns from whence it all began. A showcase for the musician’s talent, “Fugi” offers one delightful sound image after another.

Igoo
The trio kicks off a fast tempo swinger and the ensemble quickly follows. Sections trade the theme back and forth with trumpeter Cat Anderson sounding an exclamation point at end of each brass section statement. 
            
Nagoya
Multi-stylistic pianist Ellington eschews his penchant for dissonance and taps a less-used keyboard style to sketch an uncommonly beautiful melody. Only John Lamb’s softly bowed bass disturbs the quiet. This one ranks up there with the maestro’s “A Single Petal of a Rose.”
            
Tokyo
This is an up-tempo vehicle for co-composer Jimmy Hamilton. Never sounding better on what must be his longest outing on record, he starts off with a short clarinet solo that evolves into a series of trills. The brass and reed sections return buttressing Hamilton’s pure-toned, full register improvisations for a rather lengthy workout. The woodwind master closes the piece, appropriately, without accompaniment.

Over the years, Ellington suites have come under attack by several critics for not being suites at all, the argument being that the themes introduced at the outset are not recapitulated or further developed. 

See Terry Teachout’s book DUKE: A Life of Duke Ellington for a catalog of slights registered against Ellington compositions. (10) Kurt Gottstalk slammed the Far East Suite in particular, saying the nine pieces that make up the suite are scattered and lack an overriding theme—the concept is carried out in the titles more than the music. (11) Ouch!

Alan Bumstead reports that some critics have pointed to the fact that the Far East Suite does not actually work as a “suite” in a musical sense—the compositions are too varied to work as a part of the whole. (12)

Other critics see a coherent togetherness in the suite that others don’t. But it doesn’t matter. It is not a Eurocentric suite, it is an American jazz suite of the sort Ellington wrote all his life, one characterized by the unpredictable unfolding of different sound images one after the other.

The work as a whole is a beautiful piece of music, the tracks—I’ll call them that—seem to work together regardless of intent. The whole can be enjoyed just as it is, as itself, repeatedly. And that’s all that matters.

Still others have questioned the integrity of the suite from another angle—the fact that certain pieces were composed prior to the orchestra’s foreign trip, like “Isfahan” and a section of “Ad Lib on Nippon.” Ellington believed they belonged in the suite, and that’s good enough for me. A work’s creation story, no matter how fascinating, should not interfere with the enjoyment of the final result. The proof is in the pudding, and not in its various ingredients. Duke’s ambitious album won a Best of the Year award from DownBeat magazine and a Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble. Some pudding!

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  1. Julian Cannonball Adderley, Jump for Joy, 1959, Mercury MG 36146.
  2. The SMJO has performed at least 10: Such Sweet Thunder, Far East Suite, Queen’s Suite, Nutcracker, Degas Suite, Anatomy of a Murder, Black, Brown and Beige, Peer Gynt Suite, Personal Communication, Kenneth R. Kinnery, Program Director, Smithsonian Jazz, Washington, DC, September 1, 2016.
  3. Far East Suite, Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra, CD Baby.
  4. Slavic Soul Party! Plays Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite, ropeadope, RAP-314.
  5. Neil Tesser, Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite, 1999.
  6. Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 7th edition (New York, Penguin Books, 2004), 502.
  7. Stanley Dance, East Meets West through the swinging music of Duke Ellington, original liner notes, Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite, Bluebird first editions 82876-55614-2.
  8. Ibid.
  9. THE FAR EAST SUITE: Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn Arrangements, eJazzlines, The Global Source for Jazz .
  10. Terry Teachout, DUKE: A Life of Duke Ellington (New York: Gotham Books, 2013).
  11. Kurt Gottschalk, “Duke Ellington: Far East Suite,” All About Jazz, 2004.
  12. Alan Bumstead, “Duke Ellington, Far East Suite, 1967,” 2011. 
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Duke Ellington: The Accidental Songwriter, Part 2

10/13/2016

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Django Reinhardt & Duke Ellington
Django Reinhardt & Duke Ellington, ©Gottlieb
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This is part 2 of a two-part series. Read part 1 here.
​
Will Friedwald examines nine Ellington songs in-depth and makes many interesting observations, starting with “Mood Indigo” (1931), a 32-bar standard with a most unusual AABA CCDC form, or two 16-bar songs chained together. Here, he gives an equal measure of credit to lyricist Mitchell Parish (as did Ellington) who “found words appropriate to the emotions embodied in” Duke’s abstract musical design.
The preeminent song historian considers “It Don’t Mean a Thing” (1932) to be the most successful song Ellington ever wrote with himself as lyricist. Don’t be surprised to see Duke’s business partner Irving Mills credited as the lyric writer, however. It was (and is) a contractual matter. Friedwald has got it right, though. The words are Duke’s.

Mitchell Parish, who worked for Irving Mills, miraculously received full lyric credit for “Sophisticated Lady” (1932). “Musically,” Friedwald writes, “the song is remarkable. Lots of pop songs modulate upward on the bridge, but ‘Lady’ is one of the few that modulates downward.” 

And maybe that’s what made George Gershwin jealous. He famously said he’d wished he had written that bridge. The melody has a stark quality, appropriate lyrics, and the sense of solitary life. Again, Friedwald asks, “who should we credit for this coordination of purely ‘absolute/abstract’ musical design and ‘verbal/psychological’ meaning? Ellington? Lyricist Eddie Delange? Together?”

The song oracle muses, “In a Sentimental Mood” (1935) seems to come from an entirely different planet than other pop or show tunes composed that year. Both the melody and lyrics thrust forward the relation of stability and agitation. Friedman asks himself, and us, “So who wouldn’t want a oneness of rest and motion, security and adventure.” 

I would ask, “So who wouldn’t want to listen to the Ellington-Coltrane version of “Mood” on Impulse Records from 1962 every single day for the rest of their lives?” 

Like all the rest, “Prelude to a Kiss” (1938) began life as an orchestral piece, a most technically complex one at that, rarely paralleled in jazz composition of the time. Friedwald concludes, “Its mathematical sophistication befits a song that began as a pure instrumental.”

Our song historian marvels at the brilliance of “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)” (1941), writing that the structure of the piece reveals a mighty, organized, profound composer at work. He is equally taken with the masterful lyrics by Paul Francis Webster that fully capture a distinctly Ellington mood: sad but not without humor, saturated with the spirit of the blues, even a suggestion of religion. This song from Ellington’s major career disappointment Jump for Joy—his hoped for but never to be Broadway theatrical smash—became the best know tune from the show’s five widely recorded songs: “I Got It Bad,” “Jump for Joy,” ”Rock’s in My Bed,” “Just Squeeze Me,” and “Just Sittin’ and a Rockin’.” (All made it into Ella Fitzgerald’s songbook, but only “I Got It Bad" made it into The Jazz Standard book by Ted Gioia.

Friedwald takes a look at “I Don’t Get Around Anymore” and “Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me” (1942–43) together. They share the same harmonic point of view and lyrics by S. K. “Bob” Russell, for which the historian has nothing but high praise. And I quote: “In each case, Russell freely adapted the original instrumental melody. In the first instance he and his wife . . . virtually rewrote the bridge . . . They also made ‘Do Nothin’ into something far more song-like than the original Concerto for Cootie.” Of the former, Friedwald wrote, “it is one of the striking songs of Ellingtonia, a true meeting of the minds between the maestro and Russell [and his wife].”

Don’t fret—lyricists shape composer’s melodies more often than one might imagine. Did Ira Gershwin influence the contours of brother George’s songs? You bet. 

Ellington and Russell collaborated on at least four other songs; only “I Didn’t Know About You” and “Warm Valley” contributed significantly to their respective bank accounts.

Together, the lyrics (by Johnny Mercer) and melody (by Duke and partner Billy Strayhorn) give us a collection of hints that eventually add up to a portrait of “Satin Doll” (1953). This musical concoction, Friedwald opines, may be the one song with the most miniscule range in the Ellington oeuvre. The A and B sections both fit neatly between G and D resulting in a gentle, smooth melody. No rough edges here, dissonances, or “I Got it Bad” octave leaps. That’s “Satin Doll.”

Coda: The songs above were played at the 1969 All-Star White House Tribute to Duke Ellington, and can be heard on the Blue Note CD of the same name. Extensive liner notes, if you will, can be found in my book.
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Duke Ellington: The Accidental Songwriter, Part 1

9/16/2016

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Picture
Duke Ellington, Hurricane Ballroom, 1943.
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As a preeminent writer on American popular song (and perhaps the best at what he does), Will Friedwald microscopes Ellington the “accidental songwriter” in The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington.

"​Accidental," because as he says, “The great majority of his most celebrated songs were not conceived as songs originally, but rather as ‘absolute music’—as pure instrumentals.” ​
Right out of the gate, the song historian makes a most interesting point. In addition to all the other musical trends in performance and composition the maestro predated, he also anticipated a more recent phenomena: the singer-songwriter, where the composer is also his own interpreter, thereby locking in a fixed design to the song. His reasoning for this conclusion is sound but maybe a little difficult to follow.

I’ll try to explain.

Standard jazz practice has been from the outset to individualize the material, change tempo, discard the melody, alter the harmony, in whole or in part, whatever, but only for popular songs not songs by jazz musicians (with few exceptions). Since Ellington was the foremost jazz composer, his songs were rarely rearranged, always treated with respect, played at the tempo as in the original. Hence, Duke joins songwriters Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Carole King, Billy Joel— whoever you want to name; it’s rare to rewrite their songs as well. 

Friedwald mentions one exception, a 1956 recording by the Eddie Condon band where they played “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” as a ballad. Up to that time, it had always been played at Duke’s more upbeat tempo, set in large part by its instrumental predecessor “Never No Lament.” 

Another convention-shattering moment occurred at the White House tribute for Ellington on his 70th birthday with Duke in the audience! Gerry Mulligan rearranged one of the maestro’s most esteemed ballads “Prelude to a Kiss” as a medium up-tempo romp featuring several contrapuntal exchanges by members of the all-star band. Traditionalists in the audience were compensated later in the program with a more familiar rendering of “Prelude” by vocalist Mary Mayo.

Friedwald goes on to say that of the major American popular songwriters (and by that he means the Big 6: Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Harold Arlen), Duke was the only first-rank jazz musician. Fair enough, but if one loosens the qualifiers “major” and “first-rank,” then that opens the door for Fats Waller, Hoagland Carmichael, and Peggy Lee. 

A pet peeve of mine is that no one has tackled the obvious: who in fact is the greatest American composer? Or better said, among the top ten greatest—the Big 6, Duke and Hoagy, and two others (pick ’em)—who would poll first, second . . . 10th?

It is often said that Ellington is one of the 20th century’s greatest composers. But is he the greatest? Interestingly, Edward Green, the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington, has reached that conclusion: 

I am among a large and ever increasing number of people who see Duke Ellington as America’s greatest composer. I also think a good case can be made that, all in all, Ellington . . . was the most influential composer of the twentieth century—for jazz, with its various stylistic offspring, has had more impact worldwide than any other form of modern music. And Ellington is acknowledged almost universally as the greatest of all jazz composers.
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