Duke Ellington's Perdido: Other Recordings (a laundry list!)

If a student makes it through each of the major styles of Ellington arrangements of Perdido, then it comes time to kick the door open to all of the recordings of this perennial jazz standard by other folks.  Some of my favorites include:

Al Haig - Expressly Ellington
Art Tatum - The Art Tatum Group Masterpieces Vol. 3
Ben Webster - Live at the Haarlemse Jazz Club
Ben Webster - Live In Paris
Ben Webster - Plays Duke Ellington
Ben Webster & Dexter Gordon - Baden 1972
Ben Webster & Don Byas - Ben Webster Meets Don Byas
Ben Webster & The Oscar Peterson Trio - Live In Hannover
Ben Webster With The Mike Renzi Trio - Ben Webster With The Mike Renzi Trio
Bill Harris - Live at Birdland 1952
Bucky Pizzarelli - Swing Live
Bud Powell - Bud In Paris
Charlie Parker - Bird_ The Complete Charlie Parker On Verve CD 3
Count Basie - Class Of '54
Count Basie - New Year at Birdland
Count Basie - The Chronological Classics_ 1953-1954
Dave Brubeck - Ken Burns Jazz
Dick Johnson - Swing Shift LP
DMP Big Band - Salutes Duke Ellington
Don Patterson - Dem New York Dues
Duke Ellington - 1969 All-Star White House Tribute
Duke Ellington - 70th Birthday Concert CD 2
Duke Ellington - All Star Road Band Vol. II
Duke Ellington - At The First Annual Connecticut Jazz Festival, July 28, 1956
Duke Ellington - Big Band Sounds
Duke Ellington - Duke Ellington Live! At The Newport Jazz Festival '59
Duke Ellington - Duke Ellington's Greatest Hits
Duke Ellington - Festival Session
Duke Ellington - Great London Concerts, The
Duke Ellington - Greatest Hits (RCA Victor)
Duke Ellington - Hi-Fi Ellington Uptown
Duke Ellington - Live At The Blue Note CD 2
Duke Ellington - Rugged Jungle
Duke Ellington - Satin Doll (European Concert Recordings, Ca. 1958 and 1959, 'Jazz Time')
Duke Ellington - Stereo Reflections In Ellington
Duke Ellington - The 1956-58 Small Group Recordings
Duke Ellington - The Complete RCA Victor CD 13 (take 1)
Duke Ellington - The Complete RCA Victor CD 13 (take 2)
Duke Ellington - The Complete RCA Victor CD 17
Duke Ellington - The Complete RCA Victor CD 22
Duke Ellington - The Forum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (8 Feb. 1954) CD 1
Duke Ellington - The Great Paris Concert CD 1
Duke Ellington - The Private Collection Volume Seven Studio Sessions 1957 & 1962 (Instrumental)
Duke Ellington - The Private Collection Volume Seven Studio Sessions 1957 & 1962
Duke Ellington - Verve Jazz Masters 4
Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn - Piano Duets_ Great Times!
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - 1941-1951
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - The Chronological Classics_ 1942-1944
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - The Chronological Classics_ 1949-1950
Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald - Sings The Ellington Songbook CD 1
Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra - 1941 The Complete Standard Transcriptions CD 2
Duke Ellington And His Famous Orchestra - The Duke In Washington
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - Ellington Uptown
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - En Concert Avec Europe1_ Theatre Des Champs Elysees 29-30 Janvier 1965 CD 2
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra - Happy Birthday, Duke! CD 2
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - In A Mellotone
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - Live At Monterey 1960 The Unheard Recordings Part One
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - Piano In The Background
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - The Blanton-Webster Band CD 3
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - The Treasury Shows Volume 4 CD 1
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - The Treasury Shows Volume 14 CD 2
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - The Treasury Shows Volume 15 CD 1
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - The Treasury Shows Volume 16 CD 2
Duke Ellington And His Orchestra - Togo Brava Suite (Storyville)
Duke Ellington Octet - At The Rainbow Grill 1967
Duke Ellington Orchestra - Essentially Ellington 2008-09 Reference Recordings
Duke Ellington Orchestra, The - Digital Duke
Duke Ellington's Spacemen - The Cosmic Scene
Gene Krupa & Buddy Rich - Drum Battle
Howard McGhee - Maggie - The Savoy Sessions CD 2
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra - Essentially Ellington 2008-09 Reference Recordings
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Rhythm Section - Essentially Ellington 2008-09 Reference Recordings
Johnny Hodges - A Memory Of Johnny Hodges LP
Johnny Hodges - Perdido
Johnny Hodges - The Complete Johnny Hodges Sessions 1951-55 CD 5
Johnny Hodges - The Jeep is Jumpin' CD 3 A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing
Johnny Hodges & Earl _Fatha_ Hines - Stride Right
Louis Armstrong - When the Saints Go Marchin' In
Oscar Pettiford Orchestra, The - Deep Passion
Quintet, The - Jazz At Massey Hall
Roy Eldridge 4 - Montreux '77
Sonny Stitt And Paul Gonsalves - Salt And Pepper
Tal Farlow - Autumn Leaves
Woody Herman Big Band, The - World Class

Duke Ellington's Perdido: Major arrangement styles

Perdido went through a great many variations during the more than thirty years that it resided in the Ellington band book.  Years ago, the Essentially Ellington program released the Clark Terry feature version as recorded on the 1959 Festival Session album (and appearing in the live performance of the identical arrangement on the Live! At Newport '59 CD).  Any student learning to improvise on any arrangement of this tune should listen repeatedly to all of the major arrangement styles of the tune, notwithstanding that he will only be blowing over the changes on one particular arrangement.  We learn a great deal by not just approaching a structure as it has been built, but by also examining the composition of the structure, the plans for the structure, and the materials from which the structure is built.  Besides, there are plenty of licks to be played over Perdido that simply do not show up on one arrangement or another.

Here, then, are a few of the major arrangement styles, with sample recording sources:

Original Arrangement: Duke Ellington: In A Mellow Tone

The original arrangement features a piano intro, initial melody in the bari, improvised (or pseudo-improvised; see Gunther Schuller on suspiciously recurrent improvised solos in big bands circa this era) and notable solos by trumpet and tenor.  The speed of the tune is much slow than later arrangements, but it swings just as hard.  Students should be able to swing Perdido hard at this tempo before they can rest assured that they have mastered the groove at a faster tempo.  Why?  Because sloppy jazz students frequently substitute tempo for groove as a lazy way of avoiding their failure to fully master either.

This same recording is also on the RCA/Victor re-releases Duke Ellington: The Complete RCA/Victor CD 13, Duke Ellington: The Blanton-Webster Band, and Duke Ellington: Never No Lament.  The Complete disc has an alternate take.

Essentially the same arrangement shows up on several of the Storyville Records volumes in the Duke Ellington Treasury Shows series.

Extended Arrangement: Duke Ellington: Ellington Uptown

With the advent of the 33 RPM LP record, Duke could stretch ideas previously constrained to the approximately 3 minute length of a 78 RPM single side.  This lush arrangement does exactly that.  Extended piano intro, great section soli for the trombones, and--smack in the middle of the chart--the intro that would later be played by Hamilton & Gonsalves at the top of the 1963 arrangement!  And, of course, it's got plenty of trumpet solo work (and terrific bass and trombone solos).  So one could make a convincing argument that this recording isn't just an extended arrangement: it may actually be every arrangement!

Single Soloist Feature Arrangement: Duke Ellington: Festival Session

This is the arrangement that primarily features one soloist (though, of course, it is adaptable in all sorts of ways for bands that want to open up the solo section).  Soloists using other arrangements should copy liberally from the multitude of sax backing figures in this arrangement, because they would work great in a solo over any of the other arrangements, too.  Though Terry's solo is full of great phrases, too!

Same arrangement shows up on the live Newport '59 album and the Live At The Blue Note CD 2 recording, among others.  It also shows up on the much earlier The Forum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (8 Feb. 1954) CD 1 recording!

"We Just Don't Dare" Arrangement: Duke Ellington: The Great Paris Concert CD 1

Actually, this arrangement is played more cleanly and at a much more manageable tempo (for students looking to transcribe the intro by ear or copy licks) on the studio take from Duke Ellington And His Orchestra: Piano In The Background.  If I were trying to learn this one, I would choose the Piano In The Background recording over the live Great Paris Concert recording any day of the week.  Why beat yourself up listening to the phrases blast past at a manic tempo when you could hear it much more cleanly and audibly on the studio take?

Again, bear in mind that this arrangement was not really "new" as of 1963.  Piano In The Background was recorded in 1960, as was a live recording of the same arrangement on the CD Live In Monterey 1960 The Unheard Recordings Part One.

Vocalist Arrangement: Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald: Sings The Ellington Songbook CD 1

Special arrangement for the Fitzgerald sessions.  Why not learn the lyrics?

"Busy" Mid-1960s Arrangement: Duke Ellington And His Orchestra: En Concert Avec Europe1_ Theatre Des Champs Elysees 29-30 Janvier 1965 CD 2

Fantastic Sam Woodyard drum solo at the end of this one, and very playful Ellington piano intro at the beginning.  There's a lot going on in this arrangement.  First soloist focus is clarinet, and main backing is trombones and rhythm (strong piano figures, especially in the lower register, show up in the backings under the clarinet).  Trumpet solo (of course) follows.  Then a nice trombone soli, followed by a sax soli.  Gonsalves jumps in, stylistically similar to his turn on Cop Out or Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue.  But man oh man, what a drum solo at the back end of this recording!  This may be the finest drum solo I have ever heard on an Ellington recording.  Certainly in the pantheon.

Small Group Arrangements

Then there are the nice small group recordings that Ellington made of this tune.  In no particular order (and with varying arrangements), they include:
Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn: Piano Duets_ Great Times!
Duke Ellington Octet - At The Rainbow Grill 1967
Duke Ellington's Spacemen - The Cosmic Scene

Duke Ellington: At "Le Jazz Hot" Club Montreal 1964 (Video)

Great hour of live Ellington concert footage from 1964: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTFK1M5hY0A

Duke Ellington's Perdido: "You Are So Hip, We Just Don't Dare" Intro Arrangement

This year's Essentially Ellington set list includes the extended arrangement of Perdido that Duke invariably introduced by telling his audience that "And now, Jimmy Hamilton and Paul Gonsalves lead us into a number that we usually give our audiences three guesses as to what the title is.  But you are so hip, we just don't dare."  One of the most well-known live recordings of the arrangement is the one from the 1963 Great Paris Concert album.

The folks at EE attribute this arrangement to Gerald Wilson.  I have never see any notes or discographical information that would indicate that Wilson penned the extended arrangement.  It feels like Ellington arranged it himself, especially because the introduction is actually an obscure tune that Ellington recorded independently around 1950 or so (I have forgotten the title and am still trying to dig up that nugget of information!).  And I have Wilson's 1965 album On Stage, on which one of his arrangements of Perdido appears, and it has little in common with the Great Paris Concert arrangement.  But it is not for me to challenge the EE researchers, and I accept their ruling that the 1963 arrangement is Wilson's handiwork as the authoritative word on the subject.

The first tip for bands that are really serious about this chart is that they should add the obscure third chorus to the intro.  Get the album Duke Ellington's Spacemen: The Cosmic Scene.  The Perdido recording on that album has two choruses, but the first chorus of the Spacemen recording is the second chorus of the Great Paris recording.  The second chorus of the Spacemen recording flows naturally from the first, and--added to the original two Great Paris choruses--completes a full three-chorus introduction.  Bands with serious drive will learn all three choruses (or at least the combo playing the intro will!).

For vocalists, here are the lyrics as sung by Ella Fitzgerald on Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald: Sings The Ellington Songbook CD 1:

Perdido

I look for my heart in Perdido

I lost it way down in Torido

The day the fiesta started

Bolero

I swayed as they played the Bolero

I kissed me the listing sombrero

And that's when my heart departed

High

Was the sun when I held him close

Low

Was the moon when we said Adios

Perdido

My heart ever since is Perdido

I know I must go to Torido

To find what I lost, Perdido

Duke Ellington's Anatomy Of A Murder: Flirtibird (Alternate Recordings And Almost Cried)

Ever since the critical failure (notwithstanding its musical triumph) of Ellington's Black, Brown & Beige symphony following its Carnegie Hall premiere in January of 1943, he adopted the "suite" format as a substitute for the "symphony" format.  The practical result for record collectors was that nearly all of Ellington's suites from 1944's Perfume Suite through the Third Sacred Concert were recorded once in their entirety in the studio, once at their live premiere (though most of those live premiere recordings were not even released to the public until after Ellington's death, as in the case of the Prestige 2-LP Carnegie Hall sets that first hit listener ears in the late 1970s!), and never again in their entirety.  The live premieres in the 1940s were almost always made at Duke's Carnegie Hall gigs, and that, standing alone, is reason enough to get all of the 1940s-era Carnegie Hall concert albums.  Very occasionally, a suite would be re-recorded after the passage of long years, but this was the exception rather than the rule (see, for example, the 1961-era re-recording of The Perfume Suite on Side 2 of The Girl's Suite & The Perfume Suite).

Instead of playing full suites before audiences worldwide, Duke would adopt one, and occasionally two, movements from each suite and add them to the regular performance book.  For example, in the late 1950s, in the years immediately following the studio and live performances of Such Sweet Thunder: The Shakespearean Suite, it is common to find Ellington performing the tune (as opposed to the suite) Such Sweet Thunder in isolation or paired with Sonnet To Hank Cinq.  Later, in the 1960s, Such Sweet Thunder fell out of favor from live concerts and audiences instead heard The Star-Crossed Lovers (Pretty Girl) performed live.  But they virtually never heard the entire suite.

And so it is with Anatomy Of A Murder.  The tune that Lambert, Hendricks & Ross made a vocalese bebop success out of, Happy Anatomy, was never recorded live by Duke himself.  Meanwhile, Flirtibird showed up on a number of live albums.  Perhaps not coincidentally, Flirtibird was used to feature Hodges around the same time that The Star-Crossed Lovers (Pretty Girl) filled the same role.  Anyone studying Flirtibird should seriously listen to the recording of the tune off each of the following.  Note that, as is fairly common in film scoring, the same theme emerged more than once; the melody of Flirtibird re-surfaces in a trumpet-oriented arrangement, also from the film score:

Flirtibird recorded as Flirtibird

Duke Ellington: Anatomy Of A Murder

Original studio recording with melody in the Hodges alto.

Duke Ellington: Duke Ellington Live At The Blue Note CD 1

With an extended and almost haunting (well, not nearly meandering enough to really make it haunting, but certainly a nice touch) piano introduction by Duke.  Melody in the Hodges alto.

Duke Ellington: Duke Ellington Live! At The Newport Jazz Festival '59

Again, Duke plays the piano intro.  Melody in the Hodges alto.

Duke Ellington: Verve Jazz Masters 4

Again, Duke plays the piano intro.  Melody in the Hodges alto.

Duke Ellington: The Feeling of Jazz

This time, the melody is in the trumpet!  One wonders whether perhaps the studio ought to have labeled this take Almost Cried rather than Flirtibird...

Flirtibird melody recorded as Almost Cried

Duke Ellington: Anatomy Of A Murder (Movie take)

A more direct arrangement, starting right out of the gate with the trumpet solo, obviously necessary for use in short film scenes.  Even so, much of this recording was still left out of the movie.

Duke Ellington: Anatomy Of A Murder (Studio take)

A much more relaxed recording, though only thirteen (13) seconds longer.  Begins with a lush ensemble section before the trumpet--far more restrained than in the movie take--comes in.

Duke Ellington: Live At The Blue Note CD 1

Same arrangement as the studio take from the film soundtrack.  Ensemble starts it off before the trumpet comes in.

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Essentially Ellington 2001

If you have the 2001 Essentially Ellington reference recording CD, that album has a very nice recording of the studio arrangement played by the LCJO.

Jimmy Hamilton... In St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands?! In 1985?! Huh?!

A while back, I was thumbing through the bins at my favorite used record store, a disorganized dump that somehow manages to yield the most extraordinary gems of jazz history despite the complete lack of any alphabetical organization, any price tags, and any set times for opening and closing.  The proprietrix is a saintly little old lady with a pleasant Greek accent and, after becoming familiar with her complete lack of organization (beyond a generalized sense of "on this wall, you find jazz now") and her tendency toward spontaneous generosity ("your sister, I like her, I give her these Duke Ellington boxed sets as Christmas present, she pick some more and I give her what she want for ten dollar"), I have come to affectionately refer to her store as The Crazy Lady Record Store (not the actual name of the store, but as far as I and those I send to the store, it might as well be!).

As I passed over various albums for one reason or another (already have on CD, not an artist I have room for, reissue of common material, etc.), suddenly I was face to face with an album in relatively modern LP packaging with a picture of an older gentleman on the cover.  And the name of the artist was... Jimmy Hamilton.

Jimmy Hamilton, who, alongside Barney Bigard, is one of the two clarinetists who defined the Ellington clarinet sound?  Jimmy Hamilton, who played the rip-roaring multi-chorus introduction to Perdido as a tenor duet with Paul Gonsalves on the 1963 Great Paris Concert recording?  Jimmy Hamilton, who I had absent-mindedly assumed must have been one of the many Ellingtonians who died in 1974, the year that Harry Carney, Paul Gonsalves, and God only knows how many other men whose lives were inseparable from their leader's life gave up the ghost because they had, as Carney himself said, "nothing left to live for"?

But this LP was dated... 1985?  So Jimmy Hamilton outlived my main man, the Frog, Cottontail himself, the tenor man whose dulcet tone could melt any lady's legs from clear across a concert hall or a jazz club: Ben Webster?

Nah, gotta be a reissue of earlier material, I thought.  After all, Hamilton had recorded a few small group titles, so this was probably just a release of those.

I looked closer.  Recorded in 1985 at a club called The Buccaneer in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.  Okay, there goes the reissue theory.

Lo and behold, this album is the final recording of Jimmy Hamilton.  It came eleven years after Ellington's death, and finds Hamilton living out his retirement in a tropical paradise.  And yes, he's still got the sound.  The sidemen (Gary Mayone, Joe Straws, Delroy Thomas) are guys I've never heard of, but who cares?  It's Jimmy Hamilton!

Side A is less rewarding than Side B, but that's only because Side B is wall-to-wall Ellingtonia!  Side A features well-worn classic tunes.  Maybe the audience on the island was a more pedestrian crowd, and Hamilton didn't want to overpower them with any too erudite?  Regardless, I had to chuckle when the set opened with Stranger On The Shore and I recognized the melody as the (gag-inducing) tune that the eponymous music teacher taught his clarinet student in Mr. Holland's Opus.  But Hamilton gives it a very pretty clarinet presentation.  Then he takes out the alto and does a marvelous job with Misty, though no performance of that tune would be complete without tipping the hat to Erroll Garner, which pianist Mayone does well during a short solo.  Shadow Of Your Smile, As Time Goes By, and Departing Lovers follow.  During Hamilton's alto playing, I am really struck by how completely different his tone is from that of Johnny Hodges.  The airy, breathy fwa-fwa-fwa that one almost instinctively expects from an Ellington reed man is not present in Hamilton's alto playing; instead, his tone is almost a straight tone, and even when he uses a solid dose of vibrato it is still a much harder sound than the soft sound of the Rabbit.

Flip the record over, and we finally get to the real meat and potatoes!  Side B is nothing but Duke.  What a thrill to hear an Ellingtonian playing this set, from Don't Get Around Much Anymore to Satin Doll and traversing Warm Valley, C Jam Blues, and Happy Go Lucky Local in between (and he even manages to sneak the A section of I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart into the first two A sections of the final recitation of the melody in Don't Get Around Much Anymore!).  How many of those in the audience knew that this man had played those tunes thousands of times with Duke himself?

What this recording really made clear to me was just how young Hamilton was when he played with Duke.  Jimmy Hamilton was only about thirty years old when he was hired in the late 1940s by Ellington, and when Duke died in 1974, Hamilton was only in his fifties.  This recording was made when he was 67, and he would live almost another ten years, dying in 1994 at the age of 77.  And for the last twenty or so of those years, Hamilton lived in St. Croix.

Not a bad way to go.  Beautiful beaches, opportunity to play jazz locally whenever he felt like it, and all of the legal amenities of being in a U.S. Territory.  Much as I would have loved to have heard him with the Louis Bellson band or even Mercer Ellington's efforts at resurrecting the Ellington orchestra, it is nonetheless comforting and amusing to hear the elder statesman of Duke's clarinetists (Bigard died in 1980) still swinging away in relative obscurity.

Amazon.com lists this one as having been released on CD at some point, but it is probably a lot easier to find it on the original LP.  Here's the album information, if you're interested:

Jimmy Hamilton
Rediscovered at The Buccaneer
Recorded In St. Croix
Virgin Islands U.S.A.
Sept 24, 1985
Who's Who In Jazz WWLP 21029
Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet, sax, alto saxophone
Gary Mayone, piano
Joe Straws, base
Delroy Thomas, drums
Side A
Love Song From St. Croix
   1. Stranger On The Shore
   2. Misty
   3. Shadow Of Your Smile
   4. As Time Goes By
   5. Departing Lovers
Side B
Jimmy Hamilton Plays Duke Ellington
   6. Don't Get Around Much Anymore
   7. Warm Valley
   8. C Jam Blues
   9. Happy Go Lucky Local
   10. Satin Doll

Duke Ellington's Anatomy Of A Murder: Flirtibird

Duke Ellington's Flirtibird (which also shows up in a variation called Almost Cried, another Anatomy Of A Murder theme, which put the same melody in the trumpet rather than the alto sax) is the theme played virtually every time that Lee Remick's character, Laura Manion, makes an appearance. When you see the film (it looks like someone posted the entire thing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6doMwsnySX4 ), you will notice that Remick is dressed relatively conservatively compared to today's trends; chalk that up to the fact that the movie was made in 1959, and at that time the fact that Laura Manion meets Attorney Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) wearing pants rather than a long skirt was controversial in and of itself! Regardless, Manion quickly proves herself to be a “Flirtibird,” and there's no better musical representation of that sort of character than the most seductive saxophone in the history of jazz, Johnny Hodges.

The lead character in Anatomy Of A Murder is Paul Biegler, an amateur jazz piano player, freshwater fisherman, and former District Attorney who lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. For those of you not from the Midwest, think of the U.P. as Michigan's sportsman's paradise--the part of the state where fisherman and hunters feel as at home as jazz musicians. Marquette, Michigan might as well be a universe away from Detroit and Chicago. Somehow, Biegler manages to find time to maintain an extensive library of jazz recordings (which, his secretary informs him, the attractive Mrs. Manion took a long listen to while waiting for Biegler to arrive at his office one day) and sit in at “Pie-Eye's,” a roadhouse where piano player Pie-Eye (played by Duke Ellington) and his band (Ray Nance and Jimmy Hamilton) entertain a loud crowd at all hours of the night.

Today, we would not think anything of using a major world-class musician to score a film. Indeed, Duke Ellington had been in any number of films prior to Anatomy Of A Murder. However, in all of those films (one of the earliest examples being the unimaginably awful Amos & Andy: Check And Double-Check, the only redeeming moment of which is three minutes during which Ellington plays some of his hits at a dance, see 35:06 of the video at http://archive.org/details/ClassicCinemaOnline_CheckAndDoubleCheck ), Ellington was on-screen playing music, or someone was playing a record of his music, etc. Ellington had never before been asked to write or record the score to a film, in which he would (for the most part) not actually be seen playing. Here is what critic Gary Giddins has to say about the score, from a short documentary on the Criterion Collection edition of the film:

“One of the amazing things about Anatomy Of A Murder is that—it's a long film, it's almost, I think, three hours—but it doesn't play that way. It's perfectly made. I think it's Preminger's most perfect film. One of the reasons it's so compelling to us is that, in a way, we have caught up to the score. Now, a lot of people liked the score when they first heard it. But the score is even more uncharacteristic of this kind of a film than having Jimmy Stewart play an ambiguous figure. In fact, in some ways, it's parallel. Because jazz, at that time, had been used in a number of movies, in the mid-50's. I Wanna Live was the big breakthrough in that a jazz composer wrote the score. But usually, when jazz was used in a movie, it was a diagetic thing, where you can see the—there were musicians on the screen playing it. Or, somebody's playing a record. Or, it's on the radio. You see the source of it. It's not the score per se. But in the 50's, this began to change.

“Jazz was very popular with grown-ups. It was the alternate music to rock 'n' roll, which was considered strictly for kids. Ellington, who had a long history in the movies, had never actually been asked to write a score, and he was delighted with the opportunity. Preminger sent him the script, and we don't really know what his response was to the fact that this is about a lawyer who is in the upper part of Michigan. When jazz had been used in other movies, they were urban films, it made sense; there were nightclubs, there were streetwalkers, there were pimps, and gamblers, and gangsters, and all kinds of revolting people. And it was always New York City or Chicago. Here we are in trout-fishing country! But Ellington is the great American composer. Everybody in the country is listening to Duke Ellington. It just makes perfect sense. But people didn't see it at the time. They thought it was counter-intuitive, which in 1959 it was.

“The fact that [Otto Preminger] is from Europe, the fact that he's Viennese, probably contributes to his idea that jazz is American music, which Americans never quite got! People are going to the film now, partly, because they want to hear what Ellington's score is. And Preminger's use of it is, I think, ingenious.

“Ellington became famous, he was about, what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old when he played at the Cotton Club, went in there in 1926. By 1927, people knew that there was this remarkable composer who wrote music that was like nothing they had ever heard. So in the 1930's, he became a major figure. And a lot of people who were hip to what was going on there wanted him in their movies. Mae West used him in a movie. He was in the Amos & Andy movie Check And Double-Check, which movie is mostly regarded as offensive, not just racially but because it's one of the worst movies ever made, by any standard. It's almost—it is—unwatchable, except for the two and a half minutes where Ellington is. And one of the ironies is that the little money that the movie made—it did make money—was mostly in black communities, because people wanted to see Duke Ellington. In those days, that was the only way—you'd heard about him, but now you could walk into a theater and wow! This was not the kind of black figure that you saw in the movies; there was nothing servile, there was nothing minstrel-like about this extraordinary man. He was handsome, he was confident, he had authority, the music was thrilling. Those two and a half minutes probably did more for Ellington's career at that moment than almost any recordings he had made to that time.

“And by the 1940's, he's extremely highly regarded in the classical world and the jazz world, and his records are among the best selling in the country. It all began to fall apart for him at around '44, late '43, when all the big bands started to die off. And most of them did die off—they just, they couldn't, the players had been drafted, dance halls had to deal with a cabaret tax, so a lot of them just bought extra chairs and tables and put them over the dance floor, converting them into nightclubs. Small bands had come into vogue, and they were so much cheaper to get around the country, and to hire, and to put on smaller bandstands. For all these reasons, things just seemed to get worse for a long time.

“And then in 1956, everything turned around when they did come back, and Ellington had this amazing performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, where he played the Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue, Paul Gonsalves played a legendary 26, 27 chorus blues solo, the audience went crazy, somebody from Time magazine was there, they finally—finally!—put Ellington on the cover. So from that point on, he's at Columbia Records, he's making very successful records, especially the Ellington At Newport, which was brilliantly produced by Ellington and George Avakian, fixing things in the studio, making it even more exciting on disc than it was live, it's really an amazing achievement in, in just in producing an album and creating the illusion of a live performance, and keeping all the excitement.

“With Anatomy Of A Murder it is very exciting music, it's got this great opening theme that—Peggy Lee later wrote a lyric to it, it's a very hard-driving kind of blues theme. Then it has a 32-bar part. It's got a great back-beat on the third beat...

“In terms of Hollywood, in terms of the film community, jazz is the music of lowlifes. Just as an example, a terrible cliché in film music throughout the 1950's: every B noire film, there's some moment where you see, I don't know, Dorothy Malone or Jane Greer, one of those or some femme fatales, in a tight dress, up to no good, or else you're just in a bad part of town, and on the soundtrack—Andre Previn just stomped us into the ground, every film he was ever involved in—you'll hear this alto saxophone playing this kind of glissando. Well, the ultimate glissando genius was Johnny Hodges. I mean, he is the most popular soloist in the Ellington band and he's associated with this wonderful rhapsodic sound, which he gets in part because his, his embouchure is so sure that he can play a glissando that goes to two different octaves, he can actually phrase so that he goes from one octave to another without the glissando! And the sound is totally sensual. So it's not that big a leap to go from sensual to sexual, if that's the point of the piece.

“One of the great moments of the score is the first time you see Lee Remick, she's leaning against a car. The band goes into really sensual—high sensual Ellington mode—which is part of his music going all the way back to the Cotton Club, where he played behind very sexy dancers. The reeds—the reeds are the sexy part of the orchestra. And then, just right as you see her, you hear Johnny Hodges play one of these glorious glissandos that you would think would just shame every other score Hollywood composer from ever using that cliché again, because there's nothing more to be said about it! So there's a certain wit involved there, and at the same time, it's like... damn! It's like, you know, she's in stereo! Because the way Hodges is playing, and the way she looks, it's just a perfect match...”

Duke Ellington's Afro-Eurasian Eclipse: Chinoiserie (Alternative Recordings)

In addition to the primary source studio recording of Chinoiserie that Duke made in 1971, there is a good deal to learn from the maestro's alternative versions of the "riki-tiki" piano introduction and Harold Ashby's tenor solo on several alternative recordings by Duke.  They are found on:

Duke Ellington And His Orchestra: Cool Rock

Duke Ellington: Rugged Jungle

 

As I type this blog post, another recording of Chinoiserie has been released only days ago.  It is found on:

Duke Ellington: Last Trip To Paris

Look also to the 1992 Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra CD:

Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Live In Swing City: Swingin' With The Duke

Duke Ellington's Afro-Eurasian Eclipse: Chinoiserie (Gary Giddins Commentary)

Here is what Gary Giddins, writing in the Village Voice, had to say in his review of The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse upon its posthumous release in 1976: “The posthumous works of no major contemporary artist have inspired greater interest than Duke Ellington's, except perhaps for Hemingway's. The '60s saw a stunning rejuvenation in Ellington the composer and the result was both a series of sacred concerts and the far more ecumenical suites based on geographical motifs. Three of the most ambitious and successful works issued on record during the last decade of his life were 'The Far East Suite,' 'Ad Lib on Nippon,' and 'The Latin American Suite.' But there were other suites and extended works that have never appeared on record. Moreover, there were rumors of major pieces which Ellington committed to tape but never or rarely performed. It isn't generally known what was preserved and what wasn't. In the past, he had neglected to get studio time for 'The Deep South Suite' and, more incredibly, the complete 'Black, Brown and Beige,' so how can we be sure we'll ever hear 'Timon of Athens,' 'Murder in the Cathedral,' or 'The Goutelas Suite'?¹

“Well, at least we can now be reasonably sure about 'The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse,' recorded by Ellington in 1971 and issued this month by Fantasy (9498). I say reasonably because the record has eight parts while the list of copyrighted compositions in 'Music Is My Mistress' suggests twelve. In any case, its long-awaited release should be cause for rejoicing throughout the land.

“For reasons known only to himself, Ellington chose to tease the public about the 'Eclipse.' He would continuously perform the first part, 'Chinoiserie,' preceded by a mysterious spoken introduction that included several cross-cultural references and made mention of the longer work, but he generally kept the other selections under wraps. Fantasy has included that bit of verbal shadow-play on the record and I'm glad – not only for reasons of sentiment, but because behind the hocus-pocus is a clear and revealing explanation for the travel suites in general. Ellington never attempted to reproduce the music of other cultures; his impressions were ingeniously respectful but entirely idiomatic. While quoting McLuhan's observation that cultures are losing their identity, he ironically implies that his music – remember his statement on first visiting Africa: 'After writing African music for 35 years, here I am at last in Africa!' – is not only broad-based enough to encompass the rhythms, melodies, and harmonies of other musics, but can retain its own identity in the process.

“Just as 'Latin American Suite' was melodic in motive, 'Afro-Eurasian Eclipse' is about rhythm, one-chord harmonies, and chants. This one-world music reflects the ongoing jazz tradition as well: r&b, rock 'n' roll, Albert Ayler, and Cecil Taylor are all worn into the fabric. I don't mean to suggest that Ellington consulted Taylor before sitting down at the piano for 'Didjeridoo' – which is virtually a piano concerto built on the premise that the piano is a percussion instrument – but I do suggest that Ellington's genius was heightened by his sensitivity to the music of his time. Borges demonstrated that Hawthorne became a prophetic writer in the post-Kafka world; in that sense, much that is indigenous to Ellington is differently perceived in a world so manifestly altered by him. Harold Ashby's solo on 'Chinoiserie' is surely avant-garde.

“The 'Eclipse' may be Ellington's only extended work bereft of a single brass solo. It's constructed around the reeds and the rhythm section. 'Chinoiserie' is the most complex piece, alternating between eight- and 10-measure themes. It is plotted thus: A(10), A(10), B(8), C(8), A1(14), A2(10). The A-theme, strongly reminiscent of Horace Silver, is rhythmically constructed on a hesitation in the fourth beat of the second bar. The rhythmic equilibrium is deliberately tenuous: The A-theme picks up from the piano vamp – based on one note – a beat late, while the 14-measure variation on A begins a beat before expected. Following the 60-measure theme is Ashby's greatest moment on records, a gallivanting, eupeptic solo using both the eight- and 10-measure patterns, aggressively supported by Ellington's piano, and culminating in a wildly exciting stuttering, shimmying stomp over static rhythm.

“'Acht O'Clock Rock' begins with two blues choruses by Ashby, followed by a 32-bar theme for piano, another two blues choruses, and 32 bars for the ensemble with Norris Turney out front. It combines openhearted r&b with ominous chord substitutions. Ellington makes the piano sound like a marimba, and I do believe I hear an organ in parts, though none is listed in the notes.² 'Hard Way' is a 16-bar blues for Turney, with a four-measure interlude sewn in. The inexplicably titled 'True' is actually an old friend, 'Tell Me the Truth,' from the first Sacred Concert, but this time it's been refurbished with a bright, bustling arrangement that features Paul Gonsalves, who's in high spirits. The only movement I find less than successful is 'Tang,' a heady concoction that begins well enough with dissonant chords and an erupting piano figure, but proves to be an exercise in redundancy, with two themes – one 12 bars, the other eight – traded between Harry Carney and the ensemble, and a rhythm riff thrown in four times along the way. 'Gong' is a blues for Ellington and Carney, with a delicious flute and clarinet chorus, and 'Afrique,' appropriately, is both a drum feature for Rufus Jones and an exercise in the percussion value of all the other instruments.

“I've only scratched at the surface. After the 'Afro-Eurasian Eclipse' one has every reason to be optimistic and avaricious in awaiting the rest of the legacy Ellington reserved for posterity.”³

(Gary Giddins, “Duke Eclipses the Didjeridoo,” Village Voice (5 April 1976), 104-5, in Mark Tucker, ed., The Duke Ellington Reader 379-81).

1The Goutelas Suite appears on the album The Ellington Suites. A 95%-complete recording in modern studios with high-fidelity recording equipment (rather than the awful sound quality of the 1943 Carnegie Hall recording) of Black, Brown & Beige appears on The Private Collection: Volume Ten (and was also later recorded by Ellington alumni Louie Bellson and Clark Terry on their album Duke Ellington: Black, Brown & Beige). The Deep South Suite can be found in a studio recording on The Chronological Classics: 1946 and a live recording on The Great Chicago Concerts. Unfortunately, even now, Timon of Athens and Murder in the Cathedral may never be released—and may have never been recorded. (Certainly, if they had been recorded, one would have expected those recordings to have emerged in the 39 years that have now passed since the death of the maestro!) The March from Timon of Athens appears on several recordings, including The Duke At Tanglewood, but the complete suite is unknown aside from a later recording by a third-party orchestra. I am unaware of any recordings of any portions of Murder in the Cathedral.

2I also hear organ, probably the work of William “Wild Bill” Davis (b. 1918), who was associated with Ellington's orchestra from 1969 to 1971, and who also made numerous small group recordings with Johnny Hodges and other Ellington sidemen.

3Giddins' words were prophetic. Innumerable private and unreleased Ellington recordings were made available in the four decades following his death. Even today, one occasionally sees previously-unreleased alternate takes trickling out on new releases from such labels as Denmark's Storyville Records, among others.

Duke Ellington's Afro-Eurasian Eclipse: Chinoiserie (Overview)

At long, much-overdue last! This chart has been in the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra's book since the 1990's (we know this because they recorded the chart on a CD in the mid-1990's!), but for some reason they haven't included it in the Essentially Ellington set list before. The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse should be a clear demonstration to anyone with ears to hear that Duke Ellington never stopped moving forward. In his seventies, after the breakup of the Beatles (and yes, Duke recorded Beatles songs, too), after the death of Johnny Hodges, after the departure of Ray Nance, after American popular music had been completely overtaken by rock, the greatest mind in American music continued driving forward. The whole suite, and especially this tune, rocks so hard that it is often difficult to believe that the man driving the band forward is the same pianist who wrote Black And Tan Fantasy forty-five years earlier. But there is not much other way to describe it: This is a borderline rock chart written by Duke Ellington, performed by Duke Ellington And His Orchestra, and featuring late-era Ellington tenor giant Harold Ashby (who was also a pretty solid flute player, too!) rocking out (and seemingly smacking his reed with his tongue—what Duke refers to as “scraping off a tiny bit of the charisma of his Chinoiserie”) while the band drives forward. As Duke notes, of course, all of that follows “our piano player,” who initially performs a “riki-tiki” (an erudite Kipling reference? I really don't know...). And note Duke's typically sharp wit in referencing Didjeridoo (actually the second movement of The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse), as he mentions that “this automatically throws us either Down Under [i.e., Australia] and/or Out Back [i.e., the Australian desert interior], and from that point of view it's most improbable that anyone will ever know exactly who is enjoying the shadow of whom. Uh, Harold Ashby has been inducted into the responsibility and the obligation of possibly scraping off a tiny bit of the charisma of his Chinoiserie, immediately after our piano player has completed his riki-tiki.” Incidentally, the word “Chinoiserie” is French in origin and means “China-esque”. I don't know what that has to do with Australia. Finally, notwithstanding nearly fifteen years of listening to this album, I have never in all that time been able to figure out whether Duke is trying to make some real point by quoting Marshall McLuhan from the University of Toronto, or whether he is just laughing at him; my best guess is that it's the latter.

Duke made several live recordings of Chinoiserie. As with Isfahan from The Far East Suite and The Star-Crossed Lovers/Such Sweet Thunder/Sonnet To Hank Cinq from Such Sweet Thunder: The Shakespearean Suite, Duke chose a particular track from his suite to take on the road and left the balance to the studio recording.

If you enjoy The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, then you might also enjoy such other late-era Ellington suites as The Majesty Of God (The Third Sacred Concert), The Goutelas Suite, The Togo Brava Suite, The UWIS Suite, and Fragmented Suite For Piano And Bass. If you enjoy this suite specifically for its exotic flavors, try also listening to Duke's other international tone parallels: The Far East Suite and The Latin American Suite (The Mexican Suite in early performances).

Ellingtonians With Jelly Roll Morton Circa 1927-1930

After digitizing some of the Jelly Roll Morton volumes from the French-release RCA Victor "Black & White Serie," I have been typing up the track listings and personnel.  It turns out that Jelly Roll Morton had quite a few of the early Ellingtonians in his late-1920s sessions, including Russell Procope, Barney Bigard, and even Bubber Miley (who would be dead two years later, a victim--like his fellow 1920s jazz cornet master Bix Beiderbecke--of his own alcoholism)! In addition, quite a few of the early-era jazzmen featured on David Niven's tape series ( https://archive.org/details/davidwnivenjazz ), such as J.C. Higginbotham, Johnny Dodds, Morton himself, and Henry "Red" Allen, also make appearances.  Many of these volumes are available on eBay (and all of these tracks can be individually located within the French Classics label CD series The Chronological Classics: Jelly Roll Morton, though finding the Chronological Classics CDs is easier said than done!), so if you are interested, consider any of the following:

Jelly Roll Morton
Vol. 1 (1927-1930) - Jelly Roll Morton And His Red Hot Peppers
RCA BLACK & WHITE VOL 12
RCA 730.599
Personnel And Dates:
(a) George Mitchell (ct), Gerald Reeves (tb), Johnny Dodds (cl), Stomp Evans (as), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Bud Scott (g), Quinn Wilson (tuba), Baby Dodds (drums), Lew Lemar (vcl effects). Chicago, June 4th 1927.
(b) Red Rossiter, Briscoe Draper (tp), Charlie Irvis (tb), George Baquet (cl), Paul Barnes (ss), Joe Thomas (as), Walter Thomas (ts), Jelly Roll Morton and/or Rod Rodriguez (p), Barney . . . (bj), Harry Prather (tuba), Williams Laws (drums). Camden, N.J. July 10th 1929.
(c) As for (b). Camden, N. Jersey, July 12th 1929.
(d) Henry Allen (tp), J.C. Higginbotham (tb), Albert Nicholas (cl), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Will Johnson (g), Pops Foster (b), Paul Barbarin (dm). New York, November 13th 1929.
(e) Ward Pinkett, and unknown (tp), Wilbur De Paris (tb), Ernie Bullock (?) (cl), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Bernard Addison (g), Billy Taylor (b), Cozy Cole (drums). New York, March 5th 1930.
(f) Ward Pinkett and ? (tp), Geechie Fields (tb), Albert Nicholas (cl, as), Joe Thomas (as), Walter Thomas (cl, ts, bs), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Lee Blair (bj), Billy Taylor (b), Cozy Cole (drums). New York, June 2nd 1930.
(g) Ward Pinkett (tp), Geeschie Fields (tb), Albert Nicholas (cl), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Howard Hill (g), Pete Biggs (tuba), Tommy Benford (drums). New York, July 14th 1930.
(h) Ward Pinkett (tp), Geeschie Fields (tb), ? (cl), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Bernard Addison (g), Billy Taylor (b), Bill Beason (dm). New York, October 9th 1930.
Face 1
1. Hyena Stomp (a)
2. Billy Goat Stomp (a)
3. Sweet Anita Mine (b)
4. Tank Town Bump (c)
5. Sweet Peter (d)
6. Jersey Joe (d)
7. Mississippi Mildred (d)
8. Mint Julep (d)
Face 2
9. If Someone Would Only Love Me (e)
10. I'm Looking For A Little Blue Bird (e)
11. Primrose Stomp (f)
12. Low Gravy (g)
13. Strokin' Away (g)
14. Blue Blood Blues (g)
15. Mushmouth Shuffle (g)
16. Fickle Fay Creep (h)

Jelly Roll Morton
Vol. 4 (1927-1928) - Jelly Roll Morton And His Red Hot Peppers
RCA BLACK & WHITE VOL 48
RCA VICTOR 741 040
Personnel And Dates:
(a) George Mitchell (cnt); Gerald Reeves (tb); Johnny Dodds (cl); Stump Evans (as); Jelly Roll Morton (p, vcl comments); Bud Scott (bj); Quinn Wilson (bbs); Warren "Baby" Dodds (dr). Chicago, June 4 1927.
(b) Same as (a). Chicago, June 10 1927.
(c) Jelly Roll Morton (p, solo) with Johnny Dodds (cl) and "Baby" Dodds (traps). Same date and place as (b).
(d) Ward Pinkett (tp); Geechie Fields (tb); Omer Simeon (cl); Jelly Roll Morton (p); Lee Blair (bj); Bill Benford (bbs); Tommy Benford (dr). New York, June 11 1928.
(e) Omer Simeon (cl); Jelly Roll Morton (p); Tommy benford (dr). Same date and place.
(f) Same as (e), but Ward Pinkett (tp) added. Same date and place.
Face 1
1. Wild Man Blues (a) (3'00)
2. Jungle Blues (a) (3'23)
3. Beale Street Blues (b) (3'15)
4. Beale Street Blues (b) (3'12)
5. The Pearls (b) (3'20)
6. The Pearls (b) (3'21)
7. Wolverine Blues (c) (3'18)
8. Wolverine Blues (c) (3'24)
Face 2
9. Mr. Jelly Lord (c) (2'49)
10. Georgia Swing - Stomp (d) (2'26)
11. Kansas City Stomps (d) (2'50)
12. Shoe Shiner's Drag (d) (3'15)
13. Boogaboo (d) (3'17)
14. Shreveport - Stomp (e) (3'14)
15. Shreveport - Stomp (e) (3'14)
16. Mournful Serenade (f) (3'28)

Jelly Roll Morton
Vol. 5 (1928-1929) - Jelly Roll Morton And His Orchestra Piano Solos
RCA BLACK & WHITE VOL 62
RCA VICTOR 741054
Personnel And Dates:
(a) Jelly Roll Morton And His Orchestra: Edward Anderson, Edwin Swayzee (tp); William Cato (tb); Russell Procope (cl, as); Paul Barnes (ss); Joe Garland (ts); Jelly Roll Morton (p); Lee Blair (g); William Moore (bbs); Manzie Johnson or Tommy benford (dr). New York, December 6, 1928.
(b) Jelly Roll Morton: Piano solos. Camden (N.J.) July 8, 1929.
(c) Jelly Roll Morton And His Orchestra: Red Rossiter, Briscoe Draper (tp); Charlie Irvis (tb); George Bacquet (cl); Paul Barnes (ss); Joe Thomas (as); Walter Thomas (ts); Jelly Roll Morton (p-solo part); Rod Rodriguez (p- ensemble part); Barney ? (bj); Harry Prather (bbs); William Laws (dr). Camden (N.J.), July 9, 1929.
(d) Same as c. Camden (N.J.), July 10, 1929.
Face 1
1. Red Hot Pepper-Stomp (a) (3'06)
2. Deep Creek-Blues (a) (3'29)
3. Pep (b) (2'55)
4. Seattle Hunch (b) (3'10)
5. Seattle Hunch (b) (3'07)
6. Frances (B) (3'02)
7. Freakish (b) (2'50)
8. Freakish (b) (2'55)
Face 2
9. Burnin' The Iceberg (c) unissued (3'00)
10. Burnin' The Iceberg (c) (2'58)
11. Courthouse Bump (c) unissued (3'00)
12. Courthouse Bump (c) (2'58)
13. Pretty Lil (c) unissued (3'08)
14. Pretty Lil (c) (3'12)
15. Sweet Aneta Mine (d) (2'45)

Jelly Roll Morton
Vol. 6 (1929) - Jelly Roll Morton and his orchestra - Red Hot Peppers - Trio - with Wilton Crawley and Lizzie Miles
RCA BLACK & WHITE VOL 72
RCA 741070
Personnel & Dates:
(a) Jelly Roll Morton & His Orchestra: Red Rossiter, Briscoe Draper (tp); Charlie Irvis (tb), Paul Barnes (ss), Joe Thomas (as), Walter Thomas (ts), Jelly Roll Morton (p-solo part), Rod Rodriguez (p-ensemble part), Barney ? (bj), Harry Prather (bbs), Williams Laws (dr.). Camden, New Jersey - July 10, 1929.
(b) As for (a), but July 12, 1929.
(c) Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers: Henry Allen (tp), J.C. Higginbotham (tb), Albert Nicholas (cl), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Will Johnson (g), George "Pops" Foster (sbs), Paul Barbarin (dr). New-York, November 13, 1929.
(d) Wilton Crawley & His Orchestra: Two unknowns (tp), Unknown (tb), possibly Charlie Holmes (as), Wilton Crawley (cl), Jelly Roll Morton & Luis Russell (p), Unknowns bj, g, sbs, dr. New York, December 2, 1929.
(e) Lizzie Miles (vcl) acc. Jelly Roll Morton (p-vcl comments). New York, December 11, 1929.
(f) Jelly Roll Morton Trio: Barney Bigard (cl), Jelly Roll Morton (p), Zutty Singleton (dr). New York, December 17, 1929.
Face 1.
1. New Orleans Bump (a) (3'32)
2. New Orleans Bump (a) (3'20)
3. Down My Way (b) (3'19)
4. Try Me Out (b) (2'28)
5. Tank Town Bump (Unissued take) (b) (3'15)
6. Sweet Peter (c) (2'55)
7. Jersey Joe (c) (2'30)
8. Mississippi Mildred (c) (2'55)
Face 2.
9. You Oughta See My Gal (d) (2'20)
10. Futuristic Blues (d) (3'25)
11. Keep Your Business To Yourself (d) (2'53)
12. She's Got What I Need (d) (2'57)
13. I Hate A Man Like You (e) (3'25)
14. Don't Tell Me Nothin' About My Man (e) (3'00)
15. Smilin' The Blues Away (f) (2'57)
16. Turtle Twist (f) (3'08)

Jelly Roll Morton
Vol. 7 (1929-1930) - Jelly Roll Morton his trio and his Red Hot Peppers with Billie Young
RCA BLACK & WHITE VOL 82
RCA 741.081
Personnel And Recording Dates:
(a) Jelly Roll Morton Trio: Barney Bigard (cl); Jelly Roll Morton (p); Zutty Singleton (d). New York, December 17, 1929.
(b) Jelly Roll Morton And His Red Hot Peppers: Ward Pinkett and another (tp); Wilbur De Paris (tb); possibly Ernie Bullock (cl); Jelly Roll Morton (p); Bernard Addison (g); Billy Taylor (bbs); Cozy Cole (d). New York, March 5, 1930.
(c) Jelly Roll Morton And His Red Hot Peppers: Ward Pinkett, Bubber Miley (tp); Wilbur De Paris (tb); Unknown (cl); Jelly Roll Morton (p); Unknown (bjo); Bill Benford (bbs); Tommy Benford (d). New York, March 19, 1930.
(d) As for (c), except possibly different unknown cl. New York, March 20, 1930.
(e) Billie (vcl) acc. Jelly Roll Morton (p). New York, April 3, 1930.
(f) Jelly Roll Morton And His Red Hot Peppers: Ward Pinkett and another (tp); Geechie Fields (tb); Unknown (cl); Joe Thomas (as); Walter Thomas (cl, ts, bs); Jelly Roll Morton (p); Lee Blair (bjo); Billy Taylor (bbs); Cozy Cole (d). New York, June 2, 1930.
Face 1
1. My Little Dixie Home (a) (2'55)
2. That's Like It Ought To Be (a) (2'55)
3. Each Day (b) (2'52)
4. Each Day (b) (unissued take) (2'51)
5. That'll Never Do (b) (2'53)
6. Little Lawrence (c) (2'54)
7. Harmony Blues (c) (3'27)
8. Fussy Mabel (d) (3'14)
Face 2
9. Pontchartrain Blues (d) (2'55)
10. When They Get Lovin' They's Gone (e) (Pressing test) (3'24)
11. You Done Played Out Blues (e) (Pressing test) (3'11)
12. Oil Well (f) (2'35)
13. Oil Well (f) (unissued take) (3'07)
14. Load Of Coal (f) (2'56)
15. Load Of Coal (f) (Pressing test) (2'57)

Tune requests, please!

There are plenty more posts to come on Ellingtonia and the works of other major jazz arrangers, but I am glad to take requests.  Post your comments in reponse to this post or send me an email and I will see what I can dig up as far as old recordings, commentary, etc.

Next up: Probably more Ellingtonia.  I think maybe Chinoiserie from Duke's Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (proving that the same man who started his career with stride piano and Cotton Club "Jungle Music" could rock as hard as anyone from the UK to the USA!).  Or perhaps Flirtibird from Duke's soundtrack to the Otto Preminger courtroom masterpiece Anatomy Of A Murder.

Always glad to provide personalized jazz listening lists, and/or to prepare curriculum sets for school jazz programs.  Email me to discuss further.

Duke Ellington's Liberian Suite: The Real Liberia

Never forget that Ellington was commissioned to write The Liberian Suite by the government of Liberia in commemoration of the 100th anniversary celebration of Liberian independence, and he (as described in the above liner notes) obviously visualized Liberia through the lens of its ruling minority.  But there is a very strong argument to be made that most of the men and women living in Liberia at that time, though deprived of the ballot in Liberian elections, would have painted a very different picture of their nation from the one that the elites who commissioned Ellington's composition conveyed to the maestro. Here, then, is the rest of the story, courtesy Martin Meredith in his comprehensive treatise on the last fifty years of African post-colonial history, The Fate Of Africa:

“In his book Journey Without Maps, an account of his travels in Liberia in the 1930s, the English writer Graham Greene recorded that 'Liberian politics were like a crap game played with loaded dice'. It was a game that Liberia's ruling elite – the descendants of some 300 black settler families from the United States who set up an independent republic in 1847 – played among themselves with considerable relish. For more than 100 years – from 1877 to 1980 – Liberia was governed under a one-party system in which the same party, the True Whig Party, controlled by the same elite group, held office continuously, dispensing patronage, deciding on public appointments and retaining a monopoly on power – a record equalled by no other political party anywhere in the world. Elections were nevertheless taken seriously, if only to determine which family – the Barclays, the Kings, the Tubmans – emerged on top. 'The curious thing about a Liberian election campaign,' wrote Greene, 'is that, although the result is always a foregone conclusion, everyone behaves as if the votes and the speeches and the pamphlets matter.' However, he added, the system was more complicated than it seemed. 'It may be all a question of cash and printing presses and armed police, but things have to be done with an air. Crudity as far as possible is avoided.'¹

“As members of a ruling aristocracy, the Americo-Liberians, as they called themselves, were immensely proud of their American heritage. They developed a lifestyle reminiscent of the antebellum South, complete with top hats and morning coats and masonic lodges. They built houses with pillared porches, gabled roofs and dormer windows resembling the nineteenth-century architectural styles of Georgia, Maryland and the Carolinas. They chose as a national flag a replica of the American Stars and Stripes, with a single star, and used the American dollar as legal tender.

“Just like white settlers in Africa, the Americo-Liberians constructed a colonial system subjugating the indigenous population to rigid control² and concentrating wealth and privilege in their own hands. Despite their origins as descendants of slaves from the Deep South, they regarded black Liberians as an inferior race, fit only for exploitation. The nadir of Americo-Liberian rule came in 1931 when an international commission found senior government officials guilty of involvement in organised slavery.

“When other West African states shed colonial rule in the 1960s, the Liberian system stayed much the same. Liberian law stipulated that only property owners were entitled to the vote, so the vast majority of indigenous Africans were effectively left without one. Small numbers were assimilated into the ranks of the ruling elite: 'country boys' adopted by coastal³ families; girls selected as wives or concubines, ambitious 'hinterlanders' climbing the ladder. During the 1970s a few were co-opted into government. Local administration in the 'hinterland' was largely run by indigenous officials.⁴ But essentially Liberia remained an oligarchy where 1 per cent of the population controlled the rest – some 2 million people.⁵

“The last in the line of Americo-Liberian presidents was William Tolbert, the grandson of freed South Carolina slaves who had served as vice-president for twenty years. A Baptist minister, he attempted a series of cautious reforms, abandoning the top hat and tail-coat traditions favoured by his predecessor, William Tubman, selling the presidential yacht and abolishing a compulsory 'tithe' of 10 per cent of every government employee's salary that went to the True Whig Party. But much of Tolbert's efforts were also devoted to amassing a personal fortune and promoting the interests of family members in the traditional manner. One brother was appointed minister of finance; another was chosen as president of the senate; a son-in-law served as minister of defence; other relatives filled posts as ministers, ambassadors and presidential aides. The crap game of Liberian politics was as highly profitable in the 1970s as in the 1930s.

. . .

“Liberia's economic advances . . . served only to highlight the growing disparity between the ostentatious lifestyle of the rich elite and the overwhelming majority of impoverished tribal Africans. In 1979 – the same year that Tolbert spent an amount equivalent to half the national budget while acting as host to an [Organization for African Unity] heads of state conference – demonstrators took to the streets in protest against a 50 per cent increase in the price of rice, the staple food of most Liberians. The price increase had been authorised by Tolbert in the hope of encouraging local production. But since one of the chief beneficiaries was the president's cousin, Daniel Tolbert, who owned the country's largest rice-importing firm, it was seen as another move to enrich the elite. On Tolbert's orders armed police and troops opened fire on the demonstrators, killing dozens of them.

“In the following months Tolbert struggled to contain a rising tide of discontent, colliding not just with the poor but with a new generation of the educated elite. He allowed the formation of an opposition party, but when opposition politicians called for a general strike, he had them arrested on charges of treason and sedition and banned the party.⁶

“On the night of 12 April 1980 a group of seventeen dissident soldiers led by a 28-year-old master sergeant named Samuel Doe, scaled the iron gate of the president's seven-storey Executive Mansion, over-powered the guards and found Tolbert in his pyjamas in an upstairs bedroom. They fired three bullets into his head, gouged out his right eye and disembowelled him. His body was dumped in a mass grave along with twenty-seven others who died defending the palace. Ministers and officials were rounded up, taken before a military tribunal and sentenced to death.

“Amid much jubilation, watched by a crowd of thousands laughing and jeering and filmed by camera crews, thirteen high-ranking officials were tied to telephone poles on a beach in Monrovia and executed by a squad of drunken soldiers, firing volley after volley at them. A great shout arose from the mob. 'Freedom! We got our freedom at last!' The soldiers rushed forward to kick and pummel the corpses.

“Thus the old order ended.”

(Martin Meredith, The Fate Of Africa 545-48).

It bears noting that Samuel Doe would in short order go on to establish a military junta run by his own minority (a native tribe called the Krahn), rule as dictator for several years, and then be butchered on videotape by another guerrilla leader, Charles Taylor, in 1990.

Today, Monrovia and the rest of Liberia is rebuilding from twenty-three years of almost non-stop civil war. Virtually all of the Americo-Liberians (the descendants of the freed American slaves who established Liberia in the early nineteenth century) have fled to America. Their architecture, government, society, and culture has been scoured from the earth.

Liberia was begun with a noble purpose. Slaveowners such as Captain Isaac Ross of Mississippi, who granted his 250+ slaves freedom and funds with which to settle in Liberia in his last will and testament, defied the common custom of Southern slavery. The American Colonization Society, a group of wealthy white Americans who supported Liberian colonization both to give freed slaves a life better than they would have gotten even in free American states and to spread Christianity to the uncivilized native African population, fulfilled a benevolent role, even if their reasons for encouraging Liberian settlement were not quite so pure as the driven snow. But the society established by the freed slaves was essentially a mirror image of the antebellum American South that they had left behind—only with themselves as the masters and the native African tribes as the subjugated underclass. (See generally Alan Huffman, Mississippi In Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today).

Ellington was commissioned to write a piece by the Americo-Liberian government. It is almost inconceivable that he then or at any other time ever came into contact with native African Liberian tribesmen, who might have conveyed a completely different view of the nation whose high-minded but stunningly ironic motto was “The love of liberty brought us here.”

1Bear in mind that this was the exact system in place when Ellington set about writing The Liberian Suite. Presumably, he had been given a somewhat different impression by the Liberian officials who commissioned the work!

2And thus, one sees how laughable Ellington's image of a “tribal chieftan” celebrating any kind of “merriment” in a city like the capital, Monrovia—where any actual tribal chieftan would have been as much of a second-class citizen to the Americo-Liberian elite as black Americans were second-class citizens to the white American elite in the days of Jim Crow Southern segregation!

3The term “coastal” refers to the Liberian coast, where all of the major shipping ports, airports, universities, commercial centers, government centers, and even the capital Monrovia, were located. In other words, the Americo-Liberians landed on the coast and, once having established, defended, and modified the boundaries of their colonies (Mississippi-In-Africa, Kentucky-In-Africa, Maryland-In-Africa, etc., all later subsumed into the nation of Liberia), pretty much stayed put. The interior remained largely the uncivilized hinterland.

4This was, ironically, virtually identical to the way in which the white British pioneers of Rhodesia, while firmly controlling the national Rhodesian government for themselves, left the government of the Tribal Trust Reserves in the hands of indigenous Shona and Ndebele tribal chiefs. (See generally Peter Godwin, Mukiwa: A White Boy In Africa).

5Again, this is virtually identical to the white British government of Rhodesia, which as late as 1965-1979 fought a brutal guerilla war to withhold universal suffrage from African natives, the vast majority of whom they (correctly or incorrectly) viewed as insufficiently educated and insufficiently prepared for the vote. (See generally Ian Douglas Smith, The Great Betrayal).

6Ironically, the same sort of reaction by Zimbabwean (the former Rhodesia) liberation leader President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party to a general strike in Harare, Rhodesia called by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party circa 2002. (See generally Peter Godwin, When A Crocodile Eats The Sun).