The 9th Ellington program broadcasted by the Danish Radio in the mid-1980s is the first “Goodie” for the month of October. As usual, it is available in the “Goodies of the Month” section of the DESS Lobby (DESS-rummet).
It was broadcasted on January 25, 1985 and the program is presented by Bjarne Busk.
It starts with a groovy tune called REXT, which showcases Paul Gonsalves. It was recorded in the stockpile session of April 25 1970, which also produced the New Orleans Suite. According to NDESOR, this session is the only occasion when Ellington played it
It is followed by Guitar Amour from October 25, 1961. It is the trumpet version of the song with a short solo by Ray Nance.
Next comes three excerpts from the BBC telecast on February 20, 1964 – Take The “A” Train (theme), Perdido and a full version of Take The “A” Train (with Ernie Shepheard scat singing). The concerns of the sound technician about the recording of Perdido can be heard.
Bjarne Busk then moves on to a summary version of the Afro Bossa album. It is appropriately called Afro Bossa Piano Summation. Ellington plays short versions of the songs of the LP together with Ernie Shepherd and Sam Woodyard. In my view, it is one of the gems of the program. It was recorded on January 8, 1963 – three days after the full orchestra recordings for Afro Bossa were finished.
Another gem follows. It is Short Sheet Cluster from January 18, 1956 – a stockpile recording session – with Clark Terry at the center. Busk let us listen to four takes to get a sense of how things were built up towards final version, which will be heard in program 10 of the series.
The program ends with Cat Anderson in splendid form playing The Prowling Cat from March 31, 1965 and TAJM (For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow) from July 18, 1963. It gives solo opportunities to in particular Harry Carnet, Lawrence Brown and Ray Nance but also Cootie Williams and Johnny Hodges can be heard.