Sultry Serenade We continue our visits to Frank Dailey’s Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove NJ. The date is now June 9, 1951 and this time we offer a program that is slightly longer than the previous ones.
This is because we have put together two different tapes from this date into one, which have all known surviving recordings made at this occasion and in the order they were played.
The first part is not known to have been broadcasted, whereas the second part is from an MBS broadcast. Above you can listen to a fine rendition of Sultry Serenade by Britt Woodman, but to listen to the rest of these fine performances you will have to be a DESS-member and go to the Goodies Room.
The program starts with Duke, Wendell Marshall and Louie Bellson playing I Can’t Get Started, a song that one would not really associate with Ellington, but he in fact played it many times in later years.
Primping At The Prom comes next before we can hear a piece from the CONTROVERSIAL SUITE called Later, which has two parts: Before My Time and Later. It had been introduced in the repertoire on Januari 21, the same year and would towards the end of it be commercially recorded. In contrast to Before My Time, which is dedicated to traditional jazz, Later has a futuristic approach pointing at so called “Progressive Jazz”.
The New DESOR lists 17 items called Unidentified “X” because nobody knows their titles. Here we can listen to Unidentified “D” followed by a version of of Take The A Train , with a fine tenor solo by Paul Gonsalves.
An incomplete version of NEW WORLD A-COMIN’ finishes the first part of the programme.
The broadcast portion then starts with Harlem Air Shaft (with some fine solos) after which we can listen to Night Walk, written and played by Cat Anderson.
Love You Madly is sung by Norma Oldham before Britt Woodman is the solist in Sultry Serenade, co-composed by Duke and Tyree Glenn. Al Hibbler sings Ol’ Man River, whereafter the the programme is rounded off by Things Ain’t What They Used To Be. Only two of the above numbers, Night Walk and Things Ain’t… have been issued commercially on LP, (Jazz Bird 2010, Stardust 202, Musidisc (F) 5209)). We hope you will enjoy the performance!