Clark Terry and Harold “Shorty” Baker flanking Paul Gonsalves in 1958. Gonsalves did not take part in the small group we refer to below.
60 years ago, in the beginning of June, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra were playing at the famous Blue Note in Chicago.
On June 4, we find Duke and a small group in a CBS TV-studio in Chicago. He leads a small group consisting of Clark Terry and Harold Baker on trumpets, Britt Woodman on trombone, Jimmy Hamilton clarinet, Jimmy Woode, bass and Sam Woodyard drums and of course Duke himself at the piano. This instrumentation is pretty unusual for Duke Ellington, maybe the only one in existence, but nevertheless it sounds very good. The telecast title was “Jazz In The Round”. Unfortunately we don’t have access to a video copy, but the sound track is of fair quality. Our source material is coming from this telecast, which obviously also had some other contents, hence the announcer says he was going to introduce some girl singer, which does not appear on the tape.
Jimmy Hamilton in Tenderly
Members can go to the Goodies Room to listen to the complete telecast.The program consists of short versions of Perdido, Tenderly and Launching Pad, the latter title presented jokingly as “Blues In The Round” by Duke. Duet is played by Jimmy Hamilton and Jimmy Woode only. On Jones, which was often used to end concertos at this point in the orchestra’s life, we hear a much longer version than usually, with both Clark Terry and Harold Baker soloing, as well as Hamilton. The telecast ends with Take The A Train. We hope you enjoy it!