Nästa DESS-möte
Det äger rum den 18 februari. Efter sedvanligt årsmöte kåserar konstnären Rune Sjögren på temat Jazzatmosfär. Efter mingel och förtäring blir det konsert med pianisten Davor Kajfes. Som Leif Jönsson skriver i senaste Bulletinen. “Förbered er på ett elegant pianospel som Ni inte får höra varje dag.”
Slut upp mangrant!!
New CD from Maison du Duke
La Maison du Duke has now provided its members with CD no. 11 in its series of rare Ellington material.
The particular focus of the new CD is the music that Ellington wrote and recorded for a production of the 18th century comedie Turcaret at La Comédie Francaise in Paris in 1960. But the CD has several other “goodies” like the soundtracks of two TV shows and the American Airlines “Astrofreight” film.
The full details of the can be found at http://maison-du-duke.com/c7j8vr2v58/fichiers/MDD011.pdf.
Brian Koller – the Ellington and film specialist – has provided the discographical details of the CD in a post to the LYM-Duke mailing list and we are happy to have his permission to make it available also to DESS members. It can be read here.
The Turcaret recordings have earlier been issued on the DEMS K7 Eleven Years Later but the CD has of course better sound and seems to provide two more takes of Frontin. On the CD, the master takes have also been edited together into Turcaret Suite and it is welcome to hear it like this rather than in small snippets.
Those, who would like to get the CD, get it automatically as member of La Maison du Duke. It is easyyp become one. Just go to http://maison-du-duke.com/espace-membres/adherer-2/, fill in the form on this page and pay 20 EUR plus 5 EUR for postage.
New issue of Blue Light
DESUK members received the Winter issue 2018/2019 of Blue Light quite some time ago. It came with another CD produced in collaboration between DESUK and DESS.
The main feature in this final issue of Blue Light with Ian Bradley as editor is a very substantial article by Professor Anna Celenza about Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and the Adventures of Peer Gynt in America. She holds the Thomas E. Caestecker Chair of Music at Georgetown University and the article is a developed from a paper on “Duke Ellington’s Late Extended Works” she presented in 2010.
In the article, Professor Celenza places the Ellington/Strayhorn Peer Gynt Suite in its American cultural context and takes the contrarian view that the work is “one of the most innovative examples of program music in the Ellington/Strayhorn repertoire”.
It is obvious that the Ellington legacy is more and more in the hands of academic musicologist. They will present the result of their work in academic conference papers and in articles in academic journals. As a result, it will be difficult for a more general audience interested in Ellington follow the discussion on Ellington’s work and life. Hopefully, Professor Celenza’s article will set an example to be followed by other musicologists and researchers.
Possibly, this could be a topic for discussion at the next Ellington Study Group Conference, which take place next year in Washington D.C. at the initiative of Anna Celenza (!).
The second article in the latest issue of Blue Light is also intersting. It is a reprint from an 1940 issue of Detroit Free Press Sunday Magazine of an interview with Duke Ellington in his appartement in New York.