The program of the Ellington ’92 conference also included a presentation on the Mercer Ellington donation to Danish Radio. It was delivered by Erik Wiedemann, Bjarne Busk and Flemming Sjølund Jensen.
Photo: Bjarne Busk
First Erik Wiedemann spoke about Mercer Ellington’s donation of 781 Ellington tapes to Danish Radio on the condition that it would properly mixed onto new tapes.
Then Bjarne Busk and Flemming Sjølund Jensen followed up by letting the audience listen to examples from the archive.
Busk talked among other things about his excitement when he listened to the first tape, which started with what turned out to be Pastel from the Degas Suite. He also gave some figures on the donation. 443 tapes were studio recordings from 128 dates. There was also 69 tapes with live recordings from 35 occasions and 53 tapes with interviews of Ellington.
Photo: Bjarne Busk
Busk finished his presentation by playing a recording from the Aug. 18, 1966 session “which will never be issued” but also other examples from the tapes were included in it.
Sjølund Jensen focused his presentation on an untitled blues recorded on Nov. 23, 1968 and used it to demonstrate “how Ellington and the band developed their material”. He very much featured Lawrence Brown in his clips.