The first ”goodie” in February is program 33 in the Duke Ellington series broadcast by the Danish Radio in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. The broadcast is available in the “Goodies” section of the website.
This program was broadcasted on September 29, 1985 and was presented by Bjarne Busk.
It is totally dedicated to the stock pile recording session December 28-29, 1966. The session took place in the RCA Studios in New York.
Busk starts with what transpired on the second day, which was Tony Watkin’s day.
He recorded three Ellington songs – I’m Just A Lucky So And So, Blues At Sundown and The Lonely Ones. The first one was originally a number for Al Hibler and the second one sung by Jimmy Grissom on a couple of occasions in 1952 and in My People.
Before Watkins, “The Lonely Ones” had been recorded by Johnny Ray and the Ellington band for Columbia on September 26, 1958. and by Milt Grayson in a stockpile session on September 13, 1962.
None of the songs recorded by Watkins and played in the broadcast have been issued on K7, LP or CD so far.
Next in the broadcast , Ellington sits down at the piano for some meditation. On the tape box, the number is simply called Piano Track 1. Later it became Meditation.
Busk says that Ellington sat down at the end of the second day. However, according to Ellington discographies he actually did this at the start of the first day when he played a total of four songs for himself.The rest of the day was a small group session. Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney, John Lamb and Rufus Jones joined Ellington to record I’m Beginning To See The Light, Dragon Blues, Now Ain’t It, Cotton Head and Last Time Around.
“Now Ain’t It” is a Melba Liston arrangement and in Ellington discographies “Dragon Blues” is called Draggin’ Blues. Only “I’m Beginning To See The Light” has not been issued on K7, LP or CD so far.
In all, another interesting and enjoyable broadcast making good use of the Mercer Ellington donation.