There was much live music at the Ellington ’92 conference. May 28 was Ellington Nights at many clubs and restaurants in Copenhagen.
Then there was the Gala Concert on May 29 with many well-known jazz musicians like Abdullah Ibrahim, Svend Asmussen, Jesper Thilo, Clark Terry, Buster Cooper, Arne Domnerus, Bength Hallberg, The New Jungle Orchestra and others were participating.
A second Gala Concert took place the following day with The Danish Radio Big Band as main feature. There was also a late night Ellington Ball for conference attendees only.
Unfortunately, no recordings of the musical events exists but Bjarne Busk took a lot of photos, which he has kindly made available to the website.
The reception which kicked off the conference was also a musical event. It took place at Woody’s at Bolten restaurant in the center of Copenhagen and the Danish/Swedish/American group Jan Kaspersen Septet provided the music.
One of the bands, which performed at the Ellington Nights event on May 28, was Ancher Grøn Big Band. This young Danish big band played a four-hour concert.
For the occasion it had enlisted Mercer Ellington as conductor and Willie Cook as one of the main soloist. In addition to original or updated arrangements from the Ellington repertoire, Mercer Ellington and Bengt-Arne Wallin contributed works.
There were also concerts in Copenhagen clubs like Copenhagen Jazz House (James Newton Group), Finn Ziegler’s Corner (Finn Ziegler Trio), La Fontaine (Jacob Fischer Trio) and many more.
Clark Terry and The Scandinavian All Stars performed at the Montmarte jazz club
The band was actually very busy during the conference and also played at the two Gala Concerts and the Ellington Ball.
This was also the case for The Ellington Combo with Rolf Ericson, Buster Cooper, Jesper Thilo, Kenny Drew and shifting Danish bass and drum members.
At the Ellington Nights they played at De Tre Musketerer (The Three Musketeers). Then the band went on to the Gala Concerts and the Ellington Ball.