A new issue of the DESS Bulletin has arrived. It is a solid isssue put together by its editor Bo Haufman.
Oscar Pettiford is the cover artist this time. In a four page article plus half a page of foot-notes, Sven-Erik Baun Christensen, DESS member and an archive specialist gives DESS members and other readers the early life and career of Pettiford.
He was part of a musical family, where everybody played an instrument and was drafted into the family band at an early age. Minneapolis and Oklahoma were apparently the home area and the band expanded from six member in 1929 to a ten piece band in 1932.
Oscar Pettiford started to play bass at the age of 14 and played with different bands in Minneapolis/St. Paul when he grew older. In September 1939, Charlie Christian and and Jerry Jerome came in St. Paul. After one of their concerts, Pettiford and a local pianist played with them and four sessions were recorded on a tape recorder.
In 1942, Milt Hinton, who was Cab Calloway’s basist, “discovered” Pettiford, who was working in a war plant and persuaded him to go back to music. He was also “discovered” by Chubby Jackson and Charlie Barnet and wasrecruited to the Barnet band where he formed a bass duo with Jackson.
After having left Barnet, Pettiford established himself in New York and was succesful in annual jazz polls. In early 1944, Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Pettiford formed a “Bebop” combo but it did not work out so they decided to split up.
In mid-40’s, Pettiford became active in recording studios and cut his first recording on January 9, 1945.
Part 2 of Christensen’s Pettiford series will be published in the next Bulletin.
Another substantial article in the new Bulletin is by DESS member and music teacher/arranger Rasmus H. Henriksen. It is headlined Duke’s first visit to Denmark but it covers more than that.
Rasmus has managed to a find lot of information about the efforts to get Ellington to Denmark in the 1930’s. The first attempt was made in 1932 but it failed. Ellington or most likely Irving Mills asked for too much money. In 1933, Jack Hylton got a deal with Mills for concerts in England, France (Paris) and Belgium. BBC organized a 45 minute live broadcast on June 14, which was transmitted to, among others, Danish State Radio. Unfortunately, no records of the broadcast exists.
This raised the interest in Ellington in Denmark and more efforts were made to get Ellington there. According to Rasmus, the most serious effort was made by the newspaper Berlingske Tidende and the music publisher Wilhelm Hansen’s Musikforlag but the European tour was cancelled.
In 1939, the Swedish music publisher Reuter and Reuter managed to get an agreement with Irving Mills for an Ellington tour in Sweden, which also included a concert in Copenhagen and one in Oslo.
The Copenhagen concert took place on April 13 after two concerts in Sweden – in Malmö and Hälsingborg.
Rasmus has a lot of informationin in his article about the Copenhagen concert – music played, reaction of the audience and press reviews. For this valuable information, we have to refer directly to the Bulletin.
Mood Indigo is another major feature in the new Bulletin. Thomas Erikson , DESS member and Ellington expert writes about five centuries of the song recorded by the Ellington Orchestra. It is a good review, highly rekommended. Unfortunately, it is in Swedish so all the information that Thomas has brought together is available only to Swedish DESS members.
It is supplemented by an article of discographer Björn Englund about Ellington’s instrumental recordings of Mood Indigo 1930-1941.
The contribution by Bo Haufman himself in the new issue is about Ellington’s lesser known trombonists. The article is in Swedish.
Author: Ulf Lundin