Westbury Music Fair was the original name of an entertainment venue located in the hamlet of Jericho outside of Westbury, New York. It was constructed as a theatre in the round style and could seat almost 3.000 people. It opened for business in 1956 and was part of a development of a series of venues on the American East Coast to present top performers and productions of popular theatrical musicals. (source: Wikipedia)
In the 1960’s and 1970’s it was very much a venue for popular singers and pop artists.
In 1966, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald appeared there for a week from October 24 to October 30. It followed an appearance at Seton Hall University two days before. (Source: TDWAW 2)
Recently, my Revox B 77 mk II came back from a long renovation so I went into the DESS vaults to test it and found among other things a tape with about a 35 minutes of one of Ella’s concerts at Westbury Music Fair .
It starts with Let’s Do It and it is followed by a short segment of Sweet Georgia Brown. There seems to have been some sort of technical issue at the concert.
Then Ella bops and sings Lover Man, Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me, It Don’t Mean A Thing, Summer Samba and Mack The Knife. She is in good form!
After this part, Ellington and his orchestra comes back with Ella, who sings Cotton Tail in duet with Paul Gonsalves.
There is also a bonus from another occasion. It is the sound file of the Ellington’s part of the Jackie Gleason Show on CBS TV on November 26, 1966. The sound quality is so and so.
Author: Ulf Lundin
The sound quality is not bad. If Cotton Tail differs from DE6674s (from October 28), it is a New Desor unlisted recording.
I didn’t have the Jackie Gleason Show audio, either, but I poked around on YouTube and found the video: