DESS Bulletin 2024:3
Taft Jordan is cover boy in the new issue. Bo Haufman has written the four page article. It covers of course Jordan’s period with Chick Webb and Duke but the most interesting part of the article is when Haufman writes about his small group recordings with Ellingtonians and recordings under his own name.
Rasmus Henriksen has contributed an article – apparently in close cooperation with Sven-Erik Baum-Christensen – about Duke Ellington in Scandinavia February 1963. The most interesting part is about the Danish part of the tour and about the meeting between Ellington and Timme Rosencrantz. The other parts have been well covered by the DESS Ellington Galaxy website over the years. One wonders why there are no references to this in the article, no music and very little of press clippings.
Another the articles by Haufman in the new issue is one about Åke Persson and Duke Ellington based on the book Åke Persson 1932-1975. There is also an article about Duke Ellington and mobben that might have been written by Haufman but it has no author.
The reprint is this time an artcle by Mike Zirpolo. It is about Billy Strayhorn’s Johnny Come Lately.
Lördagskonserten in Radio Jazz Copenhagen
Radio Jazz Copenhagen is an amazing radio station for jazz based in Copenhagen. It has been around since 1987 and broadcasts every day from midnight to 9 pm with a variety of programs.
It is available in Danish on Internet – radiojazz.dk – and on 102,9 FM for local listeners. But don’t worry, 80 % what is in the progam is musik.
Every month, Bjarne Bus broadcast a one hour program called Lördagskonserten (The Saturday Concert) at noon every month.
Three weeks ago, I had the honor to be the invited guest in the program and it was great fun to sit down with Bjarne in his basement with all the records and tapes to put together the program.
We decided that the theme for the program should be The Duke Ellington Legacy, i.e. be about Duke Ellington as a pianist, composer, arranger and leader of an orchestra featuring some of jazz’s greatest soloists.
The program is available as a podcast at this address: https://www.radiojazz.dk/podcast-1/episode/79342162/lordagskoncerten-august-2024. And we speak only English in the program.
The Last Tour: Farewell From Vienna, 1973
Österreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian Radio and Television) has recently issued Ellington’s last concert in Vienna, which took place on 3 November 1973.
It is available as a double LP album and in different digital formats.
The music is more or less as at other concerts during the tour:
C-Jam Blues; Take The ‘A’ Train (intro); Rockin’ In Rhythm; Creole Love Call; Satin Doll; Spacemen; Caravan / How High The Moon / Ornithology (medley 1); New York, New York; I Got It Bad & That Ain’t Good; Blem; I’m Beginning To See The Light; Chinoiserie; Basin Street Blues; In Triplicate; Don’t Get Around Much Anymore / Mood Indigo / It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing / Sophisticated Lady (medley 2); Love You Madly; One More Time For The People; Take The ‘A’ Train (outro 1); Woods; Things Ain’t What They Used To Be (outro 2)
A discographical bit
The other day I listened to one of the tapes in the Benny Aaslund Collection. It turned out to be in good shape and a small piece of paper said KPAS 19 March 1945.
KPAS was a local radio station in Los Angeles and every Sunday at 2 pm it broadcasted a half-hour radio program called Lamplighter Jazz Session hosted by a journalist, Ted Yerxa, working Los Angeles Daily News.
The program plugged for local clubs and events.
In March 1945, Ellington and the orchestra was in California and among other things they had an engagement at Casa Mañana in Culver City 16-18 March.
In the afternoon of 18 March, KPAS broadcasted a Lamplighter Jazz Session from Billy Berg’s Club in Los Angeles. For ther occasion, a temporary group led by Rex Stewart was organised. Besides Stewart, Bob Wilson (tb), Barney Bigard (cl), Joe Sullivan, Rollo Garber and Zutty Singleton was part of the group.
At one point in the program, Duke appears and replace Sullivan at the piano to play The Mooche after which Yerxa and Ellington plug for the engagement a Casa Mañana.
Only The Mooche has been issued (Duke 1017) and Ellingtonia.com gives the date as 19 March 1945 and Sonny Greer as the drummer. This is information from NDESOR and Duke Ellington Day by Day.
Hopefully I will be able to digitize the session and publish it as a goodie.
Dan Morgenstern
He passed away last Saturday and with this the jazz world has lost one of its emblematic figures. Of course I never met him but I have benefitted from his work as editor of both Metronome and Downbeat, from his books and from his many liner notes to jazz albums. His five part series on YouTube about Ellington has learned me a lot and I often go back to it.
I deeply regret that I never took the opportunity to visit the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University when I worked and lived in Washington D.C. in the 1980’s but the video I found on YouTube this afternon shows what it could have been to tour the institute with him as a guide.
Author: Ulf Lundin
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