The last DESS Bulletin for this year has already reached the DESS members, who subscribe t0 the pdf version, while printed version has just been sent out out.
I wrote about the latest issue of Blue Light last week and it is interesting to compare it with the DESS Bulletin.
They are the last remaining Ellington journals and we should be greatful for the work of Gareth Evants and Bo Haufman do to keep them alive.
They started to be published at about the same time. Blue Light after the Ellington Study Group in Copenhagen in 1992 and the DESS Bulletin after the Ellington Study Group Conference in Stockholm in 1994.
They are also quite similar in character depending on contributions from members of The Duke Ellington Society UK and Duke Ellington Society of Sweden (DESS but more and more on the small group of external Ellington specialists. The only difference between the two magazines is that they use different “stables” of Ellington specialists and that Blue Light have a better coveridge of the national Ellington scene (concerts, events, new books and records etc.
Another difference is that Blue Light is published three times a year and have 50 pages while DESS is published four times a year and have 20 pages.
Now back to the new Bulletin.
The dominant article in it is Steven Lasker’s 100 years of Ellington Records. It is not an article about everything recording during 100 years of his life but what he recorded 100 years ago for the Blu-Disc label. It has an introduction about Ellington’s recording for Victor Talking Machine Company with Elmer Snowden’s Novelty Orchestra on 26th July, 1923.
Blu-Disc was founded by JoTrent, lyrisist and singer on some Blu-Disc records. Ellington six sides for the label, two on which he accompanied the singer Alberta Prime (It’s Gonna to Be A Cold Cold Winder and Parlor Social De Luxe), two with The Washingtonians (Choo Choo and Rainy Nights), one with Jo Trent And The D C’NS (Deacon Jazz) and one with Sunny And The D C’NS.
Read the whole article and learn about Blu-Disc and more more.
There are also three articles about Ellington compositions – one by Rasmus Henriksen about Misfit Blues, one about Rude Interlude, which is a reprint from his web and one by David Berger about Cotton Taill. They are all in English.
A fourth article about a musical work by Ellington is the article by Anders Asplund about Man With Four Sides. It is in Swedish. Erik Wiedeman höll ett bra föredrag på Ellington ’90 i Ottawa även om han fick lite kort om tid. Lewis Porter‘s four article on Substack is also a must to read.
After this, there follows three articles in Swedish about Ellington muscians, one about Lawrence Brown titled Mysteriet Lawrence Brown (The Lawrence Brown Mystery), another about Rick Henderson titled Vem var Rick Henderson (Vem var Rick Henderson) and a third one about Duke Ellington and Buck Clayton.
Artikeln om Brown har hämtat en hel del från intervjun som Danny Caine gjorde med Brown i Kalifornien sommaren 1982. Den finns publicerad i sin helhet i det senaste numret av Blue Light och jag rekommenderar varmt att man läser den tillsammans med artikeln om Brown i Bulletinen.
Vad gäller Buck Clayton hoppas jag att Bullens läsare också tar sig besväret att höra på hans föredrag på Ellington ’87 i Ottawa. Det finns tillgängligt på Ellington Galaxy, där det publiceras den 14 september i år.
Author: Ulf Lundin