In my last article in 2025, I said that one of my focuses in 2025 would be the Benny Aaslund Collection and I will stick to that.
Benny was the founder of The Duke Ellington Society (DETS) and published the first issue of the DETS Bulletin in 1979.
By that time, Benny had published the first Azure cassette. A second followed in conjunction with the Fifth Duke Ellington Study Group and was put together by Sjef Hoefsmit. In total he provided DEMS members with 31 Azure cassettes.
Honoring Benny Åslund, which is the correct spelling of his name and Sjef Hoefsmit, who collaborated closely with him, I have chosen to play something a little bit special at the start of the new Ellington Galaxy season.
When I talked to Brian Priestley last year about his presentations at the Ellington Study Group Conference in Leeds, he told me that he did not only give a presentation on the Far East Suite but that his Brian Priestley Septet played an evening concert at the second day on the conference. Among the things the group played was East,East By East.
I also learned more about it from Brian in the same email in which he told me about the Azure cassette. “The background to that piece is fascinating, he wrote, and it didn’t come to light until the mid-1990s. I had previously transcribed the whole of the Far East Suite around 1989 and, with the encouragement of Andrew Homzy, most of it was performed by his big-band at the Ellington conference in 1990. Meanwhile, my “Special Septet” had released an LP in 1988 and a cassette (with guest trumpeter Bill Berry) in 1989, the latter including a small-group version of Mount Harissa.
Then in the mid-90s, I decided to adapt the rest of the transcriptions for the smaller line-up and, because it was then known that the Smithsonian Institution were gradually organising their Ellington manuscripts, I asked them to send copies of everything they had found with regard to the Far East Suite. What I received demonstrated that (1) Mount Harissa was originally titled Nob Hill (which I believe is in San Francisco, not the Far East) and that (2) they had catalogued an incomplete piece with the title East East By East along with the rest of the known Suite.
Doing some research for this article, Brian also told me that what recorded at the conference was I found that East, East By West was on Azure 22. It is a very well composed cassette with a lot of interesting material.
I have digitized Azure 22 and made an excerpt of Azure 22 for this article. In addition to East East By East, It also have Hayfoot Strayfoot from 28 July, 1942 and the Ellington part of Salute to Labour from Sep 1, 1941 which has songs from Jump for Joy.
I hope that you will enjoy the article and that we can work together to keep DESS and the website alive!
Editor and researcher: Ulf Lundin