Category: Duke Ellington Study Group conferences

Today is the Maestro’s 121st birthday and the members of the Duke Ellington Society of Sweden join members of other Ellington societies and Ellington fans in general in paying tribute…

Phil Schaap was a frequent contributor to the Ellington conferences. We have already published his presentations at the Stockholm ’94 conference and here is the one he gave in Copenhagen…

Wolfram Knauer, Director of the Jazzinstutut Darmstadt, did his first appearance at an Ellington Study Group Conference in Copenhagen in 1992. He had chosen to talk about Simulated Improvisation in…

Duke Ellington recorded Tiger Rag for the first time on January 8, 1929 for Brunswick. It was an extended version, which was issued on a 12 inch 78 (Brunswick 6510)…

Brian Priestly was also one of the speakers at the Ellington ’92 conference in Copenhagen. Photo Bjarne Busk He talked about “Ellington The Pianist”. During the 45 minutes presentation, Priestly…

Another theme of the Copenhagen conference was “Remembering Duke”, which allowed speakers to share the memories of Duke and experiences from working with him. The first speaker on this theme…

The Danish bass player and radioman Erik Moseholm was another speaker on this theme. His topic was the Danish bass tradition and the inspiration of Ellington’s basists on it. He…

The 10th Ellington Study Group Conference took place in Copenhagen May 28-31, 1992. The lead organisers of the conference were Arnvid Meyer, Niels Toft and Karl Emil Knudsen – three…

On June 24 – just before the summer break – we published the first part of “The Extended Ellington” concert, which ended the third day of the Ellington ’88 conference.…

In 1974, Brian Priestly – jazz writer and pianist among other things – and the arranger and composer Alan Cohen wrote what Mark Tucker has labelled “the first serious analytical…