Happy New Year, Duke!
In the 1950’s Duke Ellington and his orchestra visited Blue Note in Chicago many times. In particular, it was his main venue for New Year’s celebrations, and he played there…
Stockholm 1994 (7)
This is the last installment of presentations at the conference – at least for now. They are all presentations from its last day. Thanks to hard work by Patricia Willard…
Stockholm 1994 (6)
This time we provide three more presentation from the second day of the conference. First comes one by Phil Schaap, which was actually not in the original program but added…
DESS-mötet den 7 december 2017
Här kommer en kort rapport från mötet baserad på uppgifter från några av deltagarna och med foton tagna av Bo Haufman. Kvällens föredragshållare var Ivan Sundberg, som under många år…
Deep South Suite
In the 1940’s, from 1943 to 1948, Duke Ellington & His Orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall in NYC no less than on seven different occasions. On each of these occasions…
Smått och gott / Bits and Pieces
An Irving Mills Advertising Manual for Ellington To promote Ellington, Irving Mills, amongst other things, had his publicity people prepare advertising manuals with “stories”, quotes and pictures, which newspapers could easily…
Louie Bellson Interview
The Hawk Talks, Louie Bellson’s probably most famous composition played by his own All Star Orchestra in 1992 Very recently DESS members received DESS Bullentin nr 4, 2017, in which…
Casa Mañana, Feb 20, 1941
In last week’s article on Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge”, Walter van de Leur was quoted as saying in his book ” Something to Live For, The Music of Billy Strayhorn”,…
Interpreting Ellington (2)
Thore Ehrling & his orchestra play East St. Louis Toodle-Oo The above recording is our starter for a small programme of prominent jazz musicians who present their own interpretations of…
Stockholm 2004 revisited (1)
The 19th Duke Ellington Study Group conference took place in Stockholm May 12-15, 2004. Sven Eriksson – DESS member, Ellington collector, hi-fi expert and much more – recorded the proceedings…