The front page of issue 1983-4 of the DEMS Bulletin topped with the headline Unrealesed Studio Recordings Donated To Radio Denmark and in the article Benny Aaslund reported that Mercer Ellington had donated to Radio Denmark 41 boxes of unreleased studio tape recording made by Duke during the last 20 years of his life”.
When Aaslund said “unreleased studio tape recordings”, he referred to Ellington’s stockpile recordings but the donation also includes recordings of concerts and interviews as well as written music.
After having catalogued the material, the jazz section of Danish Radio started to broadcast a series of programs with material from the donation. The first program was broadcasted on Nov. 25, 1984 and it was presented by Bjarne Busk, who had been very instrumental in cataloging the donation.
In total, 59 programs were broadcasted over a period of almost 10 years. The last one went on the air Aug. 23 1994. All programs were presented in Danish.
At the Ellington ’92 conference, Erik Wiedemann, Bjarne Busk and Flemming Sjølund Jensen talked about the donation and its content.
Benny Aaslund kept his DEMS members updated on the Danish Radio Ellington Broadcasts, with program listings and discographical corrections. The web editor has compiled all the articles into a single pdf document.
Aaslund also made it possible for members of DEMS to acquire cassette tapes with recordings of the broadcasts.
Until now, the DESS web site has published articles about broadcasts 1-49 except broadcasts 29 and 30, which did not draw on material from the Mercer Ellington donation and made the broadcasts themselves available as goodies.