Duke (79 page)

The manuscript reveals:
For a detailed description and analysis of the surviving manuscript material for
Reminiscing in Tempo,
which is on deposit in EC, see Howland, 171–72.
DE wrote it to fill up the other side:
Ralph Burns did the same thing when Woody Herman recorded his four-part
Summer Sequence
in 1946, writing an extra “movement” (which he then used as the basis for a popular ballad called “Early Autumn”) to fill out the last side of the original two-disc set.

“Practically every night”:
Lawrence, 249. According to Lawrence, Sonny Greer and Cootie Williams confirmed Brown’s recollection.

“Duke assured me”:
Feather, 62.
DE’s reply was unhesitating:
Radio Newsreel.

“Somebody who had modeled himself on Proust”:
Wilson, 163.
“John won’t compromise”:
Ferguson, 99.

“Problems”:
Hammond, 133.
DE “lost contact with his origins”:
Ibid., 137.
“John likes to play the boss man”:
Chris Albertson, personal communication.

“Our type of music”:
Eric Townley, “Reminiscing with Cootie,”
Storyville,
June–July 1977.
“The real trouble with Duke’s music”:
John Hammond, “The Tragedy of Duke Ellington, the ‘Black Prince’ of Jazz,”
Down Beat,
Nov. 1, 1935, in
Reader,
120.

“The seamier side of existence”:
Ibid., 119.

“An artiness which pervades all of [Ellington’s] writing today”:
Ulanov, 171–72.

CHAPTER EIGHT
“SWING IS STAGNANT”

SOURCES

Documents

Edmund Anderson, oral-history interview, OHAM;
Artie Shaw: The Centennial Collection,
sound recording (RCA); Barney Bigard, oral-history interview, IJS; Lawrence Brown, oral-history interview, IJS; Helen Oakley Dance, liner notes for
The Duke’s Men: Small Groups,
vol. 1, sound recording (Columbia); Helen Oakley Dance, liner notes for
The Duke’s Men: Small Groups,
vol. 2, sound recording (Columbia); Helen Oakley Dance, oral-history interview, OHAM; DE, unpublished interviews with Carter Harman, 1956 and 1964, EC; Mercer Ellington, oral-history interview, EC; Phoebe Jacobs, oral-history interview conducted by researchers for Ken Burns’s
Jazz
(transcript available online at www.pbs.org
/jazz/about/pdfs/Jacobs.pdf); Steven Lasker, liner notes for
The Complete 1932–1940 Brunswick, Columbia and Master Recordings of Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra,
sound recording (Mosaic); Steven Lasker, liner notes for
Duke Ellington: The Complete 1936–1940 Variety, Vocalion and OKeh Small Group Sessions
(Mosaic);
Record Making with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra,
film short (Paramount); Joya Sherrill, oral-history interview, OHAM; “Souvenir of Duke Ellington,” sound recording (Oriole); Juan Tizol, oral-history interview, IJS.

Books

Agate,
A Shorter Ego;
Balliett,
Collected Works;
Bigard,
With Louis and the Duke;
Cohen,
Duke Ellington’s America;
Stanley Dance,
Johnny Hodges;
Stanley Dance,
The World of Duke Ellington;
Davis,
Outcats;
Ellington,
Duke Ellington in Person;
George,
Sweet Man;
Malcolm X,
Autobiography;
Noss,
Paul Hindemith in the United States;
Schuller,
The Swing Era;
Simon,
Simon Says;
Stewart,
Boy Meets Horn;
Stewart
, Jazz Masters of the Thirties;
Stratemann,
Duke Ellington Day by Day and Film by Film;
Terry,
Terry;
Ulanov,
Duke Ellington;
Vail,
Duke’s Diary, Part One;
Wilson,
Meet Me at the Theresa.

NOTES

“If you never read anything”:
George, 150.
“Bands who fail to impress [college students] noticeably”:
“College Rhythm,”
Variety,
Jan. 29, 1936, quoted in Stratemann, 132.
The top white bands made twice as much money:
R.L. Larkin, “Are Colored Bands Doomed as Big Money Makers?,”
Down Beat,
Dec. 1, 1940.

“In the late 1930s”:
Michael P. Zirpolo, “In Duke’s Head,”
IARJC Journal
(Summer 2000).
The first time that the term
concerto
was publicly used by a jazz composer:
James P. Johnson’s
Jazz-a-Mine
concerto dates from 1934, but it was not premiered until years later, and there is no reason to suppose that DE knew of it.
“I’m more of a primitive artist”:
Simon, 36.
“Duke got his name on the label”:
Eric Townley, “Reminiscing with Cootie,”
Storyville,
June–July 1977. (DE may have had another unacknowledged collaborator on “Echoes of Harlem,” whose second strain is identical to the main theme of “Blue Mood,” a 1932 composition jointly credited to him and Johnny Hodges.)

DE recommended Helen Oakley to Irving Mills:
Stanley Dance,
Johnny Hodges,
41.

“Nothing was ever planned”:
Helen Oakley Dance, liner notes for
The Duke’s Men: Small Groups,
vol. 1.
“Most of the small group recordings were rehearsed”:
Townley, “Reminiscing with Cootie,”
“An absolute song factory”:
Helen Oakley
Dance, oral-history interview.
“Come out of the kitchen”:
Stanley Dance,
Johnny Hodges,
44.
“On these small band originals”:
Helen Oakley Dance, liner notes for
The Duke’s Men: Small Groups,
vol. 2.

Tizol sold his interest in “Caravan” to Irving Mills:
Tizol, oral-history interview.

“Doggy tunes”:
Helen Oakley
Dance, oral-history interview.
“Corner after corner”:
Helen Oakley
Dance, oral-history interview.

“The synopsis revolves around an unknown orchestra”:
The Chicago Defender,
Nov. 28, 1936; clipping, EC.
“50 SEPIAN STARS”:
Variations on this slogan were used in newspaper ads and can also be seen on contemporary photographs of the club’s marquee (Vail, 131).

“This is the place to hear swing music”:
Agate, 163–64.

“There is not much”:
Paul Hindemith, journal entry, Apr. 17, 1937, in Noss, 25.

Many more such “air checks” would be made:
Many of DE’s surviving air checks from the thirties have been collected on
Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club
(Storyville).
“When you’re playing in a recording studio”:
Interview with Artie Shaw, released on
Artie Shaw: The Centennial Collection.

The stage lighting that set them off:
Jack Boyd, the band’s longtime road manager, also designed its onstage lighting plots. For more about him, see Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” and “Boyd Has Traveled a Million Miles with Duke,”
Orchestra World,
Jan. 1943.
“Dress rehearsal revealed”:
Stewart,
Jazz Masters,
91.
“The unforgettable, show-stopping ensemble”:
Ibid., 84–85.

DE wore a corset:
Ibid., 52.
“He’s a genius, all right”:
Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” 215.
Some of his best-remembered quirks:
See Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” 215, and George, 24–25.
“After a while”:
Balliett, 429.

“Duke, who is always worrying”:
Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” 224.

“Kinky woolly hair”:
Wilson, 89.
“We were against kinky hair”:
Ibid., 88.

“Self-degradation”:
Malcolm X, 57.

“This is an express train”:
Record Making with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra.

Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue:
For a discussion of the history of this piece, see Eddie Lambert, “Duke’s
Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,
”
DEMS Bulletin,
Dec. 2004–Mar. 2005.
Both sides of a ten-inch 78:
Although
Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue
is a single two-part composition, the original 78 release did not make this fact clear, separately identifying the two sides of the record as “Diminuendo in Blue” and “Crescendo in Blue,” and Ellington did not always take care in early interviews to explain his intentions. Only the consecutive matrix numbers, M 648 and 649, indicated that the two parts of the piece were meant to be played in sequence. Some commentators, most notably Max Harrison and Brian Priestley, have speculated that DE may have originally meant for the two sections to be played in the opposite order, with “Crescendo in Blue” coming first, but there is no evidence that he had such a thing in mind, nor is he known ever to have performed the work in that way.
“Like all of our compositions”:
DE, “Duke Ellington Tells the Secrets of His Success,”
The Chicago Defender,
Oct. 2, 1937.

“A call was put in for extra policemen”:
Al Brackman, “25,000 American Swing Fans Go Crazy to Music of Duke and Other Jazz Aces,”
The Melody Maker,
June 11, 1938.
“Nothing more or less”:
Paul Edward Miller, “Idolized Composers Find It Hard Not to ‘Kid’ The Public: The Duke’s Latest Opus Is Inferior Stuff with a Fancy Title,”
Down Beat,
Dec. 1937.
“The master of them all”:
Aaron Copland, “Scores and Records,”
Modern Music,
Jan.–Feb. 1938, in
Reader,
130.

“Social secretary”:
DE, Harman interview, 1956.
“A $5,000 casket”:
“Duke Buries Father in $5,000 Coffin,”
The Baltimore Afro-American,
Nov. 6, 1937.

Barry Ulanov claimed as much:
Ulanov, 201.
“For the most part”:
Mercer Ellington, oral-history interview.

“The DUKE is still KING!”:
Unidentified clipping, n.d., in Vail, 143.
Lawrence Brown claimed to have written “Blue Light”:
Lasker, liner notes for
Duke Ellington: The Complete 1936–1940 Variety, Vocalion and OKeh Small Group Sessions.
“Transblucency (A Blue Fog You Can Almost See Through),” recorded in 1946 and jointly credited to both men, is based in part on Brown’s trombone solo on “Blue Light.”

“Sumptuously velvety”:
Schuller, 94.

The main theme of “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart” is based on a Hodges riff:
According to Rex Stewart, Hodges played this riff over the harmonies of “Once in a While” (
Boy Meets Horn,
190). Henry Nemo wrote the lyric to the vocal version. DE later reused the song’s chord changes in “Never No Lament,” recorded in 1940, which became a popular hit under the title “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” when a new lyric by Bob Russell was added two years later.
“Skilled tickler of the ivories”:
Jack Gould, “Night Club Notes,”
The New York Times,
Mar. 13, 1938.