DEMS BULLETIN
DUKE ELLINGTON MUSIC SOCIETY
10/2 August - November 2010
Our 32nd Year of Publication
FOUNDER: BENNY AASLAND
HONORARY MEMBER: FATHER JOHN GARCIA GENSEL
EDITOR: SJEF HOEFSMIT
ASSISTED BY: ROGER BOYES
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THE INTERNATIONAL DEMS BULLETIN DUKE ELLINGTON MUSIC SOCIETY 10/2 August - November 2010 Our 32nd Year of Publication FOUNDER: BENNY AASLAND |
Voort 18b, 2328 Meerle, Belgium
Telephone: +32 3 315 75 83
Email: dems1@telenet.be
Lena Horne
DEMS 10/2-1
Lena Horne died on Sunday night 9May10. Her closest connection to the Ellington community was her
close friendship with Billy Strayhorn. An excellent obituary by Aljean Harmetz was brought to our
attention by Carl Hällström through the courtesy of David Palmquist. Go to
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/arts/music/10horne.html?hp to read it.
Jo Ann Sterling gave us this address for the nice obituary written by Dennis McLellan, who however
overlooked the relationship between Lena and Billy:
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/10/1935052/singing-legend-lena-horne-dies.html
DEMS
Joya Sherrill
DEMS 10/2-2
Joya Sherrill died on Monday 28Jun10. She was an exceptional vocalist, because her ability to sing the
lyrics so that everybody could understand them is a very rare gift. Like many other great musicians, she
had no formal training. When she suggested to Duke that she should do something about that, he advised
her not to. Her relationship with Duke was such that he asked her to write her own chapter for his book
Music Is My Mistress. Much of her work during the great years with Ellington was recorded on the
Treasury Series, which were cleaned by Jack Towers and released by Jerry Valburn. DEMS took care
that Joya received a complete collection of 48 LPs.
Joya was a guest at the party organized by Jean Bach in her house on Washington Mews in Manhattan
for the occasion of having four Europeans joining the first international Ellington Conference in
Washington DC in 1983. Joya attended many of these conferences. Her appearance on the stage of the
New Regal Theatre in the production of "My People", for the occasion of the 1998 Ellington Conference
in Chicago, was without a doubt the one most applauded.
Her spontaneity helped her make many friends in the Ellington community. She will be missed.
Sjef Hoefsmit
NEW BOOKS
Duke Ellington’s America
DEMS 10/2-3
See DEMS 10/1-8
Harvey G. Cohen: Duke Ellington’s America. The University of Chicago Press; 688 pages.
ISBN 978 0 226 11263 3.
Duke Ellington, master musician, one of America’s most important composers of the 20th century.
Yes, of course, many people will agree. But a closer look at his music reveals an extra dimension in
his work, which contains a very important message. This message pertains to the other, ‘darker’ side
of the coin, which has been discussed and mentioned before, but not as seriously, thoroughly and
well-documented as in Harvey Cohen’s monumental historic-cultural study. This message is about
the uncensored and unadulterated expression of African American identity. Let’s have a closer look
at the titles of some of his compositions, starting at the beginning of his career in the twenties and
continuing into the seventies: Black Beauty, Creole Rhapsody,
Symphony in Black, A Portrait of Bert
Williams, Bojangles, Jump for Joy, Black, Brown & Beige,
Emancipation Celebration, New World A-Comin’, Liberian Suite, Harlem, My
People, King Fit the Battle of Alabam, La Plus Belle Africaine,
It’s Freedom, Three Black Kings, as cases in point. They all refer to or tell a story about significant
African American persons, situations and experiences. Duke Ellington was a proud, independent, and
autonomous artist, who valued his African American heritage, and never compromised when his
freedom of expression was at stake. He stood up to the important and influential record producer
John Hammond who criticized Ellington’s extended 1935 composition Reminiscing in Tempo,
written after the death of Daisy, Ellington’s mother. According to Hammond, Ellington was
abandoning the music of his race, and he’d better concentrate on writing dance music as his medium
of expression. For the rest of his career Ellington would ignore Hammond and avoid him as much as possible.
Independence, autonomy and self-esteem: these were the key concepts in Ellington’s life. In the early
thirties he hired three well-apportioned Pullman train cars to ferry the orchestra around during its
Southern tour. In this way he not only travelled very comfortably, but he also avoided all kinds of
humiliations, such as not being serviced in hotels and restaurants. Ellington incorporated Tempo
Music, his own publishing company, in New York City in December 1940. For the rest of his career,
the company ensured that he would earn the publisher’s share of his songs’ royalties, as well as the
songwriter’s share. It was a business move that greatly aided the survival of the orchestra and
Ellington’s music in the decades to follow. And it set an important precedent for African Americans,
and other jazz artists, controlling their own publishing. No major popular music figure – white or
black – had created his own publishing company since Irving Berlin in 1914.
To me, one of the most revealing accounts of Ellington’s artistic integrity and self-confidence is the
following, describing an incident that occurred during a 1944 RCA Victor recording session, under
the direction of Eli Oberstein. “The microphone in the control room where the engineers were, which
should have flipped back to the ‘off’ position did not, it stuck. And so the mike remained open, Eli
came in, and he says: “OK boys, you ready for a little Saturday night nigger music,” or something to
that effect. Well that went right into the studio and everybody in the Ellington band just kind of
looked up and it was not exactly what they were used to hearing, and they all looked in the control
room (…). And Duke, you know, turned slowly back and said to the band, “Gentlemen, pack up.” He
shuffled the music, gave it to the copyist, went and put his coat on, and (…) walked down the hall at
24th Street, and on out” (Cohen, p. 264).
At that moment, Ellington’s Victor contract had two years to go. Ellington did not scream or shout,
he did not curse or insult Oberstein and those who were with him in the control room. He just walked
out on them, leaving the burden of shame and the feeling of awkwardness on their shoulders. It was a
very clear statement, and a telling testimony to the fact that he valued his artistic integrity and his
self-esteem above the financial security of a contract with a big company.
By his authoritative and dignified behavioural style and manners, and the fundamental choices he
made at crucial moments in his life and career, Duke Ellington set an example that served and will
serve as a role model for African Americans and the unique contributions they can make to American
society. Of all the books I have read on the subject of Duke Ellington, Cohen’s book is easily the best
and certainly the most comprehensive.
Louis Tavecchio
Duke’s Place
Ellington et ses Imaginaires
By Alain Pailler
Published in 2002 by Actes Sud at 21 Euros
DEMS 10/2-4
Three cheers for the essay, a literary form which aspires to more substance than an article, though
less than a treatise. In the era of emails, blogs and instant comments, the essay seems to have fallen
somewhat from favour, though not, it seems, in France. Perhaps that’s not so surprising in the
country which gave us Michel de Montaigne.
A most valuable form it is too, in the hands of Alain Pailler, who offered us in 2002 Duke’s Place, a
second volume in which he considers aspects of Ellingtonia. The first, Plaisir d’Ellington, had
appeared four years earlier [see DEMS 99/4-29/1], and the cover blurb describes them together as a diptych.
At the heart of Duke’s Place is a consideration of the Ellington drummers, specifically Sonny Greer,
Louie Bellson, Sam Woodyard and Rufus Jones. Pailler’s initial proposition is that, somewhat in
anticipation of the freedoms of bebop and beyond, the Ellington Orchestra’s rhythmic pulse was
essentially supplied by the bassist with (until 1949) the guitarist, i.e. within the harmonic framework
of the music. In this regard Wellman Braud, Oscar Pettiford and of course Jimmie Blanton are
singled out. This frees the percussionist to take on the colourist’s role which is more usual in a
symphony orchestra, and it incidentally turns inside out the old saw that a jazz ensemble comprises
‘x musicians plus a drummer’. Pailler concentrates on the ways in which the Ellington drummers
supply the dots which define the ‘i’s, the strokes which cross the ‘t’s’.
The section on Sonny Greer is a brief summary of the much lengthier discussion of Greer’s art in the
earlier book, in which the author concentrated largely on the marvels of the 1940-42 band. In support
of his view that for all his growing waywardness Sonny could cut it until the day he left, Pailler cites
numerous recordings from the late 40s and early 50s. He ends his summary with a poetic paragraph
on Swamp Fire (1946), in which he employs another approach to jazz writing which seems largely
forgotten in this age of the Ph D thesis and the scholarly tome; the critical impressionism which the
late Martin Williams found in Vic Bellerby’s writing on Ellington (The Art of Jazz, 1959).
Turning to Greer’s successor, Louie Bellson, Pailler finds him so complete a drummer that he could
seem a second orchestra within the Orchestra. Louie’s skills as a big band drummer (which in the
conventional sense, Pailler says, Greer was not, the arrival of Blanton having freed him to add the
role of hard-swinging drummer to his existing functions as a percussionist) enabled Louie to pick up
the 1950-52 band by the scruff of its collective neck and completely redefine its sound and feel. In
doing so, Pailler argues, Louie stemmed and reversed the slow dilution of the ensemble in the late
1940s as the old gods departed one by one, and prepared their replacements to be a new malleable
instrument for Ellington’s purposes with the arrival in 1955 of a new colourist at the percussion.
Pailler does not overlook the solidly unspectacular, but crucial, role of Wendell Marshall in this
redefinition (pp56-7).
The newcomer in 1955 was of course Sam Woodyard, and Pailler devotes over thirty pages .to Sam’s
achievement, an essay within the essay which he clearly intends as a complement to the piece on
Greer in the earlier book. He cites a wide range of examples to illustrate his points and substantiate
his assertions. These references alone, which send the reader back to the recordings which may have
been gathering dust on the Ellington shelf for years, make the book invaluable. Pailler considers the
three successive bassists in this wonderful rhythm section, Woode, Bell and Shepherd, in the end
perhaps favouring Shepherd over his two predecessors. It is an invidious comparison, and one of
many judgments with which one could take friendly issue. The brief consideration of Rufus Jones
concentrates largely on the music of the Far East Suite (composed of course, but not recorded for
Victor, in the Woodyard period, though Pailler doesn’t make that point).
A number of other topics surround Paller’s discussion of the four drummers, setting off the diamond
cluster of which the discussion of Woodyard is the central gem. After outlining his terms of reference
in a short introduction he describes the importance of 1956 in Ellington’s achievement in surviving
the passing of the dance-hall era, with special reference to Such Sweet Thunder. He ruminates for
twenty pages on Duke’s conception of ‘the jungle’; revisiting this theme after his survey of the
drummers, comparing it with expressionism, especially in German cinema, and the notion of the
doppelgänger. Then he considers the Ellington-Strayhorn relationship, without falling into the trap of
boosting the one at the expense of the other (essentially they were good for each other, and so were
good for us); discusses Caravan, from its 1930s beginnings to the late 1950s; surveys the evocations
of trains, with the curious omission of Loco Madi. He concludes with a few pages (nothing daunting)
in which he discusses several passages illustrated by musical transcriptions, an approach he is at
pains elsewhere to avoid.
This is a slim book, though not a slight one; impressionistic, but with its feet firmly on the ground of
the Ellington discography. Within it the author moves comfortably and very widely, with a strong
sense of focus, while conceding a preference for the earlier music over the later. Pailler covers a lot
of ground, and he writes lucidly and well. Anyone with good French will get a lot out of Duke’s
Place and its companion volume Plaisir d’Ellington. Readers with a more modest grasp of the
language should still find much of interest, as they go back to those long neglected recordings in the
light of Pailler’s judgments.
Roger Boyes
DISCUSSIONS - ADDITIONS - CORRECTIONS
Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, The River and Chief Natoma
Walter van de Leur
DEMS 10/2-5
In Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1999),
Linda Dahl discusses the supposed connection between Mary Lou Williams’s Chief Natoma from
Tacoma, Duke Ellington’s eighth movement of The River, and a movement from the UWIS Suite
titled Loco Madi. In 1967, Mary Lou Williams had written some arrangements for Ellington, which
she sent him later. “Among these were,” Dahl says, new rock-and-roll and ballad versions of You
Know Baby, and rock and jazz versions of Chief Natoma from Tacoma . . . Both versions of Chief
wound up on Ellington suites: the “rock” version in the center section of the long suite The River, and
the “jazz” version in the Loco Madi (short for “location Madison”) movement of the UWIS Suite.
Though the tempo is changed in the latter, and there is an inimitable Ellington treatment at the end of
the movement, Mary’s Chief melody can be clearly heard. Mary was never credited nor paid. . . Mary
knew nothing of how her material had been used, never heard the suites, though there was a close
call: while team teaching with her at Duke University in the late seventies, [father Peter] O’Brien
[Mary Lou’s manager among other things] recalls listening to The River for the first time with
students right before Mary arrived in the class-room. “When I realized what I was hearing, I took the
needle off the record before she entered. She would have been furious” (Dahl, 297).
The connection between Williams’s arrangements for Ellington and The River is made again in
David Bradbury’s Duke Ellington (London: Haus Publishing, 2005), but now “four of her
compositions appeared uncredited in Ellington’s ballet The River” (Bradbury, 62). Bradbury doesn’t
identify the other three compositions that went into The River, but given the material sent by Mary
Lou, they might include Truth (a reworking of her earlier Scratchin’ in the Gravel) and You Know
Baby, of which she made a rock and a jazz version, just as she had done with Chief, and O.W. The
Dutch Jazz Orchestra recorded most of Williams’s 1967 arrangements for Duke on The Lady Who
Swings The Band: Rediscovered Music of Mary Lou Williams (Challenge Records CR73251): Chief
Natoma, O.W., Scratchin’ in the Gravel (Truth), and You Know Baby.
Figure 1 gives the outline of the main thematic material of Chief Natoma from Tacoma and the
opening of movement eight of The River, which I will refer to as RIBA (Ellington’s working title of
this movement), to discern it from the entire ballet. Chief is built on a 12-bar minor-blues in E flat.
The melody consists of a one-bar melodic and rhythmic gesture that is altered a number of times. The
bass line provides a propulsive countermelody with some strong clashes against the theme.
Ellington’s RIBA is a 12-bar major-blues that travels through three different keys. Its opening theme
is a one-bar riff that is repeated twelve times without significant alterations. The only changes occur
in the left-hand dyads on the downbeat (doubled in the bass), which give the passage its typical
Ellingtonian flavor. Even for those who don’t read music it will be clear that there isn’t any
resemblance between these passages.
Although Dahl’s anecdote indicates that the opening bars of RIBA alarmed O’Brien, it could be
that elsewhere Williams’s arrangement pops up in the movement. Figure 2 gives the formal plan of
RIBA. Figure 3 gives the first four bars of the thematic material from the other sections of RIBA
(sometimes in a different octave for clarity). The first four bars suffice, because most
sections build on repeated strains.
Figure 2. Formal outline of RIBA
Time bars key
0.00 A. 12 F Piano riff
0.20 B. 12 F Sax unison line with trombone answers
0.40 C. 12 F Sax unison line with bass
1.01 D. 12 F Same as B.
1.21 E. 12 Bb Sax repeated Bb + trombone riff last 8 (altered blues form)
1.41 F. 12 Bb Sax two-part riff against trombone unison line
2.01 G. 12 Bb Sax unison riff against riff chords
2.23 H. 12 Bb Sax unison riff (variation G.) against brass chords
2.43 I. 12 Eb Brass chords
3.02 J. 12 Eb Piano riff A. transposed major second down
3.22 K. 12 Eb Same as J.
3.40 Coda 6 Eb Piano, based on A.
The other themes from RIBA nowhere come close to those of Chief either. Neither do I find any
connection between the other known arrangements by Williams for Ellington and other movements
of The River, as suggested by Bradbury.
This brings me to the connection between Chief and Loco Madi. The latter is formally and
thematically more complex than RIBA, as it is built on various blues chord progressions, such as
eight-bar and twelve-bar blues. There are few similarities between Chief and Loco Madi. Despite
Dahl’s observation that “Mary’s Chief melody can be clearly heard” there is only one passage that
deserves a closer look: the 8-bar saxophone section that starts at [0.58]. It is given in figure 4.
The melodic contours in the second half of this passage indeed vaguely resemble those of the
melodic building block of Chief: a large step down, a smaller step up, and a large step down. But that
isn’t anywhere close to a match. Neither melodically, rhythmically, harmonically, nor structurally do
Loco Madi and Chief have anything in common. This passage may be rhythmically congruent with
much of the material in RIBA, but that too provides insufficient ground to see a connection between
Loco Madi and RIBA (as one would expect if both movements were derived from the same work).
I don’t doubt that Peter O’Brien thought, as per Linda Dahl’s report, that RIBA resembles Chief. Still,
Peter was mistaken: RIBA has nothing to do with Chief. Obviously, neither Dahl nor Bradbury have
checked Duke’s recordings against Mary Lou’s scores. Although Dahl links Williams’s “rock”
version of Chief with The River, and the “jazz” version with Loco Madi--which suggests she has
studied the materials in some detail--she offers no documentation. Bradbury flatly connects The
River to no less than four of Mary Lou’s compositions, again without any further evidence. Such
serious accusations of appropriation that Dahl and Bradbury make against Ellington, demand serious
substantiation. Hearsay and some cursory listening clearly are not enough.
I believe that Loco Madi is not a location, but a train.
Sjef Hoefsmit**
Yes there is something about this matter in MIMM, p 407. I also have always believed it had to do
with a train. However, for the scope of my article, it doesn't seem to be very important.
Walter van de Leur**
This is what Duke said just prior to the performance of Loco Madi on 21Jul72 during the final
concert of his stay at the University of Wisconsin at Madison:
"I finally came to Wisconsin and I came on a train. They had trains in those days, 1931. They had a
train which came from Chicago and I think the big line was : 'ninety miles in ninety minutes' "
DEMS**
Corrections for DEMS Bulletin
DEMS 10/2-6
DEMS 2002/1, page 18/2, lists the track of Black and Tan Fantasy from the Alternative Takes,
Volume 1 Neatwork CD as take C.
DEMS 2000/1, page 16-1, lists the track of Black and Tan Fantasy from the Essential Recordings,
1927-1962, disk 1, track 3, as take B. (The title of this CD is listed in DEMS as 1927-1961, but the
second year is 1962 since it includes a 1962 version of A Midnight in Paris.)
I have both CDs and can tell no difference at all between the recordings.
My guess is that the Alternative Takes, Volume 1 version of Black and Tan Fantasy is actually take B.
Brian Koller
You are right again. This is a typing error. Both the liner-notes of Classics 542 and Neatwork 2023
are correct, as are the notes that I made when I compared the takes with Masters of Jazz 25. The
Classics has take -C and Neatwork has take -B, which is unexpected, since take -B was chosen for all
the other CD reissues. I have -C only on the CD Masters of Jazz and on the LPs CBS 67264 (where it
follows take -B) and on the rare LP Family Records 656. I will make a correction in the DEMS
Bulletin 02/1-18/2(542), so as not to mislead future readers. Thank you for your correction.
The title of the Sony 3 CD set is indeed "The Duke The Essential 1927-1961." This error is not made
by DEMS, but by Sony.
Sjef Hoefsmit
Who is the trumpet soloist?
DEMS 10/2-7
See DEMS 10/1-14
About the remarks, made by Graham Colombé on the soloists performing in How High the Moon, we
listened again to all the versions of this title. We confirm that the correct sequence of the trumpets is
definitely RN-CT-WC and not RN-WC-CT as suggested by Mr Colombé.
Giovanni Volonté and Luciano Massagli
An interesting correction
DEMS 10/2-8
See DEMS 09/3-20
Among the corrections to The New DESOR in this Bulletin is one that deserves more careful
attention than usual (See 10/2-20, 430). It could easily be overlooked by those who do not
incorporate the corrections into their New DESOR, but who simply rely on the statements in the
Ellington periodicals.
In DEMS 97/2-13/1 it was made clear that apart from a "fresh" Caravan nothing is new on the 1997
CD release "The Popular Duke Ellington" RCA 9026-68705. It was simply assumed that all the other
11 tracks were identical with those on the LP with the same title, RCA LSP-3576. This is not the case.
Giovanni Volonté and Luciano Massagli detected that the version of Do Nothin' Till You Hear from
Me on the CD is different from the one on the LP.
Three different versions of this title have now been released from the
recordings made on the
sessions of 9 and 11May66. Two of them are very similar. The only
obvious difference is the length
of the piano introduction, but one is not edited from the other. They
are different all the way through
and both were presumably recorded on 11May. Both were included in the 24
CD box RCA 09026-63386. The long version is on track 14 of CD 22. The
short version is on track 8 of CD 22 and on all
our other releases, including the LP 3576.
The third one is uniquely released on the CD "The Popular Duke Ellington" and was presumably
recorded on 9May.
DEMS
Johnny Mercer documentary
DEMS 10/2-9
I saw recently (5Apr10) on BBC 4 a documentary about Johnny Mercer. At a certain moment I saw
Duke at the piano in a white suit with Ella Fitzgerald behind him with her hands on his shoulders,
singing Satin Doll. Can you tell me where this recording came from?
Joe Farrier
It is taken from the NBC telecast "Bell Telephone Hour" - "American Festival", recorded 10Feb59
with Jim Hall, Wilfred Middlebrooks and Gus Johnson, none of whom are visible on screen in the
clip you saw.
DEMS
The Musicraft session of 23oct46
DEMS 10/2-10
See DEMS 09/3-12
I had copies of the recording cards of all Musicraft sessions, where all the takes were mentioned. I
then (4th edition) still held up the principle to list all recordings made, notwithstanding their
availability. In the meantime I have changed my mind — why carry all that dead weight around —
and in the 5th edition only the recordings that have survived — whether or not they are available —
are listed.
Willie Timner
Timner's fifth edition
DEMS 10/2-11
See DEMS 09/3-4
Here are a few additional comments by Willie Timner:
12. 16-17May36 — I only can repeat that I have sold my entire collection. The material given to me
in confidence was destroyed.
11. 23May36 — Congress Hotel Chicago. I got the tape with the date May36 on it and I listed the
titles under this date in my third edition. Somebody came up and told me that the correct date should
be 26May36. I still have no clue where the titles actually belong. Ellington played from 8May to
5Jun36 nightly(?) at the Congress Hotel. Do radio logs exist to verify any date?
16. Feb39 — Beer Barrel Polka. I did not take my clue from DESOR, but from the information sheet
that came with the tape. Probably the event was not a concert but a dance (quite likely, given the title
of the song).
Broadcasts in September and October 1940
DEMS 10/2-12
See DEMS 09/3-10
Finally we are getting some clarity. Much confusion was created alone by the fact that we are dealing
with two time zones here. The daily broadcasts of the band from the hotel have been aired locally
(Chicago) from 11:00-11:30 PM, however in New York it was 12:00-0:30 AM. If somebody cut
acetates in New York, they carried probably the date of the following day, because of the New York
time. I am sure that somebody has noticed that and that corrections were made, however, nobody
could be 100% sure which date was the correct one.
The list by Carl Hällström and Ken Steiner also requires some thinking, because they are listing the
local broadcasts (WMAQ and WENR) and the national stations (NBC Red and NBC Blue), which
were aired in NYC (broadcasting yesterday's performance live).
The title I Don't Mind listed in the 11Sep40 program is in fact All Too Soon. I have nothing that
indicates that either selection had an alternate title. Would it be possible to check out the other
broadcasts (7Sep; 12Sep and 5oct) which include I Don't Mind which has usually a vocal by Ivie
Anderson? The 5oct title seems to be without vocal.
One question remains. I have listed the title Ring dem Bells together with In a Mellotone under the
date of 4oct40. In a Mellotone could be identical with the one mentioned by Carl Hällström on 6oct,
but there is no Ring dem Bells to be found in the broadcasts. It has been issued on Queen Disc [007
and on Jazz Supreme 705]. I have checked DESOR. They have the same listing [on 3oct40].
Willie Timner
About the titles I Don't Mind and All Too Soon. What you hear is All Too Soon, but according to The
New DESOR, this selection was erroneously titled I Don't Mind in the broadcast. Since that title was
already "occupied" by a totally different composition, it is included in the list of alternates, indicated
with the mark: # to indicate that this is not a "proper" alternate, but that there is another, genuine
composition with this title. (See also DEMS 04/1-30.)
About Ring dem Bells on 3 or 4oct40. This is what Carl Hällström wrote in an e-mail of 13oct02:
"31Dec39, 'Meet the Band' broadcast: 'A New Year's preview will swing out over the airlanes on
Sunday, Dec. 31, when WBBM listeners hear Duke Ellington and his orchestra in a special
arrangement of Ring dem Bells.' [Carl Hällström suggested that the aircheck of Cootie Williams'
vocal on Ring dem Bells considered to be "Panther Room Sep/Oct 1940 unidentified date" may
indeed be the "special New Year's arrangement" for "Meet the Band."]
The reason which nails Ring dem Bells to this date is, according to Carl, that the tune doesn't appear
on a single one of the monitored NBC "coast to coast" broadcasts from the Panther Room of the Fall
1940 gig. Benny Aasland gives 3oct40 as the broadcast date of Ring dem Bells, entry 40-40 in his
WWoDE 1940-42 and it's highly unlikely that the Duke only would play this outstanding "production
number" just a single time during the Panther Room gig, during one of his very last broadcasts from
the venue.
Ring dem Bells aircheck. A faint scribbling of "31/12" could easily be interpreted as "3/10" and, as
the content of the "Meet the Band" broadcast wasn't known to Benny at the time, it was quite natural
for him to assign this single item to the well known Panther Room gig one year later.
Ken Steiner: "To which I would add, that the other tune from this date, according to Benny - In a
Mellow Tone - doesn't have the same 'sound' as Ring dem Bells, they are from different broadcasts !"
DEMS
DEMS Bulletins on line
DEMS 10/2-13
If you go to http://www.depanorama.net/dems/index.htm you will find all the DEMS Bulletins
from 1979 until today. The Bulletins made by me (Sjef Hoefsmit) on my Mac, starting with 2001 are
in HTML format which means that you can locate an item by a search through each Bulletin. The
older Bulletins are "photographed" and in PDF format thanks to Bjorn Andresen. You cannot search
an item in the way you can on the HTML files. Marcus Girvan has put the Bulletins 1995 - 2000
through an optical character recognition programme and they are now searchable by word. It isn't
always 100% reliable but at least it makes it somewhat easier to find items rather than by reading
through the entire Bulletin until the item is found.
Marcus writes: "The main difficulty is that the two earliest Bulletins from 1995 have been annotated,
underlined and sometimes not too accurately, obscuring some of he text. Not a problem when you are
doing that for your own benefit but it is when the pages are scanned and there is no differentiation
between the text and the amendments.
Sadly, before 1995, this becomes too bad for OCR to recognize the words and unless there are some
pristine copies of the old Bulletins out there, then this is as far as I can go.
I do hope that what I have done is of some help and can replace those on
http://www.depanorama.net/dems/index.htm."
I am very grateful for he work done by Marcus Girvan. The Bulletins made by Benny Aasland
(before he died in 1996) are photocopies of my own Xeroxed copies. I was able to reproduce the
Bulletins from 1996 on with my printer from my computer files.
The further you go back into the past, the less interesting it is to find your way. Many of the older
statements and pieces of information are no longer up to date. When I refer to an article in an old
Bulletin, I give you the DEMS number to help you find it. Items in the Bulletins from before we went
on line are numbered as follows: the year in two digits/the edition number in one digit-the page
number in one or two digits/and the sequential number of the article between the other articles on the
same page. Since pages are no longer used in the on line version of the Bulletins (since 2001) after
the edition number is one or are two digits referring to the sequential number of the article between
all the other articles in the same Bulletin.
Sjef Hoefsmit**
Great News about Mosaic
DEMS 10/2-14
Long ago Ted Hudson and I were discussing Duke's future as a classical composer. Ted said: "there
are still recordings with Van Beethoven's compositions available. You will see Duke's recordings
will also be available and bought by music lovers with good taste for many years to come.
I think that Ted is proven to be right if you see how many re-releases there are on the market today. If
you are still working on your collection and you want to know more about a specific album or about
a specific title, you could go to the very useful website http://ellingtonweb.ca and more specifically
to http://www.ellingtonweb.ca/Hostedpages/CDCatalogue/CD-Lists.htm. If you still need more
information please ask DEMS. We are always ready to help you.
In this edition of the Bulletin you will not find "New Finds" or "New Releases", but I can tell you
that Steven Lasker is working on an 11 CD production for Mosaic with Ellington recordings from
1932 until 1940 made for the labels Master, Brunswick, Columbia and American Record
Corporation. Steven told me that he hopes that the set will be ready for Christmas. I expect that a few
"New Finds" will be included and that together with an unsurpassed sound quality and a complete
and up to date booklet answering all your discographical and other questions, this production will be
a marvelous opportunity to fill some holes in your collection or to replace your old 1932 - 1940
recordings. A terrific Christmas present!
Sjef Hoefsmit
I'm still looking for a few 78 rpm sources. If anyone has master-pressed tests on the following, please
contact me via DEMS:
C1199-2 I Don't Know Why I Love You So
M519-2 All God's Chillun Got Rhythm
M521-2 Alabamy Home
M648-2 Diminuendo in Blue
M649-2 Crescendo in Blue
M650-x Harmony in Harlem (the take issued on Raretone mistakenly identified as being -1; original
source may be an unprocessed acetate)
M833-2 Rose of the Rio Grande
WM1006-2 Portrait of the Lion
Thanks in advance for any help,
Steven Lasker
Harlem Air Shaft from 24Aug43
DEMS 10/2-15
Bulletin 01/3-20 had the attached following question and answer.
The question [#7 by Willie Timner] was: 24Aug43, Hurricane. Harlem Air Shaft. Approved by you
but not in DESOR, or is it in its supplementary notes?
SH: It is not approved by me. It is only not commented on because there seems to be an acetate with
a five title broadcast from the Hurricane on 24Aug43 in the Timme Rosenkrantz collection under
number 2-7-A and B. The 4th selection is Harlem Air Shaft. I have never heard it, neither have our
Italian friends, but it may exist.
WT: I left Harlem Air Shaft in [the discography 'Ellingtonia'] for the time being. I had it on tape and
have to look for it.
SH: Hope you find it and that you let me hear it.
Here ends the text from Bulletin 01/3-20. I have seen no follow-up since. Have you?
Klaus Götting
Sjef Hoefsmit: No I haven't. Willie Timner has disposed of his collection and is therefore not able to
present his tape.
The Cotton Club broadcasts of 1938
DEMS 10/2-16
See DEMS 04/3-42
Dear Mona Granager,
Do you have any idea if Storyville is going to release the Cotton Club set this year [2010]?
DEMS
Yes it will definitely be out this year - the delay is because we wanted to add a little bonus DVD!
We plan to add the newsreel from the Cotton Club as described in Stratemann’s book on page 57.
Mona Granager
We expect this bonus to be taken from the Pathé Newsreel from 1930, see DEMS 10/1-6. It will be
nice to have it in our collections as a DVD.
DEMS
ELLINGTONIA
More Johnny Hodges on CD.
DEMS 10/2-17
See DEMS 10/1-24
Since the last Bulletin more Johnny Hodges CD’s have been released.
The 50 year copyright rule in Europe makes it possible to reissue records the original company has
forgotten or lost interest in. Recently a couple of CD’s have been issued that are readily available.
Even Miles Davis' ‘Kind Of Blue’ has been issued this way.
There are now three different issues of ‘Back To Back’ and two of ‘Side By Side’. Here is an
overview of those issues.
'Back To Back' on Verve contains the following tracks DE5909c, Wabash Blues; DE5907e, Basin
Street Blues; DE5907c, Beale Street Blues; DE5909a, Weary Blues; DE5907a, St. Louis Blues;
DE5907d, Loveless Love and DE5907b, Royal Garden Blues.
Essential Jazz Classics contains the seven tracks above plus DE5908f, Villes Ville Is the Place, Man;
DE5937b, Brown Penny; DE5937f, I Didn't Know about You; DE5938a, Smada; DE5938e or f, The
Swinger's Jump; DE5938d, The Swingers Get the Blues Too; DE5938b, Blues in Blueprint; De5937a,
Three J's Blues and DE5937e. C-Jam Blues.
The contents of the Fresh Sound issue can be found in DEMS 10/1-24. Their claim to have two LP’s on one CD is false. The 14Aug58 session is not included. It can be found on the Fresh Sound CD ‘Not So Dukish’.
'Side By Side' on Verve contains DE5909d, Stompy Jones; DE5909b, Squeeze Me; DE5909e, Goin'
Up plus the Johnny Hodges session of 14Aug58: Just a Memory; Let's Fall in Love; Big Shoe; Ruint;
Bend One and You Need To Rock.
Essential Jazz Classics adds 6 of the 8 tunes from the LP ‘Not So Dukish’: Broadway Babe and Jeep
Bounced Back are missing from the 10Sep58 session.
There is no confusion with the American Jazz Classics reissue of ‘Gerry Mulligan Meets Johnny
Hodges’. All six tracks are there. As a bonus Mulligan’s LP ‘What Is There To Say?’ is added.
A few additional notes to my piece in DEMS 10-1/24:
On the Avid set the LP 'Perdido' starts with Perdido as last track on CD 1 and continues on CD 2.
For continuous listening you need the Fresh Sound CD 'Perdido'.
Fresh Sound's claim of two LP’s on one CD is again false. The Al Hibbler vocal tracks: ‘For This Is
My Night To Love’ of 17jul52 and ‘This Love Of Mine’ of 22jul52 are missing.
The Avid booklet has reproductions of the original liner notes. The Fresh Sound has larger
reproductions of the original LP-covers (minus the Verve logo).
Remco Plas
The New DESOR corrections
DEMS 10/2-18
We remind you that these corrections are merely suggestions. They are not (yet) accepted by the
authors of the New DESOR. Unsigned suggestions were brought in by Hoefsmit.
Pages XXXVIII, 271 and 1009. See DEMS Bulletin 82/1-6. It would reduce confusion if the
Columbia 45rpm single Co 4-41362 was added as a release to The New Desor entry for DE5908b
Malletoba Spank. Also, Spank #1 and Spank #2 should be added as Other titles in the Section two -
Titles chapter, and to the List of Alternative Titles in New DESOR.
Brian Koller**
If you want to make these corrections/additions to your copy of The New DESOR, please do so. It
would however be against the rules, accepted by the authors to keep the content of the two books
manageable as explained on pages XXX and XXXI: "we have comprised all the records that include
at least one unreleased title and some records we consider particularly important." Since this is a
promotion record, not for sale, it is not eligible to be included.
DEMS**
Page 1. Session 2501. Prince Robinson doesn't play clarinet on this date, only tenor sax. Hardwick
doubles clarinet and also sax.
Steven Lasker in VJM's Jazz and Blues Mart, No 157 page 10.
Pages 14, 25, 32 and 1360.
Sweet Mama, track B01 of the Franklin Mint double LP (0395) , is DE3009b not DE3009a.
Moonlight Fiesta, track B05 is DE3502c and not DE3713c (see also DEMS 88/5-1).
Tulip or Turnip, track D05 and Just A-Sittin' and A-Rockin', track D06 have been switched, that is:
D05 is 6102e and D06 is 6103b.
Brian Koller**
Page 58 and Correction-sheets 1004 and 3003.
I have compared DE4117xa and DE4117c, the two 3Jul41 takes of Menelik the Lion of Judah from
the 24CD RCA Box, and they are identical, down to the cough heard in the background at 1:17. So, it
appears that all references to DE4117xa should be scrubbed from The New DESOR.
Brian Koller**
You are right. See DEMS 03/2-20/5.
Page 65. Session Oct42: DE4229a, Jubilee Theme, may not be an Ellington recording.
http://home.swipnet.se/dooji/jubilee0-100.pdf, page 12, states it was recorded by a studio orchestra,
presumably the same studio orchestra that performs the closing theme, which also sounds like Jubilee
Theme. The same studio orchestra appears to end Ethel Waters' three numbers from the same
Jubilee #1 program.
Brian Koller
DE4229a may be an Ellington recording or it may not. I have listened to it several times and I am not
confident I can be sure either way. I do believe however that the closing Jubilee Theme is not
Ellington. Not because it is much longer (32 bars instead of 8), but because it sounds different. Those
of you who have this recording, please listen to it and give us your opinion. The whole program was
"released" on the Crabapple CD RMU-3228, see DEMS 00/1-13/1.
Page 1406. EP 0644, RCA EPAT-435: Track B02 is listed as 4435e but is actually the "alternate"
take 4435d. Thus, Disc 0644 is the first release of 4435d. See correction made in 02/1-25, DESOR
small corrections page 87.
Brian Koller**
Page 1412. Disk 0679, the 1961 Roulette LP of Ellington-Armstrong, switches sides A and B of the
LP. That is, C-Jam Blues is A01 not B01, etc.
Brian Koller**
Page 1458. Marie Ellington was born as Maria Hawkins on 1Aug22.
Correction-sheet 3013. CD 0855, DETS 9039005, Treasury Shows Volume 5. Track B04 is from the session of 24oct45, DE4583. The last selection [4583k], Let the Zoomers Drool is incomplete. It
is faded out at 2:35, but the version on LP 0124 (on page 1307 of volume 2 of The New DESOR)
AFRS One Night Stand 764, continues for another 1:12 (total 3:37).
Brian Koller
I do not have disk 124, but I have the broadcast on tape. At the end of this selection (which follows
exactly the description on page 994) you hear: "up for another One Night Stand and we wind up
another session with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra playing from club Zanzibar in N.Y.C.
Featured vocalists were Joya Sherrill and Albert Hibbler. This is the Armed Forces Radio Service."
During the end of this comment starts a repeat of 2°(nc)12AS,4BAND,12CA;3°(nc)8BAND. These
36 bars are taken from the end of the last selection, just played.
This is indicated in The New DESOR on page 1307, by the mention of the same title twice: first
underlined, because it was "fresh", after that not underlined because it was not "fresh" anymore, but a
repeat of the same selection. That the repeat is not complete is not relevant. The New DESOR only
gives descriptions of the most complete versions, but does not go into detail about incomplete repeats.
The same selection was released on the LP Joyce 1071. Here too it was not complete, but this time in
a different way. First of all the first appearance of this selection does not follow the description of
4583k on page 994 until the end. It ends with 3°(nc)11BAND. This is followed by another voice,
different from the one on the original ONS 764, and simply saying: "This is the American Forces
Radio Service". This is followed by another version of the same recording of Let the Zoomers Drool: 2°(nc)9AS,4BAND,12CA;3°(nc)6BAND.
By the way, the version on Volume 5 of the Treasury Shows is also not complete. It ends with 3°(nc)10BAND.
There is something else fishy about this session. The description of the opening Take the "A" Train
(4583a), mentioned on page 1185 as 1°(nc)8DE;cod4DE does not fit with the opening selection on
my tape. I have 2DE;1°16BAND,8BAND&TJ,8BAND;2°(nc)11DE. This is edited out of the
complete recording in the middle of the program (4583g).
The New DESOR correction-sheets
Here are the latest additions to the Correction-sheets:
DEMS 10/2-19
Sessions
1098 9083 Hurricane early Sep43 09/3-2/2-3-B
9084 Hurricane early Sep43 09/3-2/2-2-A
9085 Hurricane early Sep43 09/3-2/2-2-B
9086 Hurricane early Sep43 09/3-2/2-1-A
9087 Hurricane early Sep43 09/3-2/2-1-B
1099 9088 Hurricane Apr44 09/3-2/35-2-B
9089 Hurricane Apr44 09/3-2/35-2-A
9090 Hurricane Apr44 09/3-2/35-8-A
9091 Hurricane Apr44 09/3-2/35-8-B
1100 9092 Hurricane Apr44 09/3-2/35-10-B
9093 Hurricane Apr44 09/3-2/35-10-A
9094 Hurricane May44 09/3-2/33-5-A
9095 Hurricane May44 09/3-2/33-5-B
1101/1 6645 Los Angeles 11May66 10/2-8
Discs
3031/1 "On the Road" Docurama DVD 0922 02/2-22/7
as soon as there are more sessions for 1101/1 or discs for 3031/1, they will be
updated (1101/2 etc.) until the numbers will change into 1101 or 3031
DESOR small corrections
DEMS 10/2-20
These corrections are authorised by Luciano Massagli and Giovanni Volonté.
DEMS
DESOR small corrections 5014
Volume 1 (Corrections August 2010)
XXIII - Add: Do … Docurama (02/-22/7)
65 - The session 4230 has been released on Docurama DVD NVG 9502.
Correction-sheet 3031 (02/2-22/7)
75 - Make a note for the “fresh” sessions 9083; 9084; 9085; 9086 and 9087, all early Sep43 on Correction-sheet 1098 (09/3-2/2)
83 - Make a note for the "fresh" sessions 9088; 9089; 9090 and 9091, all Apr44 on Correction-sheet 1099 and for the "fresh" sessions 9092 and 9093, both Apr44 plus the "fresh" sessions 9094 and 9095, both May44, all on Correction-sheet 1100 (09/3-2/2)
430 - Session 6643, 9May66.
6643d, delete RCA 09026-663386-2;
add RCA 09026-68705-2 (10/2-8)
Make a note for the corrected session 6645 on Correction-sheet 1101 (10/2-8)
475 - The session 6750has been released on Docurama DVD NVG 9502.
Correction-sheet 3031 (02/2-22/7)
476 - The sessions 6751; 6752; 6753; 6754; 6755 and 6756 have been released in segments on
Docurama DVD NVG 9502. Correction-sheet 3031 (02/2-22/7)
479 - The Medley 6763a has been released in segments on Docurama DVD NVG 9502.
Correction-sheet 3031 (02/2-22/7)
Rondelet, 6764a has been released on Docurama DVD NVG 9502.
Correction-sheet 3031 (02/2-22/7)
480 - The session 6769 has been released in segments on Docurama DVD NVG 9502.
Correction-sheet 3031 (02/2-22/7)
Volume 2 (Corrections August 2010)
817 - Creole Love Call, 6644d. Add: int4DE
836 - Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me, 6643d.
Delete: but int 8DE. (10/2-8)
1404 - RCA 0926-68705-2
Track 008: 6643d instead of 6645b; underline the title.
Correction-sheet 1101 (10/2-8)
1407 - RCA LPM-3576.
Add: NOTE - Track B06: intro omitted
1423 - Toshiba TOLW-3162.
Add in the NOTE: Track 006, Rockin' in Rhythm begins from 4° chorus; Passion Flower: intro and
30 bars of first chorus omitted.
1466 - Hall, Barrie Lee Jun 30, 1949 -
Hanna, John "Jake" Apr 4, 1931 - Feb 12, 2010.
1470 - Horne, Lena Mary Calhoun
Jun 30, 1917 - May 9, 2010 (10/2-1)
1498 - Thigpen, "Ed" Edmund Leonard
Dec 28, 1930 - Jan 13, 2010 (10/1-1)
Correction-sheet 3004. RCA 0926-63386-2.
Track V14: 6645xa instead of 6643d
Correction-sheet 1101 (10/2-8)
Correction-sheet 3030. Quantum Leap QLDVD-0373.
Add in the NOTE: Track 006, Rockin' in Rhythm begins from 4° chorus; Passion Flower: intro and
30 bars of first chorus omitted.
Correction-sheet 3030. Sony & BMG 88697302362.
Track A 10: 3208b instead of 3208c.
