To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Duke Ellington’s death – on May 24, 1974 – I’ve asked a number of jazz musicians and aficionados to share their thoughts and feelings about this titan of the music. Today: the broadcaster, writer and jazz documentary filmmaker Russell Davies. Next time: Enrico Tomasso
How did you first hear or become aware of Duke Ellington and his music?
I was first introduced to Ellington as an enthusiasm-in-itself by my school classmate David Marks (later a KC) who caught on to him while I was still working through King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. We first bonded in a jazz sense over an LP called Great Jazz Pianists, issued in 1959 on RCA Camden. It had everything from Peterson and Garner to Morton on it, and the Duke was represented by Rockin’ In Rhythm, the 1931 version, which we loved.
David was half French and had picked up more Ellington in France, unavailable here at the time. Later in life, he practised in Chicago as a lawyer for a while, and met Ellington – actually what happened was that Paul Gonsalves got completely wasted and Dave was one of two volunteers who carried him out. Ellington noticed this, and gave Dave his calling card, which remained one of his most reassured possessions until his death.
Which period or periods of Ellington’s career are you fondest of?
I remained fond of early Ellington, collecting for example all the many versions I could find of East St Louis Toodle-Oo (which the Duke called “todle-o”), including a fascinating one with Jabbo Smith, whom I later interviewed in NYC. Even my father liked that number, because he said the opening dirge-like theme resembled some Welsh hymn-tune he knew. But as the reissue programmes of the record companies got going here, I moved quickly on to the Blanton-Webster era. By then I was a trombone-player, so I was very fond of Lawrence Brown and Tricky Sam – and Juan Tizol actually, because I had a valve-trombone.
An early Duke/Brown feature I got to love was Adelaide Hall’s version of Baby, with its marvellous unhurried tempo. I interviewed her too, twice – once in company with Cab Calloway. I’d asked Calloway on an earlier occasion which of Duke’s musicians he’d have poached, given the chance. He had to think about it, but he said: “Lawrence Brown. Trombone. Beautiful.” He was grinning as he answered.
When you hear his name being mentioned, what springs to mind?
I saw Duke play several times, so I have lots of mental pictures of him. His shiny suits were always memorable, bulky in the jacket region, stovepipe-thin in the trousers, which were always that little bit short (Sunak-like!) to expose his silk socks and extremely shiny pump-like patent-leather shoes. The arm-waving manner of conducting wasn’t wasn’t quite like anybody else’s – often it was like hailing a very distant taxi.. And there was the perennial joke of his holding a sheet of music up for Johnny Hodges to “read”, and Hodges disdainfully ignoring it. The way the band came to the stand was notorious – never as one body, but in ones and twos, gradually filling the chairs, possibly hoping for their own round of applause which they often got. Cootie Williams came last, and of course played behind the beat in his rhetorical style most of the evening. I wrote in The Listener once (review-depping for Sandy Brown) that Cootie sometimes sounded as if he were keeping time with another band, across the street.
Did you ever see the Ellington band in action?
The closest any of us came to the band physically was in Great St May’s Church, 1967, when Duke played his first-version Sacred Concert. Our university group, the Idle Hour Jazz Band, were among the first to buy tickets. I’m going to be talking about this occasion in July in King’s College Chapel, because the Crouch End Festival Chorus is singing its own version of the piece, and I’m there as a witness to the original.
We were quite close to the stage (the holy end), and I was on the end of a row, with my foot sticking out a bit – I remember that because Johnny Hodges, on his way to the stage, tripped over it. I could have ended a great career there. I sat next to our clarinet player, Trevor Stent, and I remember his sobs of panic (“Oh NO! you CAN’T do that!”) when Russell Procope, an early arrival, starting carving visible strips off his reed. But of course he’d been doing it since the 1920s. The only person we were envious of at the Cambridge event was a drummer we knew under the name of Freddie Foskett, who wangled sole permission to be present at Duke’s rehearsal, where he took many fine photographs – we’d no idea he was a serious photographer at all (he wasn’t a great drummer). He’s gone now, but his work is quite revered – under his proper name of Brian Foskett.
Twenty years later, I made a BBC2 documentary – a long one – called Duke Ellington – And His Famous Orchestra, filmed mostly in America, and got to know the Ellington world much better. Duke was dead by then, much lamented by all – especially his personal physician, Dr Luther Cloud (Lester Young’s doctor too), who saw him in his last days. “And he was such a nice-looking man,” he said, almost tearfully, meaning that by that time he no longer was. Anyway that film was crammed with interviews – with Duke’s sister Ruth, with Mercer his son, Cootie, Clark Terry, Al Hibbler, Louis Bellson, Jimmy Hamilton (very useful), Dizzy Gillespie, John Sanders, Dick Hyman (demonstrating the James P. Johnson style), Pastor John Gensel, Cab and so on. It was Jimmy H. who told us that Cootie and Cat Anderson were known as the Bookends, because they got on so badly that they had to be placed at opposite ends of the trumpet section.
Which are your favourite recordings/albums?
Favourite records are too many to list. I like all of 1939-45, and pretty well anything with Ivie Anderson on it, and have an odd fondness for the slightly preposterous Flamingo with Herb Jeffries. (Ed Anderson who wrote the lyric is also in the film.) I like oddments like Tonk, the Ellington/Strayhorn piano duet. By some accident, I happen to be specially fond of all the songs beginning with I: I Ain’t Got Nothin’ but the Blues, I Didn’t Know About You, I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good), I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart, I’m Beginning to See the Light, I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So, In a Mellow Tone and In a Sentimental Mood.
Do you remember when Duke Ellington died – and what the reaction was like?
I don’t remember much about his death, except the same sort numbness that set in when Louis died. The last band of Duke’s I saw was a bit of a mess – full of just-about-heard-of-him players, too many saxophones etc. And the leader obviously not well, though we still loved him madly.
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