Ellington at Newport

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Ellington at Newport
Live album by Duke Ellington

Publication
(s)

1956

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

4/14

running time

43:58 / 129: 57

occupation

production

George Avakian

Studio (s)

Live recording from the Newport Jazz Festival

chronology
Historically Speaking: The Duke
1956 		Ellington at Newport Duke Ellington and the Buck Clayton All-Stars at Newport, Vol. 2
1956

Ellington at Newport is a jazz album by Duke Ellington , which was recorded on the night of July 7th to 8th, 1956 at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island and at a subsequent studio session on July 9th and was recorded on Columbia Records has been published. In 1999 an expanded and revised edition of the recording appeared on the basis of rediscovered tapes from the recording by Voice of America .

The concert

Prehistory of the Newport appearance

After the Duke Ellington Orchestra had lost considerable popularity in the early 1950s due to the rise of bebop and cool jazz , it celebrated a triumphant, stormy comeback at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1956; Just a few weeks after his appearance, an issue of Time magazine had his image on the cover. The Time article, a special honor for Ellington, was planned long in advance, but received additional topicality due to Ellington's success in Newport, but it also put Ellington under pressure before the concert. Duke Ellington had been able to keep his orchestra alive while other big big bands had to give up in the 1950s. He was able to do this primarily through the income from the copyrights of his numerous compositions.

The Duke Ellington Orchestra went on several European tours in the early 1950s, but otherwise experienced a phase of artistic stagnation. However, it had some important newcomers to musicians, such as the drummer Sam Woodyard and the saxophonist Paul Gonsalves , who continued to pursue the role and, in part, the style of Ben Webster ; in addition, Johnny Hodges had recently returned to Ellington's orchestra. Ellington biographer James Lincoln Collier sees Gonsalves as the man who finally "tore it all over with one blow."

The Duke Ellington Orchestra performed Newport in 1956

In 1956, George Wein invited him to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival , which had been newly established two years earlier , and at which Ellington had already performed as Master of Ceremonies in 1955 . Duke Ellington played some introductory numbers, Black and Tan Fantasy and the jazz standard Tea for Two with his orchestra in advance . The band lacked the brass players Jimmy Hamilton , Ray Nance , Clark Terry and the bassist Jimmy Woode , for whom Al Lucas took over .

After appearances by some other artists, such as Bud Shank , Jimmy Giuffre and Friedrich Gulda , who had traveled from Vienna, the Chico Hamilton Orchestra played for a long time . The more intellectual playing attitude ( cool jazz ) of these groups did not spark any enthusiasm among the audience. The Ellington Band's second performance was scheduled for 10:30 p.m., and Ellington and Billy Strayhorn had prepared for it with a specially written suite. The previous concerts let it get later and later. The mood of his musicians was irritated by the long wait; Ellington himself reacted angrily: "Who are we actually - the animal number, the acrobats?"

The full line-up of the Ellington Orchestra did not come on stage until 11:45 p.m. Duke Ellington initiated the appearance with Take the "A" Train ; This was followed by a new composition by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn , the three-part Newport Jazz Festival Suite created for the festival , which was heavily influenced by the blues . It was commissioned by Columbia's producer George Avakian. The first part, called “Festival Junction,” began with a slow clarinet solo by Jimmy Hamilton before ensemble play began, followed by solos by Willie Cook , Paul Gonsalves, Britt Woodman , Harry Carney , Quentin Jackson , Russell Procope ; Trumpeter Cat Anderson with his short solo that climbs to the highest register concluded the stage. The second part was called "Blues to Be There" and was introduced by Duke Ellington ( trio ); this was followed by slow ensemble playing with solos by Procope and Ray Nance. With the final third part "Newport Up" the pace picked up; Hamilton, Gonsalves (who played warmly) and Clark Terry played as soloists . It was the only place where the Ellington Orchestra deviated from the blues scheme . The bop dyed ending was from Clark Terry. Ellington's suite was intended as a prelude, but the audience's enthusiasm was limited; there was “solid, if not overwhelming, applause”.

Ellington during a concert break in 1965

After the Newport Suite , Ellington gave Harry Carney opportunities for a baritone saxophone solo via Sophisticated Lady ; then the orchestra played Day In, Day Out . Now Duke Ellington announced that they would play an old piece from the 1930s, "some of our 1938 vintage", the blues tracks Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue , and announced Paul Gonsalves as soloist.

Ellington had already worked on a union of the pieces ( Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue ) a few years earlier , for example at his Carnegie Hall concerts ("Transbluecency") in the mid-1940s. For the Newport appearance he had chosen Paul Gonsalves as protagonist; however, he didn't know what to do. Collier quotes Ellington's ironic instruction to his saxophonist: “'It's just a blues in B' (In fact, in Db), Ellington said, 'I'll take you in and get you out. That's all you have to do. Just go out and blow your soul out of your body. You've done it before '". Ellington was addressing previous interpretations of the piece during a guest performance at Birdland in New York in 1951, and even then Gonsalves tore the audience away.

It was planned that Gonsalves would play his solo between the two arranged parts of the piece, accompanied only by the rhythm section composed of Jimmy Woode , Sam Woodyard and Ellington. JL Collier mentions that out of the audience's field of vision, but near the stage where the band could see him, Basie drummer Jo Jones was sitting, beating the beat with a rolled newspaper. Ellington played a piano solo towards the end of the first part so that Gonsalves had a chance to move forward. Paul Gonsalves started blowing and there was movement in the audience's reaction. The band members cheered him on with shouts like “Come on, Paul… get in, get started!” “During the sixth chorus there were shouts and clapping of hands, after a few more the noise of the crowd had grown to an uninterrupted roar, and large parts of the audience got up ”.

“Around the seventh chorus, the tension that had built up both on stage and in the audience since Duke started the piece suddenly broke. A platinum-blonde girl in a black dress began to dance in one of the boxes, and a moment later someone in another part of the audience began to dance too. "

- George Avakian

“Here and there in the reduced, but still large crowd, a couple got up and began to dance the Jitterbug . In a matter of minutes, the whole Freebody Park transformed as if it had been hit by a clap of thunder. Photographers sped like crazy on the scene where the crowd gathered while Gonsalves, Ellington and the whole band, inspired by the reaction they had evoked, gave all the work could do. They lasted for twenty-seven choruses. Hundreds of spectators climbed into their chairs to see the action . The band built the great arrangement to an everlasting climax, and the crowd sat limp afterwards, exhausted, wondering what could happen next. "

- Leonard Feather

At a certain point in the concert, organizer George Wein feared that the wild crowd might riot and tried to get Ellington to end the event, but "once on board the triumphal procession, with the crowd behind him, Ellington didn't want to stop" , wrote Down Beat in his concert report afterwards . His answer to Wein was only "Don't be rude to the artists"

Johnny Hodges 1965

Subjectively, Gonsalvez didn't feel that his solo was as long: “The length is really determined by the rhythm section and how everything is built up. The climax may come after five or ten choruses, but if you go beyond it you destroy everything. ”Later he was annoyed at being constantly measured against this solo - the audience asked for a repetition of a similar length as on the Newport record, which was getting harder and harder for him. In an interview he even claimed that he had never heard the recording himself and never even owned it.

When the solo ended and Gonsalves was completely exhausted by it, Ellington took on two choruses himself with a piano solo before the whole orchestra returned for part of Crescendo in Blue ; it ended with a high-note play by trumpeter Cat Anderson .

To bring the crowd down again, Duke Ellington announced two quieter pieces, combined with the sentence: "If you've heard of the saxophone, then you've heard of Johnny Hodges." Ellington's famous alto saxophonist then played two of his most famous numbers , I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good) , followed by Jeep's Blues . But the audience asked for more; so Ray Nance did his special dance and singing number Tulip or Turnip after Wein asked Ellington to stop again.

He didn't, however, and started with the fast-paced number Skin Deep , which was a composition by drummer Louie Bellson ; Duke Ellington said goodbye to his audience with Mood Indigo and thanked the crowd with “… wonderful way in which you've inspired us this evening” and “You are very beautiful, very lovely and we do love you madly.” That was over ninety minutes the concert is over.

The album

Edition history of the album

Performing in Newport earned Duke Ellington a tremendous reputation and financial success for the rest of his life. Ellington at Newport became the leader's best-selling record. The Duke Ellington Orchestra returned to Newport in 1958 and 1959; Columbia Records soon released the concert recording as a single album.

It was only in 1996, after a tape recording of the Voice of America radio program had previously appeared in the Library of Congress , that Columbia had released the 1956 album with both live recordings and studio material (supplemented with artificially generated applause) from this period had mixed. The reason given was that Ellington was not satisfied with the mixing with the live recorded version of the Newport Festival Suite because it had not been rehearsed enough and the recording did not meet his quality standards; so he wanted a better version of the suite (which was recorded right after the festival) to be released on the Columbia album, which producer George Avakian did.

Duke Ellington Bigband in Munich 1963

Avakian then mixed parts of the live version into the studio version. The applause was taken from the original to cover up the fact that Gonsalves was  often barely audible due to the use of a wrong microphone - he mistakenly blew into the microphone of the Voice of America radio station was. In the new edition of 1999, the two mono recordings of the Voice of America and Columbia were reassembled with the help of digital technology in order to obtain a realistic stereophonic recording of what is probably the most famous Ellington performance. Now Gonsalves' solo can be heard more clearly, and this also with the onset of noise by the audience around the seventh or eighth chorus of the solo.

While the original LP only contained three tracks, the Newport Jazz Festival Suite , Jeep's Blues and Gonsalves' 14-minute Diminuendo And Crescendo in Blue , the new edition offers ten additional tracks such as Sophisticated Lady , Black And Tan Fantasy , Skin Deep and Mood Indigo ; After the concert recording, the full studio takes that were made the next day follow - a total of over an hour of previously unreleased material.

History of impact and reception of the recordings

Given that his career had changed so suddenly, Ellington later said, "I was born at the Newport Jazz Festival." Columbia's release of the concert, Ellington At Newport , was critically acclaimed as one of the greatest live recordings in jazz considered; however, this always took place in the belief that the titles at hand were actual recordings of the Newport concert, wrote critic Gene Hyde in Weekly Wire in 1999 .

The album sold in the hundreds of thousands after Ellington's biographer John Edward Hasse , unprecedented on a jazz album, and remained Ellington's best-selling album. Columbia, whose producer Irving Townsend made his first contacts with Ellington before the performance at the Newport Festival (he later worked closely with Ellington), offered Ellington, who had left his Capitol record company in 1955, a very advantageous recording contract at the festival. He also received great artistic freedom from Columbia, which from then on produced his records using the then new stereo technology, starting with the Newport album, which was reissued in "simulated stereo".

Richard Cook and Brian Morton award the Newport recording in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD with the highest grade of four stars (“absolute essential Ellington”). They particularly highlighted the pioneering work of Paul Gonsalves, who with his solo exerted a strong influence on later saxophonists from John Coltrane to David Murray . The authors also gave Gonsalves' own interpretation of the concert event: contrary to the existing theories of the influence of Jo Jones (the rolled newspaper) or the beautiful, dancing blondes in the audience who are said to have driven the saxophonist to ecstasy, Paul Gonsalves finds his contribution overrated and gives the reason for his playful motivation the strong cohesion of the band as well as the extraordinary achievements of Johnny Hodges in the previous Jeep's Blues .

Ellington on the Washington, DC Quarter coin, issued in 2009.

Hasse also considers Hodges in Jeeps Blues to be the real highlight, the "musical zenith of the festival."

James Lincoln Collier pays particular tribute to the performance of Paul Gonsalves, whose solo was certainly not a masterpiece of improvisation , “It was solid jazz, piping hot, and it said something important about music that - after a long evening full of reflections by the modernists , after the elaborate design of Ellington's suite - opened with four men and played the blues for six minutes, (and) simply swept the place away ”. Ellington biographer Hans Ruland also praises the legendary concert recording, “which - even if today's listeners are perhaps a little disappointed for purely musical reasons - (not only) records a turning point in Ellington's history, but also one of the most gripping live recordings of the Jazz history (is) comparable only to Benny Goodman's also legendary Carnegie Hall concert in 1938 , when Jess Stacy, in Sing, Sing, Sing , also completely unexpectedly, took off for a longer solo. Gonsalves like Stacy, who one would rather count to the second link despite all the esteem, had their great moment ”.

“This is one of the most exclusive recordings,” wrote the critic Gene Hyde about the complete new edition of the concert, “an overwhelming, exuberant piece of history that reveals all its splendor.” Only now are we able to “do the whole original concert like this to hear how it happened, filled with all the fun, energy, and brilliance of Ellington's band on that memorable evening ”. The significance of this album rises “far above the wildest hopes of the devoted Ellington fans. If the inevitable canonization of Ellington comes at some point, this concert will surely count as one of his miracles. ”The author concludes that Ellington At Newport 1956 (Complete) is“ essential in any reasonable jazz collection ”.

The music magazine Jazzwise added the album to The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook the World list ; Keith Shadwick wrote:

“Ellington often admitted that the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival would have given him a kind of rebirth in terms of himself and his recordings, but there are doubts. Aside from the tumultuous end of Diminuendo And Crescendo in Blue , it is a quiet record that you can listen to in the lounge chair to marvel at all the excitement about it. "

Rolling Stone magazine selected the album in 2013 in its list of The 100 best jazz albums at number 31. In 1999, the complete edition of the live recording received the Prix ​​de la Meilleure Réédition ou du Meilleur Inédit of the Académie du Jazz .

The titles

Sam Woodyard

Title of the original album

  • Duke Ellington: Ellington at Newport (Columbia CS 8648 (LP), CK 40597 (CD))

A side

Newport Jazz Festival Suite (Ellington / Strayhorn) [Studio]
  1. Festival Junction , 10:08 am
  2. Blues to Be There , 8:05
  3. Newport Up , 5:33

B side

  1. Jeep's Blues , 5:12 (Ellington / Hodges) [Studio]
  2. Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue , 14:37 (Ellington) [live]

Title of the full CD edition from 1999

  • Ellington at Newport (Complete) (Columbia Records / Legacy C2K 64932, double CD)
    • Live recordings (July 7/8, 1956)
      1. Star Spangled Banner (Key / Smith)
      2. Black and Tan Fantasy (Ellington / Mills)
      3. Tea for Two (Caesar / Youmans)
      4. Take the 'A' Train (Strayhorn)
      5. Newport Festival Suite (Ellington / Strayhorn)
      6. Sophisticated Lady (Ellington / Mills / Parish)
      7. Day In Day Out (Bloom / Mercer )
      8. Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue (Ellington)
      9. I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good (Ellington / Webster)
      10. Jeep's Blues (Ellington / Hodges)
      11. Tulip or Turnip (Ellington / George)
      12. Skin Deep (Bellson)
      13. Mood Indigo (Ellington)
    • Studio recordings (July 9, 1956):
      1. I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good (Ellington / Webster)
      2. Newport Festival Suite (Ellington / Strayhorn)
      3. Jeep's Blues (Ellington / Hodges)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Edition of August 20, 1956.
  2. ↑ Ellington was interviewed in April in Las Vegas.
  3. ↑ Hasse Beyond Category , p. 328. According to Avakian, who is quoted there, this was the only time he suggested something like this to Ellington, because otherwise the band was too busy for rehearsals due to the many appearances and therefore mostly out of the current one Recorded repertoire.
  4. ↑ Hasse: Beyond Category , p. 320. Based on Clark Terry's interview in the Duke Ellington Oral History Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
  5. ↑ The first recording of the two pieces took place in 1937; it appeared on a '78 10-inch record, but was rarely played live by the orchestra. See Ruland, p. 77 and Stanley Dance, liner notes.
  6. ↑ Based on the memoirs of Gonsalvez in Stanley Dance: The World of Duke Ellington . da Capo 2000, p. 173, Ellington simply said, “Paul. Do you remember that number we played at Birdland, No. 107, 108? ”, And to Gonsalvez's affirmation:“ That's what I want you to play tonight. When we get through the first part you go out there and play as long as you like ”.
  7. ^ Interview by Gonsalvez in Stanley Dance The World of Duke Ellington , p. 173. Some of the audience stood on the tables.
  8. ↑ Gonsalvez denies any influence from Jo Jones in the interview in Stanley Dance The World of Duke Ellington , p. 173. Instead, there would have been a very competitive atmosphere in the band at that time, which drove everyone to top performance.
  9. ↑ In the original: “Come on, Paul - dig in! Dig in! " Quoted in Collier, p. 380.
  10. ↑ The reaction of the audience was later described by Clark Terry as follows: “that really… fired Duke up and he fired us up… the people were screamin and hollerin at her.” (Clark Terry: Duke Ellington Oral History Project, Smithsonian, cit. according to Hasse, Beyond Category ). The Time article read: “One young woman broke loose from her escort and rioted solo around the field, while a young man encouraged her by shouting 'Go Go Go'”, followed by couples who danced jitterbug ( Time article on the concert, August 20, 1956, quoted from Hasse: Mood Indigo and Beyond ).
  11. ↑ Hasse, loc.cit., P. 320, quoted from the Time article on the concert Mood Indigo and beyond , August 20, 1956
  12. ↑ "The length is really determined by the way the rhythm section is working and how everything is building up. The climax may come after ten or after five chorusses, but if you go beyond it you may destroy everything." Stanley Dance: The World of Duke Ellington , Da Capo 2000, p. 173
  13. ^ Stanley Dance, The World of Duke Ellington , p. 173
  14. ^ After Allmusic , the first two LPs that Columbia released after the concert under the name Duke Ellington and Buck Clayton All-Stars at Newport, Vol. 1 & 2 in 1956, were merely a coupling of Ellington titles and material created the next day the Buck Clayton All-Stars . The Buck Clayton All-Stars tracks were later released on CD on the Mosaic box set The Complete CBS Buck Clayton Jam Sessions. Contributing musicians were Coleman Hawkins , JJ Johnson , Dick Katz , Benny Moten and Gus Johnson .
  15. ^ Derek Jewell Duke: A Portrait of Ellington , Norton 1977, p. 110.
  16. ^ Hasse: Beyond Category , p. 325.
  17. ↑ A three-year lecture, which in 1959 was extended for another three years. According to Hasse, in addition to the normal conditions, they offered $ 1,000 in advance for each recorded piece and allegedly paid the band musicians' basic wages (according to union standards). A typical recording session alone secured the band musicians' wages for about a week. More important for Ellington, however, was that he could also publish new pieces for which he received the full license income through his production company. Hasse: Beyond Category , p. 326 ff.
  18. ^ Hasse: Beyond Category , p. 325.
  19. ^ Hasse Beyond Category , Da Capo, 1993, p. 324.
  20. ↑ In the original: “magnificent, ebullient slice of history revealed in its unmitigated glory”.
  21. ↑ In the original: “Ellington often acknowledged that the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival offered him a virtual rebirth in terms of his in-person and recording career but there is little doubt as to why. Apart from the on-site near-riot after the conclusion of 'Diminuendo And Crescendo in Blue', this is a well-paced record for a lounge-chair audience wanting to know what the excitement was all about. "
  22. ^ The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook The World
  23. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.

Individual evidence

  • James L. Collier: Duke Ellington. Genius of jazz . Ullstein, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-548-35839-X
  1. ↑ See Collier. P. 378.
  2. ↑ See Collier, p. 378.
  3. ↑ See JL Collier, p. 379.
  4. ^ What are we - the animal act, the acrobats? Ellington said this about George Wein. Quoted from Collier, s. 379. Originally in Nat Hentoff: The Duke . In: Down Beat , January 9, 1957, p. 20. Collier sees this statement in relation to the earlier vaudeville practice of letting lower numbers finish the program when the audience was already walking.
  5. ↑ See Collier, p. 380.
  6. ↑ Quoted from JL Collier, p. 380 f.
  7. ↑ Quoted from JL Collier, p. 380. He quotes from the Down Beat of May 6, 1957.
  8. ↑ Quoted from JL Collier, p. 380 f.
  9. ↑ Avakian, cit. after JL Collier, p. 381 based on the liner notes of the original edition of the 1956 album.
  10. ↑ Feather, cit. after JL Collier, p. 381.
  11. ↑ Down Beat, August 8, 1956; Quoted from JL Collier, p. 381.
  12. ↑ See JL Collier, p. 382.
  13. ↑ Quoted from JL Collier, p. 380 f.
  14. ↑ Phil Schaap. Liner notes
  15. ↑ Quoted from JL Collier, p. 382 (linguistically slightly modified)
  1. ↑ a b c Cook / Morton, 6th edition, p. 458.
  • Stanley Dance: Liner Notes for "Ellington at Newport"
  1. ↑ a b See Stanley Dance: liner notes .
  2. ↑ See Stanley Dance: liner notes . Instrumentation based on Stanley Dance.
  1. ^ A b c Gene Hyde: Turn Up That Noise . Review of Ellington At Newport 1956 (Complete) , 1999 (English)
  • Arrigo Polillo: Jazz. History and personalities of Afro-American music . Beltz, Weinheim 2005, ISBN 3-407-77756-6
  1. ↑ See Polillo, p. 373.
  2. ↑ Quoted from A. Polillo, p. 373.
  • Hans Ruland Duke Ellington . Oreos Verlag 1983
  1. ↑ Quoted from Ruland, p. 120 f. (linguistically a bit fitted)
  • Phil Schaap. Liner Notes to Ellington at Newport (Complete) , Columbia Records / Legacy C2K 64932, 1999 February.
  1. ↑ Phil Schaap. Liner notes
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on March 5, 2010 in this version .