Within a month of my sojourn in Southern California, along with other Chicagoans I attended what turned out to be the second annual international Ellington convention in Detroit (the first had been in New York the year prior). The first Ellington experts I met were Brooks Kerr and Jerry Valburn. Jerry was proud to show me the Ellington logo he'd fashioned for one of his several record labels.
Dick Buckley interview of Benny Aasland at the 1981 conversation in NY
described
Aasland's "chiseled features" description
remembers his thick Swedish accent: "Echoes of the "Yoongle"
Benny relates the enthusiasm for jazz all over the world
He said that he enjoyed "the entire spectrum of Ellington," not just the Cotton Club band, the Blanton-Webster band or the Newport band.
I knew next to nothing about Brooks Kerr, save that he was reputed to be a walking encyclopedia of Ellingtonia. He was a few years younger than I, but from the age of 28 was totally blind due to a degenerative retinal disease and glaucoma. He learned to play piano by assigning colors in his mind for each key. He studied formally at nearby Yale University and the Foote School. For a few years in the 1950s, he took private lessons from Jean Brown and a few years later worked with Russell Regain New Haven. Starting in 1964, he studied for eight years with Sanford Gold, at the Dalton School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School in New York. At points along the way, Kerr studied jazz with pianists Lucky Roberts and Willie "The Lion" Smith.
Following Ellington's death in 1974, Brooks recorded an album with Sonny Greer on the Chiaroscuro label, Soda Fountain Rag, and now in 1982 he honored my request for New World A-Comin' at the grand piano in the hotel lobby. For his presentation the following afternoon, however, he used his portable Cassio electronic keyboard. He entertained us with stories and demonstrated a couple of rarely-heard. post-"Soda Fountain Rag" Ellington composition, first one titled "Bitches Ball" (a fragment of which appeared in the final movement of Black, Brown and Beige), and with lyrics the self-explanatory "Whatcha Gonna Do When the Bed Breaks Down." Following these, he proceeded to demonstrate the ribald lyrics of "The Boy in the Boat," whose cleaned-up successor was Fats Waller's famous "Squeeze Me."
I knew next to nothing about Brooks Kerr, save that he was reputed to be a walking encyclopedia of Ellingtonia. He was a few years younger than I, but from the age of 28 was totally blind due to a degenerative retinal disease and glaucoma. He learned to play piano by assigning colors in his mind for each key. He studied formally at nearby Yale University and the Foote School. For a few years in the 1950s, he took private lessons from Jean Brown and a few years later worked with Russell Regain New Haven. Starting in 1964, he studied for eight years with Sanford Gold, at the Dalton School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School in New York. At points along the way, Kerr studied jazz with pianists Lucky Roberts and Willie "The Lion" Smith.
Following Ellington's death in 1974, Brooks recorded an album with Sonny Greer on the Chiaroscuro label, Soda Fountain Rag, and now in 1982 he honored my request for New World A-Comin' at the grand piano in the hotel lobby. For his presentation the following afternoon, however, he used his portable Cassio electronic keyboard. He entertained us with stories and demonstrated a couple of rarely-heard. post-"Soda Fountain Rag" Ellington composition, first one titled "Bitches Ball" (a fragment of which appeared in the final movement of Black, Brown and Beige), and with lyrics the self-explanatory "Whatcha Gonna Do When the Bed Breaks Down." Following these, he proceeded to demonstrate the ribald lyrics of "The Boy in the Boat," whose cleaned-up successor was Fats Waller's famous "Squeeze Me."
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