The Duke Ellington Orchestra was virtually the sole survivor of the trend in jazz that decimated that decimated the big bands in favor of small combos—even Count Basie was forced, for economic reasons, to reduce his orchestra to an octet in the summer of 1950. Forced to accept the sort of engagements he could hardly have imagined in his glory days, by the middle of the decade, that he was on his last legs. For the entire summer of 1955, the Ellington band played backing to the “Aquacades” show at Flushing Meadows, Long Island, formerly the site of the 1939 World’s Fair: The orchestra was in a sorry condition:
Five men in the band, including Paul Gonsalves and Willie Cook, were temporarily dropped from the lineup because they didn’t hold cards with the right branch of the union. A string section, an extra pianist, and two girl harpists (doing water effects which went with the swimming angle of the show) augmented the thinned-out Ellingtonians. It really did seem that the end might be in sight.
In later years Duke always evaded too many questions about the year of 1955. The reason why he went to be a backing band to a summer show must have been primarily economic. He hadn’t been drawing large audiences for some time. Around the college circuit, which was now an important factor in jazzmen’s finances, the kids wanted small groups like those of Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck. Norman Granz was concentrating increasingly on Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. Count Basie, too, was making a comeback and getting the dates which Duke was missing. Duke was even left out in the cold by the aqua-show format. They allowed a piano solo by him, and then his musicians took over with a house conductor in charge.[61]
The long-awaited new lease on life for the orchestra came unexpectedly in the summer of 1956 at the Newport Jazz Festival, then in its third year and still located on the Rhode Island playground for the American aristocracy, which hitherto had been entertained by symphony orchestras. The band played its opening set lacking four of its musicians, and it met with little enthusiasm from the crowd. It was nearly midnight when Ellington, now with all his musicians present, returned to close the show, and some of the huge crowd was already beginning to leave.
In an uncanny moment of inspiration, Ellington called the old numbers “Diminuendo in Blue” and “Crescendo in Blue,” an up-tempo showpiece he had devised in 1937. When Paul Gonsalves stepped forward to improvise some transitional choruses between the two main sections of the score, people began to pay attention, stopping at the exits, popping their fingers and clapping on the offbeats. Chorus after chorus of earthy blues came from Gonsalves’s tenor saxophone, and the response of the audience built rapidly to a frenzy, almost drowning the sound of the band. Gonsalves finally quit after twenty-seven choruses before the Ellington ensemble returned for its “Crescendo,” a moment that made show-business history.
To this day, many jazz writers find little value in the performance of either the exuberant Gonsalves or the band, but to the crowd at Newport it was sheer magic, and through the cascade of publicity he received, the name of Duke Ellington again became golden. His portrait on the cover of Time Magazine the following month seemed to certify his “rediscovery” by middle America. The Ellington band was signed to a new contract with Columbia Records, where producer Irving Townshend apparently gave him free reign to record whatever project he chose, be they pop songs, extended suites from Shakespeare, or flights of fancy like A Drum Is a Woman, which was televised with a full cast in 1957. Within a few years he was recording with symphony orchestras, gaining recognition from universities, attracting the interest of white clergymen with his series of Sacred Concerts in the mid-to-late 1960s. Above all, beginning in 1963, he was representing the United States in international tours organized by the Department of State.
The Black establishment, too, began to mend its fences with Ellington. He had perhaps always been somewhat an outsider to the Black bourgeoisie, but in this he was no different from any other African-American man choosing to make his living in jazz, this class’s traditional badge of shame. The very presentation to Ellington of the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, the highest honor the organization bestows upon distinguished Blacks, contained evidence of their mutual alienation. John Hammond described the ceremony, in 1959, in which Arthur Spingarn himself, president of the NAACP, awarded the medal to Ellington:
It was presented at a large banquet at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, where Arthur spoke of Ellington’s many achievements and his many famous compositions, including “Mood Indigo,” “Black and Tan Fantasy,” and “Take the Train!” Several of us in the audience shouted “Take the ‘A’ Train,” to no avail. Duke was not only credited with Billy Strayhorn’s famous theme for the Ellington band, but the whole point of the title was lost. No surprise. The NAACP never was known for its knowledge or appreciation of jazz![62]
In the 1960s and ‘70s Ellington began to pursue his new career as an elder statesman and American cultural ambassador. Whatever conflicts remained in his life, Ellington received a new, sanitized image to accompany this cultural preeminence, however short he may have fallen from the goals he had once coveted for himself, his music and his people. However compromised his honors may have been, it can be said without irony that Duke Ellington died an Honored Person.
[1] MIMM, p. 156.
[2] Interview in Stanley Dance, The World of Duke Ellington (Da Capo, 1970), p. 108.
[3] Derek Jewell, Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington, p. 103.
[4] Duke Ellington in Person, p. 104.
[5] In Mark Tucker, ed., The Duke Ellington Reader (Oxford, 1993), pp. 214-252.
[6] MIMM, p. 175.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Interview with Mercer Ellington, Chicago, July 22, 1979.
[9] MIMM, pp. 175-176.
[10] Quoted Ibid.
[12] MIMM, pp. 180-181.
[13] Alfred A; Duckett, “Duke of Windsor May Attend Ellington’s Concert At Carnegie,” New York Age, January 23, 1943.
[14] Alfred A. Duckett, “Duke Ellington’s Concert At Carnegie Demonstrates Maestro’s Unique Genius,” New York Age, January 30, 1943.
[15] Leonard Feather, liner notes to The Duke Ellington Carnegie Concerts, January 1943 (Prestige P-34004).
[16] Duke Ellington in Ibid., recording.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Barry Ulanov, Duke Ellington, pp. 252-253.
[19] Alfred A. Duckett, op. cit.
[20] Cited in Leonard Feather, liner notes to The Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts, 1943 (Prestige).
[21] Cited in Barry Ulanov, Duke Ellington, p. 257.
[22] Cited in Leonard Feather, liner notes to The Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts, 1943 (Prestige).
[23] Constant Lambert, Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline, p. 215.
[24] “J.T.H. Mize Goes to Bat for Brown, Black and Beige [sic]: Rye Music Educator Puts in One Good Lick for Ellington, and Two Better Ones Against the Critics,” Musician, December 1943, p. 159.
[25] Cited in Leonard Feather, liner notes to The Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts, 1943 Prestige P-34004..
[26] Ibid.
[27] Cited in Ibid., p. 19.
[28] Remarks following presentation by David N. Baker, Jr., “Indiana University’s Black Music Committee,” in Black Music in Our Culture,”
[29] Liner notes to The Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts, 1943.
[30] MIMM, p. 183.
[31] Richard O. Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” p. 60.
[32] Ibid., pp. 22-26.
[33] MIMM, p. 309.
[34] “Expect Ellington Song To Promote Racial Accord,” Norfolk VA Journal and Guide October 9, 1943, p.14.
[35] “The Hot Bach,” pp. 49-50.
[36] Interview with John Timmons, Navy veteran, Chicago, May 18, 1980.
[38] “The Hot Bach, pp. 42-43.
[39] Duke Ellington in Person, p. 105.
[40] MIMM, p. 190.
[41] Derek Jewell, Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington, p. 115.
[42] Stefan Kanfer, A Journal of the Plague Years, (New York: Atheneum, 1973), p. 250,
[43] United States House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC hereinafter), Investigation of Communist Activities, New York Area: Parts VI-VIII (Entertainment) (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955), p. 2501 p. 3864.
[44] HUAC, Communist Methods of Infiltration: Entertainment (Part I) (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954).
[45] HUAC, Report on the Communist “Peace” Offensive: A Campaign to Disarm and Defeat the United States (Washington: U.S, Government Printing Office, 1951), p. 130.
[46] “Moscow Decries Peace Sabotage,” New York Times, July 22, 1950, p. 4.
[47] “The Phony Peace Drive,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 26, 1960, p. 6.
[48] Cited in Duke Ellington, “No Red Songs for Me,” New Leader, September 30, 1950, p. 4.
[49] Unidentified clipping found in files of the Chicago Defender; external evidence would place it at about September 1, 1950.
[50] Ibid., p. 2.
[51] Ralph J. Gleason, Celebrating the Duke & Louis, Bessie, Billie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy & Other Heroes (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1975) p. 176.
[52] Ibid., pp. 200-201
[53] Associated Negro Press release, November 21, 1951, in Claude Barnett file.
[54] James L. Hicks, “Duke Benefit for NAACP Netted $1,000, Not 13 Gs,” Baltimore Afro-American, in Ibid, p. 5.to
[55] Duke Ellington and Otis N. Thompson, Jr., “Duke Ellington Says He Didn’t Say It; Reporter Insists That He Did,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 15, 1951, pp.1 ff.
[56] Claude Barnett to Duke Ellington, December 5, 1951, in Claude Barnett file.
[57] “The Duke of Ellington Honored by Host of Stars,” Associated Negro Press release, February 4, 1952, in Claude Barnett file.
[58] “Chicagoans Join in Duke Ellington Salute,” Associated Negro Press release, December 24, 1952 and ANP release, January 4, 1953, both in Claude Barnett file.
[59] “Duke Ellington Attacks TV, Then Signs for Show,” Chicago Defender, September 2, 1950, p. 27.
[60] Duke Ellington in Person, p. 99.
[61] Derek Jewell, Duke: A Portrait of Duke Ellington, pp. 119-120.
[62] John Hammond on Record, p. 309.
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