A Christmas gift from a friend. Tickets to a rock concert. I had only been to one other, a stadium affair. U2. This felt different. Perhaps more authentic. New Year’s Eve. Folks wore party hats and spirits, sparkles and glitter … Continue reading
New York City will host several events to mark the 100th anniversary of Billy Strayhorn’s birth. Details can be found at a special centennial website. Ah, to be in New York this autumn. Fortunately, we all have access to his incredible … Continue reading
The homophobia that Joe Morgen, Duke Ellington’s publicist, possessed only reflected the homophobia of the society at large in the late 1950s. Around the time the New York Times ignored Strayhorn in its review of Such Sweet Thunder, a move … Continue reading
1939 was a good year for a composer/arranger to join the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Several important musicians joined its ranks around this time, adding to the band’s considerable aural palette. Jimmy Blanton freed the bass from its simple time-keeping role … Continue reading
For the first few years of his life, Billy Strayhorn didn’t have a name. His parents had buried two of three children born before him, so when the new born started life sickly, with rickets, they did not rush to … Continue reading
I walked into the SF Jazz Center to see the Wayne Shorter Quartet whistling “Tom Thumb” from Mr. Shorter’s 1967 release Schizophrenia. I mean, why not whistle “Tom Thumb”? However, I held no expectation that the Quartet would play this … Continue reading
Our band will never sound the same again. – Duke Ellington, after the passing of Johnny Hodges Not a minute of this Thanksgiving will go by without my thoughts turning time and again on my brother Robert. This will be … Continue reading
There is an old stool sitting in the back of the garage next to the treadmill. It has gray painted metal legs and a round wooden seat. Part of the seat broke away, exposing some of the metal support underneath. … Continue reading
The Eastbourne Performance Duke Ellington hated endings, as I’ve noted in previous entries. He dreaded his own mortality the most, as many of us do. In 1971, he was probably already suffering early symptoms of the cancer that would ultimately … Continue reading
Togo Brava Suite There are two CDs by this title. One is a studio session of never released tracks of the sort that Duke Ellington recorded when he wanted to hear how certain pieces in development sounded. It features a … Continue reading