Duke (69 page)

DE began writing
Black, Brown and Beige
in Hartford:
MM,
181.
“On the day of my visit to his apartment”:
Howard Taubman, “The ‘Duke’ Invades Carnegie Hall,”
The New York Times Magazine,
Jan. 17, 1943, in
Reader,
159.

“Practically before the ink . . . was dry”:
Edmund Anderson, “Some Personal Recollections of Duke Ellington,”
Jazz Journal,
July 1974.
“Choppy”:
Ulanov, 251.

“Twenty years of laudable contribution”:
“R.P.,” “Duke Ellington at Carnegie Hall,”
The New York Times,
Jan. 24, 1943.
A recording of the concert:
The Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts: January 1943.

“Our aim has always been the development”:
DE, “Duke Says Swing Is Stagnant,”
Down Beat,
Feb. 1939, in
Reader,
135.
“The Negro is not merely a singing and dancing wizard”:
Taubman, “The ‘Duke’ Invades Carnegie Hall,” in
Reader,
160.

“Buried in the dark, uneasy conscience of Man”:
DE,
“
Black, Brown and Beige
by Duke Ellington.”

A 1942 composition by BS called “Symphonette-Rhythmique”:
van de Leur, 88. It was not until the publication in 2002 of van de Leur’s book, which was based on analysis of the surviving manuscripts of BS and DE, that BS’s role in the composition of “Beige” was revealed.

The most favorable notice:
“The Duke of Jazz,”
Time,
Feb. 1, 1943.
“It had many exciting passages”:
“R.P.,” “Duke Ellington at Carnegie Hall.”
“It hardly ever succeeds”:
Douglas Watt, “The Duke Has Hot Concert at Carnegie,”
New York Daily News,
Jan. 25, 1943.
“An in toto symphonic creation”:
Robert Bagar, “Duke Marks 20th Year as Musician,”
New York World-Telegram,
Jan. 25, 1943.
“It all but falls apart into so many separate pieces”:
Henry Simon, “The Duke Shows Carnegie How,”
PM
, Jan. 25, 1943.

“It was formless and meaningless”:
Paul Bowles, “Duke Ellington in Recital for Russian Relief,”
New York Herald-Tribune,
Jan. 25, 1943, in
Reader,
166.

“Duke Kills Carnegie Cats!”:
Metronome,
Feb. 1943.
“Condescending”:
“Reactionary Reviewers,”
Metronome,
Feb. 1943.
“Duke Fuses Classical and Jazz!”:
Mike Levin,
Down Beat,
Feb. 15, 1943, in
Reader,
166–70.
DE “alienated a good part of his dancing public”:
John Hammond, “Is the Duke Deserting Jazz?”
Jazz Record,
Feb. 15, 1943, in
Reader,
172–173.
“Formless and shallow”:
John Hammond, “The Tragedy of Duke Ellington, the ‘Black Prince of Jazz,’”
Down Beat,
Nov. 1935, in
Reader,
120.

“Well, I guess they didn’t dig it”:
“Duke Fuses Classical and Jazz!,” in
Reader,
168.
An “overwhelming success”:
MM,
181.
“What [he was] attempting to do”:
Helen M. Oakley, “Ellington to Offer ‘Tone Parallel,’”
Down Beat,
Jan. 15, 1943, in
Reader,
155–156.

The last time that DE performed
Black, Brown and Beige
in its entirety:
See Andrew Homzy, “
Black, Brown and Beige
in Duke Ellington’s Repertoire, 1943–1973,” and Sjef Hoefsmit, “Chronology of Ellington’s Recordings and Performances of
Black, Brown and Beige,
1943–1973,”
Black Music Research Journal,
edited by Andrew Homzy (Fall 1993). According to Homzy, it is “not clear” whether the entire work was performed in Cleveland, but contemporary newspaper reviews of the concert, notwithstanding their ambiguous wording, indicate that DE repeated the Carnegie Hall program in its entirety and that all of
Black, Brown and Beige
was played. See “S.M.,” “Record 7,200 Turn Out for Ellington Rhythm,”
Cleveland Plain Dealer,
Feb. 21, 1943, and Ardelia Bradley, “7000 Hear the Duke in Brilliant Concert,”
Cleveland Call and Post,
Feb. 27, 1943.

“We planned far in advance, but in the end Duke failed to do a single arrangement”:
John McDonough, “Pablo Patriarch: The Norman Granz Story Part II,”
Down Beat,
Nov. 1979. (DE did in fact complete one arrangement, for Juan Tizol’s “Caravan.”)
“Duke would ask Ella”:
Quoted in
RIT,
315.

Only to pick up his mail:
“New York is just where I keep my mailbox” (
Jet,
May 15, 1969).

“I work and I write”:
Hentoff, “This Cat Needs No Pulitzer Prize,” in
Reader,
363.
“You couldn’t give him a piano part”:
Tizol, oral-history interview.
“There’s no attitude”:
Jewell, 111.

“Accumulation of personalities”:
DE, interview with Jack Cullen, CKNW, Vancouver, Canada, Oct. 30, 1962, in
Reader,
339.
“With a musician who plays the full compass”:
MM,
470.
“I never did like anything Ellington ever did”:
Quoted in Hadlock, 188. The valve trombonist–composer Bob Brookmeyer had the same reaction to DE in his youth: “I thought the [band] was sloppy and out of tune. That’s how much I knew when I was in my late teens” (Enstice, 62).
“My ear makes my decision”:
DE, holograph note for
MM,
n.d. (EC).

“Ellington plays the piano”:
BS, “Billy Strayhorn: ‘The Ellington Effect,’”
Down Beat,
Nov. 5, 1952, in
Reader,
270.
“To mold the music around the man”:
Quoted in Gary Giddins, “The Long-Playing Duke,”
The Village Voice,
Apr. 27, 1999.

“I recall one occasion when he’d jotted some notes for the saxophones”:
Stewart,
Jazz Masters of the Thirties,
97–98.

“He could hear a guy”:
Büchmann-Møller, 71.
“More than once”:
Stewart,
Jazz Masters of the Thirties,
98.
“It wasn’t
our
thing any longer”:
Dance,
The World of Duke Ellington,
60.

“To attempt to elevate the status”:
“Certainly It’s Music!”
Listen,
Oct. 1944, in
Reader,
246.
“Ninety-nine per cent of the jazz people”:
“Why Duke Ellington Avoided Music Schools,”
PM,
Dec. 9, 1945, in
Reader,
253.

“We wanted Duke to be recognized”:
Irving Mills, unpublished film interview, in
RIT,
118.
“He is as genial as he is intelligent”:
“Irving Mills Presents Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra,” 1933 publicity manual (EC).
“Every time you walk out [on] the street”:
DE, Harman interview, 1964.

“At the time I worked with him”:
Houseman, 194.

“What you need to do”:
Mercer Ellington,
Duke Ellington in Person,
187.
“No problem”:
Ibid., 210. (This handwritten note is reproduced in Vail, 452.)

“Ellington is the most complex and paradoxical individual”:
Stewart,
Boy Meets Horn,
158.
“A romping, stomping alley cat”:
George, 138.

“That night I saw him”:
Hentoff, oral-history interview.

“I think all the musicians should get together”:
Leonard Feather, “Blindfold Test: Miles and Miles of Trumpet Players,”
Down Beat,
Sept. 21, 1955.

“‘Now, Charles,’ he says, looking amused”:
Mingus, 323–24. For Tizol’s side of the story, see Serrano, 131–40. For another version, see Terry, 149.

“You can’t stay in the European conservatory”:
Fred M. White, “Negro Music as Individual Unit Aim of Duke Ellington,”
Morning
Oregonian,
May 14, 1934.
“I don’t write jazz”:
Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” 218.
“Q. Can you keep from writing music?”:
MM,
458.

CHAPTER ONE
“I JUST COULDN’T BE SHACKLED”

SOURCES

Documents

DE, unpublished interview with Carter Harman, 1956, EC; Mercer Ellington, oral-history interview, EC; Ruth Ellington, oral-history interview, EC; Doug Seroff, liner notes for
There Breathes a Hope: The Legacy of John Work II and His Fisk Jubilee Quartet, 1909–1916,
sound recording (Archeophone); Mark Tucker, “The Early Years of Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ Ellington, 1899–1927,” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1986; Bernice Wiggins and Juanita Middleton, oral-history interview, OHAM.

Books

Mercer Ellington,
Duke Ellington in Person;
Foster,
Autobiography;
Frazier,
Black Bourgeoisie;
Green,
The Secret City;
Hughes,
Autobiography;
Hughes,
The Big Sea;
Jewell,
Duke;
Landis,
Segregation in Washington;
Malcolm X,
Autobiography;
Ruble,
Washington’s U Street;
Stewart,
Boy Meets Horn;
Tucker,
Ellington;
Ulanov,
Duke Ellington;
Washington,
Booker T. Washington Papers;
Washington,
Up from Slavery;
Zolotow,
Never Whistle in a Dressing Room.

NOTES

Born in a neighborhood:
For a detailed history of Shaw, see Ruble
.

“She spent as much time”:
Hollie I. West, “Duke at 70: Honor from the President,”
The Washington Post,
Apr. 27, 1969.

The poorest blacks:
According to Rex Stewart, U Street was home to “the lighter-complexioned people with better-type jobs,” while “the working class, the coal men, the fishmongers, the gamblers, pimps and sporting females” lived in “the southwest area” (Stewart, 34).

“During the time I was a student”:
Washington,
Up from Slavery,
43–44.