The Ellington Century (62 page)

20
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 341.

21
. A great sampling of twentieth-century performance styles across a wide spectrum can be heard on
I Got Rhythm: The Music of George Gershwin
, a four-CD set from the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings.

22
. See Pleasants,
The Great American Popular Singers;
and Friedwald,
Stardust Melodies.

23
. Taylor's 1929 performance leads off the album
The Jazz Singers
, edited by Robert G. O'Meally, who describes her as a “pre-jazz singer with a vaudeville twist.”

24
. Ken Romanowski, liner notes for
Mamie Smith: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order
, vol. 1, Document Records DOCD-5357.

25
. Jasen and Jones,
Black Bottom Stomp
, p. 219.

26
. Friedwald,
Stardust Melodies
, p. 32.

27
. See van de Leur,
Something to Live For
, pp. 152-59, for an extensive discussion of Strayhorn's arrangement.

28
. Giddins,
VJ
, p. 113.

29
. Van de Leur,
Something to Live For
, p. 63.

30
. Ibid., p. 27.

31
. Ibid., p. 171.

32
. Kahn,
Kind of Blue
, p. 71.

33
. See Slonimsky,
Perfect Pitch
, pp. 173-80.

34
. Berliner,
Thinking in Jazz
, p. 192.

35
. For late Renaissance divisions, see William Byrd's “My Ladye Nevels Grownde”; for a twentieth-century version, see Prelude no. 21 from Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues, op. 87. For a romantic and more dissonant expansion of Bach's
moto perpetuo
technique, see Chopin's Prelude in B
Minor, op. 28, no. 16.

36
. Published by Hal Leonard in 2001.

37
. O'Meally, ed.,
JCAC
, p. 269.

38
. According to Kahn,
Kind of Blue
(p. 110), he quotes a melodic line from Junior Parker's 1957 R&B tune “Next Time You See Me.”

 

4. “SATIN DOLL”: HARMONY

Epigraphs, p. 120: Duke Ellington, in Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 42; Ferruccio Busoni, “Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music,” in Debussy, Busoni, and Ives,
Three Classics in the Aesthetic of Music
, p. 93; Igor Stravinsky,
Poetics of Music
, p. 37.

1
. Tucker,
The Early Years
, p. 243.

2
. Transcribed by John Mehegan in
Tonal and Rhythmic Principles.

3
. In Mingus,
Charles Mingus: More Than a Fake Book.

4
. See Orenstein,
Ravel
, p. 209, and Orenstein, ed.,
A Ravel Reader
, pp. 519-20.

5
. Orenstein, ed.,
A Ravel Reader
, pp. 519-20.

6
. Baraka,
Blues People
, pp. 229-30.

7
. Van den Toorn,
Music of Igor Stravinsky
, pp. 407-8.

8
. Stravinsky and Craft,
Stravinsky in Conversation with Robert Craft
, p. 38.

9
. Schoenberg and Stein,
Style and Idea
, p. 210.

10
. Ibid., p. 30.

11
. Ibid., p. 446.

12
. Ibid., p. 109.

13
. Ibid., p. 144.

14
. Reprinted in liner notes for
The Music of Arnold Schoenberg, Vol. III.

15
. Schoenberg and Stein,
Style and Idea
, p. 49.

16
. Kárpáti,
Bartók's Chamber Music
, pp. 96 and 286.

17
. Ibid., p. 34.

18
. Robert Craft, “The Emperor of China,”
New York Review of Books
, November 5, 1987.

 

PART II

Epigraph, p. 153: Duke Ellington, in Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 43.

1
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 50.

2
. Ibid., p. 12.

3
. For the history of many of these pieces, see Lock,
Blutopia;
Early,
Tuxedo Junction;
and Cohen,
Duke Ellington's America.

4
. Ellington's schedule is documented in Stratemann,
Duke Ellington
, and Vail,
Duke's Diary.

5
. See Alvin Ailey's account of
The River
in Perlis and Van Cleve,
Composers' Voices from Ives to Ellington
, pp. 400-404. Van de Leur,
Something to Live For
, and Hajdu,
Lush Life
, offer many detailed descriptions of the Ellington/ Strayhorn collaboration.

6
. For Ellington's frank assessment of his work with Henderson see Howland,
“Ellington Uptown,”
p. 165.

 

5. “WARM VALLEY”: LOVE

Epigraph, p. 157: Duke Ellington, in Ellington,
MIMM
, p. 53. Epigraph, pp. 159-60: Duke Ellington, “Sex Is No Sin,”
Ebony
, May 1954. Epigraph, p. 187: Arnold Schoenberg, quoted in Beaumont,
Zemlinsky
, p. 207.

1
. See Stratemann,
Duke Ellington
, pp. 5-23.

2
. See Metzer,
Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music
, for a discussion of the film's cultural setting.

3
. Ellington,
MIMM
, p. 6. Ellington's father died two years later; he suffered these two great losses just as the swing era was taking off.

4
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 120.

5
. Lawrence,
Duke Ellington and His World
, p. 246.

6
. Hasse,
Beyond Category
, p. 23.

7
. Howland,
“Ellington Uptown,”
p. 176.

8
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 244.

9
. Ellington,
MIMM
, pp. 12-15.

10
. See Tucker,
Ellington: The Early Years
, p. 16.

11
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 124.

12
. See also Gunther Schuller's thematic analysis in
SE.

13
. Van de Leur,
Something to Live For
, pp. 93-94.

14
. Ellington,
MIMM
, p. 20.

15
. See Appel,
Jazz Modernism
, pp. 225-27.

16
. See Chambers, “Bardland,” 43.

17
. Liner notes for original album.

18
. Vail,
Duke's Diary
, p. 35.

19
. Quoted in Nicholson,
Reminiscing in Tempo
, p. 290.

20
. See Gennari, in O'Meally, Edwards, and Griffin, eds.,
UC
, p. 129.

21
. Hajdu,
Lush Life
, p. 148.

22
. Morton,
Backstory in Blue
, p. 147.

23
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 291.

24
. Epstein,
Joe Papp
, p. 127.

25
. Ibid., p. 167.

26
. Hajdu,
Lush Life
, p. 155.

27
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 321.

28
. Its precedent as an album-long composition was soon followed by the Miles Davis / Gil Evans
Miles Ahead
and Charles Mingus's
Black Saint and the
Sinner Lady.
Both albums acknowledged their debt to Ellington/Strayhorn.
Miles Ahead
included Evans's arrangement of Dave Brubeck's “The Duke”; on
Black Saint
Mingus asked saxophonist Charles Mariani to imitate Johnny Hodges.

29
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 321.

30
. Ellington,
MIMM
, p. 192.

31
. See Dyer,
But Beautiful
, pp. 3-4.

32
. O'Meally, Edwards, and Griffin, eds.,
UC
, p. 336.

33
. See an analysis in van de Leur,
Something to Live For
, pp. 159-61.

34
. Hajdu,
Lush Life
, p. 82.

35
. See Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 191.

36
. Hajdu,
Lush Life
, p. 160.

37
. You can find the music in Ellington,
The 100th Anniversary Collection.

38
. Berg and Berg,
Alban Berg: Letters to his Wife
, pp. 341-42.

39
. See Jarman in Pople, ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Berg
, p. 177.

40
. For an updated, clear-eyed assessment of both the affair and the music, see Simms, “Alban Berg and Hanna Fuchs.”

41
. See Douglas Jarman, “Secret Programmes,” in Pople, ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Berg
, pp. 167-79.

42
. Dietschy, Ashbrook, and Cobb,
A Portrait of Claude Debussy
, p. 127.

43
. Quoted in Kern,
The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918
, p. 25.

44
. Reich,
Alban Berg
, p. 71.

45
. Perle,
The Operas of Alban Berg
, p. 710.

46
. In September 1925 Berg wrote Schoenberg, “Casting a glance at our new score [the Wind Quintet, op. 26] a while back was immeasurably exciting. How long will it be before I understand the music as thoroughly as I fancy, for example, that I understand
Pierrot?
”

 

6.
BLACK, BROWN AND BEIGE:
HISTORY

Epigraphs, p. 200: T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”; F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby;
Sun Ra, quoted in Graham Lock,
Blutopia
, p. 140.

1
. Adorno,
Prisms
, pp. 119-32.

2
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 207.

3
. See Anderson,
Deep River
, pp. 221-25.

4
. Lewis,
W. E. B. Dubois
, p. 507.

5
. Cripps,
Slow Fade to Black
, p. 52.

6
. May,
Screening out the Past
, pp. 81-82.

7
. Ibid., 83.

8
. George,
The Death of Rhythm and Blues
, p. 7.

9
. Tucker,
Ellington: The Early Years
, p. 8.

10
. Gennari,
Blowin' Hot and Cool
, p. 29.

11
. Ibid., p. 30.

12
. Duberman,
Paul Robeson
, p. 250.

13
. Ottley,
“New World A-Coming,”
p. 289.

14
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 147.

15
. Ibid., p. 166.

16
. For a detailed account of these concerts and Hammond's role in shaping jazz history, see Anderson,
Deep River
,
chapter 5
.

17
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, pp. 155-65.

18
. See Tucker, “The Genesis of
Black, Brown and Beige”;
Cohen,
Duke Ellington's America.

19
. See Edwards in O'Meally, Edwards, and Griffin, eds.,
UC
, p. 345.

20
. Denning,
The Cultural Front
, p. 310.

21
. Tucker, ed.,
DER
, p. 504.

22
. See Ulanov,
Duke Ellington;
Tucker, ed.,
DER;
Giddins, “In Search of Black, Brown and Beige” in Tucker, ed., DER,; Tucker, “The Genesis of
Black, Brown and Beige”;
DeVeaux, “‘Black, Brown and Beige' and the Critics”; Lock,
Blutopia;
Peress,
Dvo
ák to Duke Ellington;
Cohen,
Duke Ellington's America;
Knauer, “Simulated Improvisation”; Howland,
“Ellington Uptown.”

23
. The critical literature covers the considerable and varied formal history of
Black, Brown and Beige.
Here I will consider the work as heard on the January 1943 recording with the help of Maurice Peress's version of the score, which, however, is not a critical edition. I discuss this version of the piece because of its historical importance, not because I think it represents an urtext or is definitive either in its composition or performance.