SwingDJs

Re. The A Train, this page is a useful contribution:

http://www.jazzstandards.com/compositio ... atrain.htm

fredo wrote: favorite Ellington song : Rockin' in Rhythm (in order of insanity endings)

-Okeh 1931
-Brunswick 1931
-RCA 1931
-Fargo 1940
-Newport 1959
-Soul Call 1966

yes! "rockin' in rhythm" rules.

there's a good one on ellington '55. i'd place it before "newport 1959" on your list, and after the rca ones. i don't have fargo.

there are two takes of the rca one (very similar), and also two recordings on the cote d'azur concerts set (one of them is the one on soul call; these two are also fairly similar).

there's also one from 1957 on ella's duke ellington song book, but it doesn't excite me as much as any of these instrumental ones.

i bet allmusic has a lot more, but i refuse to look. i'd just end up buying more music. as difficult as "the complete basie" is, "the complete ellington" just boggles the mind.

J-h:n wrote:

CafeSavoy wrote:The singer/tap dancer is Bunny Briggs.

Thanks Rayned! Gotta check him out - he's awesome.

there's some good interview and dancing footage of bunny on "no maps on my taps", nierenberg's first tap documentary. (his second, "about tap", is very good, too, but doesn't have briggs.)

on the "live at the greek theatre los angeles" duke & ella cd, bunny performs a tap routine with the band. the recording isn't great, but if you're into tap, it's worth a listen.

there's also a very hard to find black & blue cd called "special tap dance/four masters". it has four tracks with bunny dancing, and he sings on one. the cd is pure awesome. perhaps it'll make its way to emusic eventually.

Eyeball wrote:In reality, it is gay music v straight music. Strayhorn-gay, other guy-straight.

Now you're getting the hang of this! See, gay people had to go "underground" in those days, that's why the song is about the subway! Very good!

fredo wrote:I don't think J-h:n's statement about black music representing the future and white music representing the past is a very good way of saying this, is more or less inaccurate and overgeneralized

Oh, I'm not saying that statement is something I believe in. Like you point out, it's grossly overgeneralized and not very accurate. I'm saying that it's something that record, that juxtaposition of those two songs, is suggesting - not necessarily because someone consciously meant it to say so, but it's there in the subtext if you want to see it.

The part of it that I'm admitting being an oddball theory is that Duke Ellington himself was trying to make a point here. Like Eyeball said, it probably wasn't his decision which songs to put on a record. But then again, who knows? Duke was one sly, subtle, ingenious fellow. He had a strong sense of racial pride; he had an even stronger sense of diplomacy. It wouldn't have been out of character.

lipi wrote:there's some good interview and dancing footage of bunny on "no maps on my taps", nierenberg's first tap documentary. (his second, "about tap", is very good, too, but doesn't have briggs.)

on the "live at the greek theatre los angeles" duke & ella cd, bunny performs a tap routine with the band. the recording isn't great, but if you're into tap, it's worth a listen.

there's also a very hard to find black & blue cd called "special tap dance/four masters". it has four tracks with bunny dancing, and he sings on one. the cd is pure awesome. perhaps it'll make its way to emusic eventually.

Not that much into tap, very much into good scat singing. I'll keep an eye open for the Black & Blue CD. Thanks!

I found this in the Wikipedia entry on Duke Ellington:

"The death of Ellington's mother in 1935 led to a temporary slump in his career. Competition was also intensifying, as African-American and white "Swing Bands" began to rocket to popular attention, including those of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter, Earl Hines, Chick Webb, and Count Basie. Swing dancing became a youth phenomenon, particularly with white college audiences, and "danceability" drove record sales and bookings. Jukeboxes proliferated nationwide spreading the gospel of "swing". Ellington band could certainly "swing" with the best of them, but Ellington's strength was mood and nuance, and richness of composition, hence his statement "jazz is music; swing is business". The challenge for Ellington at that time was to create a workable balance between his ceaseless artistic exploration and the popular requirements of that era. Ellington countered with two innovations. He made recordings for smaller groups (sextets, octets, and nonets) drawn from his then 15-man orchestra and he composed pieces that were concerto-like and focused on a specific instrumentalist, as with Jeep's Blues for Johnny Hodges and Yearning for Love with Lawrence Brown."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellin ... FHasse1993

There are lots of Ellington quotations around:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington
http://roundaboutjazz.de/depages/citat.htm

What's the best Ellington biography around? (I've read Music Is My Mistress and Stanley Dance's The World of Duke Ellington, none of which is exctly a biography.)

Some Ellington I love madly that has not been mentioned yet:

Rumpus in Richmond
Ko Ko
Jumpin' Punkins (probably not good to DJ because of bass solo- but oh what a great bass solo by Blanton!)

Vocals:
Jump for Joy
So Far So Good
At a Dixie Roadside Diner
Flamingo

For older Ellington I love "Blues in Orbit", C Jam Blues off of that work is my favorite version. I also like Pie Eye Blues and In A Mellow Tone, and Smada is fun to play if you feel like throwing out some salsa breaks to the crowd.

and speaking of Billy Strayhorn "And His Mother Called him Bill" is another great CD, I love "Boo-dah" off of that CD.

My fave Ivie Anderson take is "Doing the Chocolate Shake".

Someone told me that Duke Ellington used to perform in Times Square every New Year's Eve. Anyone else heard that? I would have loved to have seen him perform live.

Blues in Orbit

Villes Ville is the Place, Man

J-h:n wrote:What's the best Ellington biography around? (I've read Music Is My Mistress and Stanley Dance's The World of Duke Ellington, none of which is exctly a biography.)

I really enjoyed "Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington" by John Edward Hasse however my favorite is "Duke Ellington: In Person: An Intimate Memoir" by his son Mercer...a lot of really interesting stuff in there...

Another song I like is "Cottontail," from Duke Ellington Presents. Clocks in at about 345 BPM!

I think it was seeing 'The Cotton Club' film from the 1980s recently that inspired me to take more interest in the music and background of key figures of the time like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway etc. At any rate, I seem to have become more enthusiastic about Duke Ellington's music since then.

Here are a few of my favourite Duke Ellington numbers, in chronological order:

Diga Diga Doo 1928
Doin' The New Low Down 1928
Diga Diga Doo 1932
(with The Mills Brothers)

Truckin' 1935
Diga Diga Doo 1937
All God's Chillun Got Rhythm (instrumental version) 1937

The Gal From Joe's 1938
Cotton Club Stomp 1939