[Dixielandjazz] Miscellaneous Ramblings about Ellington

[Steve barbone]

RE: Ellington - Traditional?

Yes, I suppose certain of Ellington's work were borrowed by Traditional Jazz
Bands. Mood Indigo, for example. But when he played it I would be hard
pressed to call it Traditional Jazz in the context that most people use the
word traditional. The horn voicing was anything but trad jazz.

Ellington was a genius musician. His bands were a lot more than just
"Traditional", or just "Jazz" or just "Classical". To try and put him into a
neat category such as the above if folly as I hear it. And attempts by
others to categorize him were distasteful to him, all of his life.

Naturally, all of us who play jazz, play some Ellington. Man you have to go
"Ducal" once in a while to speak the language.

But I hear him as a unique musician. Other bands of the day used stock
arrangements. He created his own. That's hardly traditional. He wrote much
of the material they played. That's hardly Traditional. Trad bands played
the usual pop songs plus the tried and true war-horse tunes. Ellington
rarely featured them.

What he himself wrote about the 1920s-30s Ellington bands was: "Our aim as a
dance orchestra (yes DANCE ORCHESTRA) is not so much to reproduce 'hot' or
'jazz' music as to describe emotions, moods and activities which have a wide
range." 

And Sonny Greer was hardly a "traditional" drummer. ;-) VBG.

When Ellington got the Cotton Club gig in 1927, the mobsters who ran the
joint first thought that his music was "too weird". His so called "jungle
music" was hardly traditional.

Leopold Stokowski once asked him what he was "striving for in music."

Duke's reply: "I am trying to express American music as I hear it and know
it." He never saw himself as a jazz musician/jazz composer, why then, should
we? He wanted to sound like himself and he succeeded.

Ellington's 1927 dance orchestra was compared to Paul Whiteman, Fletcher
Henderson, Mal Hallett, Vincent Lopez et al, in reviews, not to "traditional
jazz bands" by the public or the media. (as we commonly use the term)

So if a traditional jazz band plays some Ellington, whether they realize it
or not, are they not also departing from tradition?

There are numerous books about Ellington. List mates who have not read them
might be interested to read "Beyond Category" by John Edward Hasse, (Simon
and Schuster 1993, and/or "The Duke Ellington Reader" edited by Mark Tucker,
Oxford University Press 1993.


RE:"It don't mean a thing" quote.

No, it was not Bill Basie, it was Ellington per the original post. Duke is
credited with writing the tune circa 1932.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone