Satin Doll ... and more - rants & raves - craigslist (2024)

Duke Ellington

"Duke Ellington, His Piano and His Orchestra at the Bal Masque"

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n4zB24tL_60IxSAkE4QVz5o4YHj7rBEO8

A couple of seasons ago the Ellington
band was encamped at the Americana
Hotel in Miami Beach, playing
nightly, except Sunday, in the hotel's
own beautiful supper club, the Bal
Masque. Duke, always adaptable to his
environment, played for dancers in
the best dance-band tradition and began
referring to himself and his fifteen
jazz-poll winners as "Duke Ellington,
his piano and his orchestra."
And, playing this new role to the utmost,
he introduced new arrangements
featuring himself at the piano, playing
of all things, other people's songs.
And, inspired by the room's masquerade
decor, Duke fashioned his own
musical masquerade of twelve couples.
Alice and the wolf, an angel and Satan,
a butterfly and a peanut vendor, a
satin doll and a donkey, the lady in
red with her Indian, and a gypsy and
a clown all paraded by, while Duke,
dressed like Carmen Cavallaro, sat at
the piano and hosted the party. This
is the recording of that famous affair,
featuring the full Ellington band and
soloists in a program of a dozen danceable
standards, all in costume, never
dressed quite like this before.
For instance, Alice Blue Gown leads
the way into the Bal Masque, with
Duke's piano in the foreground and a
satin sax chorus by Johnny Hodges.
As the dancers around the bandstand
applaud, the wolf in an Ellington arrangement
arrives. Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
is possibly the least likely song you'd ever
expect to hear Duke's band play, and so,
of course, they played it, with solos by Clark
Terry on trumpet and Paul Gonzalves
on tenor saxophone. And it swings like
mad.
Duke presents Got a Date with an
Angel first with saxes and muted brass
in the Hal Kemp tradition, then he
comes as close as he ever does to playing
someone else's melody on the piano,
and finally abandons the tune entirely
to romp through a last chorus. Poor
Butterfly features Jimmy Hamilton on
clarinet, as the butterfly, with Ray
Nance on violin and finally Gonzalves
on tenor saxophone. Satan Takes a
Holiday begins at both ends of the
piano and later takes off with Harry
Carney on baritone saxophone, and
the whole band. The final masquerade
on this first side is the familiar Peanut
Vendor, with Ray Nance on trumpet,
and a wild Latin rhythm.
Intermission at the Bal Masque
gives Duke time to change from a blue
and green plaid jacket to a red and
yellow one, while his guests stroll
out to the Americana pool and wonder
how cold it is in New York. Then it's
time for the rest of the masquerade,
led this time by Duke's own Satin Doll,
the newest of the Ellington tunes to
become a standard. It features Duke
and Jimmy Wood on bass and describes
a girl who, as Duke has pointed
out, is as pretty on the inside as she
is on the outside.
Next is Lady in Red, with solos
by Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet and
Clark Terry on flugelhorn. Indian Love
Call features Duke's wonderful piano
obbligato, with Shorty Baker's trumpet,
Jimmy Hamilton's clarinet, and the
trio of "Butter" Jackson and John
Sanders, trombones, and Harry Carney,
bass clarinet. As an encore for
Jackson, he plays Donkey Serenade
as a trombone con plunger solo. Gypsy
Love Song is Victor Herbert's classic,
and Duke features his own gypsies,
Ray Nance on violin and Johnny
Hodges, alto saxophone, in what
announcers call a haunting rendition.
Finally, Harry Carney plays the clown
in Laugh, Clown, Laugh, with more of
Ellington's piano interludes, a swing-
ing finale to this very special
masquerade.
In recording Duke Ellington at the
Bal Masque we've satisfied at least
three types of requests Duke has had.
For you who have asked why he doesn't
play more piano, he does. For you who
like to dance, here are a dozen danceable
performances by a band which
likes to play for dancers. And for all of
you who didn't think Who's Afraid of
the Big Bad Wolf? could swing, now
you know it can.
-- IRVING TOWNSEND

--------

Duke Ellington at the Bal Masque is an album by American pianist, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington recorded in 1958 and released on the Columbia label.

Most of the music on Duke Ellington at the Bal Masque consisted of older popular songs and operetta songs, including three songs first published before 1920, and eight songs that were first published between 1922 and 1937. "Satin Doll" (1953), was both the newest composition on the album and the only composition Ellington participated in the composition of. The music for "Satin Doll" was originally credited on the LP label to solely to Ellington. (After the deaths of composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington in 1967 and 1974 respectively, a lawsuit, Tempo Music v. Famous Music, resulted in the change of the composer credit to include Billy Strayhorn as co-composer. The Johnny Mercer lyric had not been written in 1958 when Ellington recorded "Satin Doll" for the album.) All of the performances on the album are instrumental only.

The album title alludes to the Bal Masque supper club at Miami Beach's Americana Hotel, where the Ellington band had played a residency in a few years prior to the recording of the album. According to Irving Townsend's liner notes on the original LP release, the Ellington band played mainly for dancers at the Bal Masque, and Ellington decided to include more songs by other composers during the residency than his performances at the time typically featured. ...

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz.

At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multiple extended compositions, or suites, as well as many short pieces. For a few years at the beginning of Strayhorn's involvement, Ellington's orchestra featured bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and reached a creative peak. Some years later following a low-profile period, an appearance by Ellington and his orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1956 led to a major revival and regular world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in and scored several films, and composed a handful of stage musicals.

Although a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, in the opinion of Gunther Schuller and Barry Kernfeld, "the most significant composer of the genre", Ellington himself embraced the phrase "beyond category", considering it a liberating principle, and referring to his music as part of the more general category of American Music. Ellington was known for his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, as well as for his eloquence and charisma. He was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999.

Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy (née Kennedy) Ellington in Washington, D.C. ... -- W.

------------/w

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