Duke Ellingon, Jazz Genius

Continue the celebration! I was informed by the good people at Life Magazine that they've put up a photo gallery commemorating Ellington (see above).

Happy Birthday, Duke!

On this date, 110 years ago, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, DC.

La Plus Belle Africaine is a mid-60s composition Duke Ellington wrote in commemoration of "the First Annual Festival of Negro Arts, after writing African music for 35 years."

Playing along with recordings is good ear training and can be both fun and frustrating. In working on this particular piece, I discovered something that (to my knowledge, at least) no one has written about before. It appears that Duke was trying to use only the black keys to form the main motif of the piece and tie into the title of the work. (He didn't quite succeed - two notes, E natural and F natural were used. )

Blogging about Twitter

Resistance is futile...

I've decided to join Twitter. If you're on Twitter, look for Blog O Jazz.

So far, after only a short search, I've found some pretty interesting jazz related items.

Also, I've added some new blogs to the left. Be sure to check them out!

Charles Mingus

Composer-bassist-pianist Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona on this date in 1922.
He was featured on a US postage stamp in 1995. Now, the place of his birth is looking to finally honor their native son:

Nogales finally gets around to honoring jazz great Mingus
by Richard Ruelas - Apr. 17, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Charles Mingus, lauded as one of the most influential and best American jazz composers, was an Arizonan, born in the border town of Nogales, a city that until recently wasn't very aware of its most famous son.
"I have lived all my life here in Nogales, and I didn't know anything about him," said Olivia Ainza-Kramer, president of the city's Chamber of Commerce.
Ainza-Kramer is the vice-chairwoman of the Mingus Project, a group that organizes a music festival in Mingus' honor and is looking to mark the place of his birth. The second annual Mingus festival is being held this weekend.
The city already has become a pilgrimage for Mingus fans, said Ken Tittlebaugh, president of the non-profit Mingus Project. "People come from all over the world knowing he was born here and (they) say, 'There's nothing here.' There's not a street named after him. There's not a plaque. And that's what we're trying to correct."
Mingus didn't stay in his hometown very long. He was 18 months old when his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles, where he grew up.
But Tittlebaugh, a retired music teacher, doesn't dwell on the short duration of Mingus' stay.
"He was born here," Tittlebaugh said, laughing, "so we're claiming him."
Mingus' father, Charles Sr., was stationed at Camp Stephen Little in Nogales as part of a Buffalo Soldier unit sent to monitor the Mexican border during that country's revolution. Mingus' mother lived in the camp as well.
There was no hospital, Tittlebaugh said, so Mingus was born on the campgrounds in April 1922.
The grounds now are a park called Camp Little, but there's nothing left of the Army structures. Tittlebaugh said he wants to put a marker at the park to acknowledge Mingus' birthplace.
It's not clear how much of a connection Mingus had with Nogales after he left. Rumor has it that Mingus occasionally played in Nogales, Sonora, the twin city on the other side of "the line," Tittlebaugh said.
Mingus did title one of his albums "Tijuana Moods," but that wasn't out of a yearning for a return to the borderlands of his infancy. Instead, according to a review in Planet Jazz, it came from some debauchery-filled days that Mingus and his drummer spent in Tijuana, Baja California.
Mingus died in 1979 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had visited a healer in a futile attempt to cure his Lou Gehrig's disease.
Coincidentally, Mingus' last concert was in Phoenix in 1977. A few days later, his wife wrote in her book, "Tonight at Noon," he was diagnosed with the degenerative muscular disease that made him unable to hold his upright bass and eventually took his life.
Nogales had a Mingus festival in 1993, Tittlebaugh said.
"From then on, there were sporadic little things done," he said, but nothing permanent.
Tittlebaugh has committed himself to the Mingus Foundation, aimed at putting on the cross-border festival.Tittlebaugh said he's not sure why Nogales took so long to honor Mingus.
"Some things just get lost," he said. "And the community isn't heavy on jazz."

Rahsaan Roland Kirk - The Call

Rahsaan Roland Kirk used to refer to his two horn feats as "splitting the mind into two parts." This transcription is a 1960 two horn (manzello and tenor saxophone) self-duet that [Rahsaan] Roland Kirk played 1:05 from the beginning of The Call. It's from his [second] debut album, Introducing Roland Kirk. (Here's the mp3 of the excerpt.)

Free Duke Ellington Tribute Concerts at UCLA

The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Department of Ethnomusicology and The UCLA Friends of Jazz present

Duke Ellington's 110th Birthday Anniversary Festival of Music

April 4 – 5, 2009

Schoenberg Hall, UCLA

SATURDAY, APRIL 4
2-5 pm
UCLA Jazz Student Combos play Ellingtonia, directed by Kenny Burrell, George Bohanon, Clayton Cameron, Charles Owens, Michele Weir, and Charley Harrison.
7 pm
UCLA Philharmonia Orchestra, Neal Stulberg, conductor. Performing specially selected Ellington extended works. Special guest: renowned vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. Jens Lindemann,t rumpeter and director of a new student brass ensemble, playing Ellington compositions. Ellington’s Music for String Quartet arranged by Paul Chihara. Solo guest artists: pianist Tom Ranier, vocalist Bill Henderson, percussionist Clayton Cameron, and guitarist and Jazz Studies Director, Kenny Burrell.

SUNDAY, APRIL 5
1-2 pm
Ellington's folk opera Queenie Pie (excerpts), (Southern California Premiere), featuring some of UCLA’s finest vocalists and instrumentalists, conducted by Marc Bolin.
2:30-3:30 pm
Ellington's Sacred Music Concert(excerpts). Featuring Dwight Trible and Chester Whitmore, with Kalil Wilson, Lauren Michelle, and Joseph Buchanan, conducted by Charles Owens.
7 pm
UCLA Jazz Orchestra directed by Charley Harrison, UCLA Contemporary Jazz Orchestra directed by Kenny Burrell and James Newton, UCLA Latin Jazz Ensemble directed by Bobby Rodriguez. UCLA Jazz Faculty soloists with Kenny Burrell, Charles Owens, Barbara Morrison, Clayton Cameron, Roberto Miranda, and others. Special guests: Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ernie Andrews, Dwight Trible, Herb Jeffries, Chester Whitmore, and Gerald Wilson.

Open to the public and free of charge

Parking in Lot 2 — $9 (Hilgard and Westholme Avenues)

Information: (310) 206-3033

http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/

http://www.friendsofjazz.ucla.edu/

Herb Jeffries sang with the Ellington band from 1940-1942. He's 95!

Attention! Songwriters Wanted

Second only to the blues, the backbone of the jazz tradition is the popular song. Johnny Mercer (1909-1976) wrote a lot of 'em. You've probably heard of some them. He contributed music and/or lyrics to things like Blues In The Night, Satin Doll, One for My Baby (And One for the Road), Jeepers Creepers, Autumn Leaves, etc. He's credited with over 1500 compositions!

The Johnny Mercer Foundation and the American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern University are encouraging songwriters and writing teams from all music genres to apply for the fourth annual Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project this June in Evanston, IL. The weeklong workshop is no-fee for participants, and will be led by Tony and Grammy award-winning composers.

Last year's program featured emerging songwriters from across the country in the fields of pop, music theatre, hip-hop, folk, Latin and country. To qualify, writers must be between the ages of 18 to 30. (That excludes me!) For writing teams, at least one member must meet this criterion. Through the generosity of The Johnny Mercer Foundation, there is no fee for this workshop for the writers and writing teams selected, and a stipend will be offered to cover a portion of travel and boarding expenses. All 2009 applications must be postmarked by April 13th.

The Day The Music Died, Jazz Edition (Part I)

Last month, there was a lot of media hoopla over the 50th anniversary of “the day the music died.”
Tomorrow on this date in 1959, Lester Young died just a few months short of his 50th birthday. Like the rockers, Pres’ passing was memorialized in song, most notably Goodbye Porkpie Hat by Charles Mingus and Wayne Shorter’s Lester Left Town.
Pres is/was a highly influential voice on the saxophone. Amongst just a few of the many, you could name saxophonists like Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Art Pepper, Wardell Gray, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Paul Quinichette, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.
A few months before the UCLA Freddie Hubbard concert, I had picked up a used copy of the double LP Complete Savoy Recordings of Lester Young. In the song Crazy Over J-Z, the band uses a riff based on the standard Louise. Since I was playing the album to death at that time, that phrase became the opening of my baritone sax solo.
Even though Paul Gonsalves was primarily influenced by Ben Webster, he was able to dig Pres, too. In his famous 1956 Newport Jazz Festival solo on Diminuendo In Blue and Crescendo In Blue, he starts chorus 13 with a quote from Lester Young’s Up ‘n’ Adam:



Gone, but not forgotten. Where’s that Lester Young postage stamp?

RAHSAAN ON TV - 37 years ago....

From 1968-1973, there was a black themed television show called Soul. In 1972, they featured an hour of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The link can be found here . While you're there, check out shows featuring Tito Puente and Max Roach, amongst others. (Thanks to the Rahsaan Roland Kirk yahoo group for finding this.)

Louis Bellson 1924-2009

Another great one gone...

Since he was an LA resident, Louis Bellson performed often in the area, usually with his big band. Bellson was a rare type of drummer - he was also an extremely talented composer and arranger.

Despite all his talent, he was, on top of it all, simply a nice guy. When I obtained the autograph reproduced here, he introduced himself to me! "Hi, I'm Louie." He was gracious to all who approached him.

YouTube, of course, has a video of Bellson playing his composition The Hawk Talks with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the early 50s.