Spring 1999 Volume XXVIII, No. 2

Defining American Music by David Nicholls Post-Canonical Ellington by Mark Tucker Elliott Carter at 90+ by John F. Link Persona non grata: Frank Zappa's Orchestral Subculture by Arved Ashby The Eclectic World of Tom McDermott by Edward A. Berlin ISAM Matters Reviews Twentieth-Century Originals by Wayne Alpern Cage, Notation, and Theatre by Jon Erickson Country and Gospel Notes by Charles Wolfe ISAM Home

Post-Canonical Ellington by Mark Tucker Amidst the crescendo of praise marking the Ellington centennial celebration, something important is being forgotten: Duke Ellington was not just a “Great American Composer.” It’s astonishing to have to remind anyone of this. During his lifetime, after all, Ellington was known throughout the world as an urbane, gracious entertainer who led a superb big band, played piano, and engaged in playful banter from the stage–instructing audiences on the proper technique for snapping fingers and reminding them that he did love them madly. This was the Ellington familiar to my parents, who grew up during the 1930s and 40s dancing to “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and “Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me.” This was the Ellington I saw in 1972 at a concert in New Haven, Connecticut: a distinguished though weary-looking bandleader playing what sounded to my untutored ears like popular music from an earlier era–not “classic” works of art. But after Ellington’s death in 1974 something changed.  Reissues of Ellington’s recordings–like the series of Smithsonian compilations put out by critic Martin Williams, focusing on the years 1938-41–presented the music as a series of stunning “masterpieces.” When the jazz repertory movement picked up steam in the 1980s and 90s, Ellington emerged as its patron saint: the figure more than any other who had left an enduring body of music that deserved to be recreated note-for-note in live performance. The increased support of jazz by foundations and powerful cultural organizations further reinforced Ellington’s image as Great Composer.  Here was a jazz musician who looked reassuringly familiar to those who had never heard of Archie Shepp or the Five Spot–an internationally acclaimed composer who had performed suites, concertos, and tone poems in concert halls from Toronto to Tokyo. Skeptics who required convincing that jazz was a noble and serious musical tradition needed only gaze upon Edward Kennedy Ellington to see the light. Now as we honor the man in his centennial year, his transformation into a classical composer is virtually complete. His recorded “masterpieces” are slowly finding their way into print, with pieces getting transcribed, edited, arranged, and published as scores for performance and study. Scholars researching Ellington can go to the Smithsonian and pore over his original manuscripts in the archives. Concert-goers hear “Come Sunday” and “Harlem” mixed in with their Mozart and Brahms. In many ways, these are positive developments. Ellington would not be receiving such attention if he didn’t deserve it. And it’s sweet revenge, for during his long creative career Ellington repeatedly faced prejudice from those who didn’t take him or his art seriously–like the notoriously blinkered Pulitzer prize committee that denied him an award in 1965. So why not applaud wildly as Ellington settles down for a long afterlife in the pantheon of Great Composers?  Quite simply, because he doesn’t fit comfortably there. He was the first to acknowledge this, in fact. In 1944, soon after his first two appearances at Carnegie Hall, Ellington wrote a magazine article (reprinted in The Duke Ellington Reader) on the subject of his relationship to classical composers. His tone is both perplexed and proud. He doesn’t understand why comparisons are being drawn between his work and that of the European masters (“I am not writing classical music”), but at the same time emphatically affirms the importance of home-grown idioms: “Jazz, swing, jive and every other musical phenomenon of American musical life are as much an art medium as are the most profound works of the famous classical composers.” What he finds especially objectionable is the well-meaning (but patronizing) practice of critics seeking to draw connections between his music and that of great composers from the past: “To attempt to elevate the status of the jazz musician by forcing the level of his best work into comparisons with classical music is to deny him his rightful share of originality.” This was not simply a defensive posture resulting from insecurity on Ellington’s part. It was a declaration of indepen-dence. Ellington knew exactly who he was, where he came from, and what he was trying to accomplish. Earlier in his career he had deliberately chosen not to attend a music conservatory. “They’re not teaching what I want to learn,” he explained to one of his mentors, the conductor and composer Will Marion Cook. The people Ellington looked to for inspiration were not Bach and Beethoven, but his own band members, friends and family, outstanding black artists like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Bert Williams, and Mahalia Jackson, and the ordinary citizens he celebrated in such works as Black, Brown and Beige and “My People.” Yet the current misperception of Ellington goes beyond this historical confusion over his identity. It stems from a basic inability (or reluctance) of people to view him whole. Understanding the multiple identities that defined Ellington as a musician requires seeing them as different-colored threads tightly interwoven: together they combine to form the larger pattern. So how to reclaim the Ellingtons that have been lost through his posthumous canonization as Great Composer? One way is to go back and read what the man had to say about himself. The portrait that emerges from his memoirs Music Is My Mistress, for example, is complex and multi-dimensional.  Repeatedly he addresses the various musical roles he is called upon to play–composing, arranging, conducting–writing at one point that all are “interdependent on each other,” elsewhere implying they are virtually interchangeable: “None is as important as–or more important than–the one being enjoyed at the moment.” Then there are recordings. A short discographical expedition provides ample proof that the Great Composer niche is far too restrictive for Ellington. Consider a half-dozen other leading roles he played with distinction: The Bandleader: Ellington’s remarkable ability to inspire and motivate his musicians can be heard most readily in live recordings. Away from the pressures of the studio, both Ellington and his fellow band members loosened up and enjoyed themselves. Soloists played with more fire. The brass and reed sections remained tight but their phrases breathed more. The rhythm section swung harder–especially the extroverted drummer Sonny Greer (with Ellington from 1924 to 1951), who often held back in the studio. Compare the original 1941 studio recording of “Jumpin’ Punkins” (The Blanton-Webster Band, RCA/Bluebird), for example, to the band’s 1943 performance of the same tune in Carnegie Hall (The Carnegie Hall Concerts (January 1943), Prestige); not only has the tempo picked up in the later recording, but Greer now plays his breaks with much more animation and flair. Partly this difference results from the dynamic performer-audience relationship in a live setting. But also, by 1943 the Ellington band had lived with “Jumpin’ Punkins” for a while and knew the arrangement intimately. Ellington’s studio recordings, by contrast, often preserved versions of pieces before they had properly gelled through repeated performance. To hear the Ellington band in its full glory before a live audience, listen to Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra, Fargo, North Dakota, November 7, 1940 (Vintage Jazz Classics), where the familiar “masterpieces” recorded for Victor that year–“Ko-Ko,” “Cotton Tail,” “Warm Valley,” and the rest–come alive and rock the house. Also recommended are Ellington at Newport (Columbia) from 1958, Duke Ellington & His Orchestra–Live at Newport 1958 (Columbia/Legacy), the All Star Road Band sessions (Sony), and The Great Paris Concert (Atlantic) from 1963. The Band Pianist: In the 1930s, Ellington (like Count Basie) retooled his solo Harlem stride style to make it more effective in a large-ensemble context. He dropped the left hand’s steady oom-pah accompaniment and began filling spaces with expertly timed chords, inserting riff figures high in the treble, and generally using the keyboard to give cues, set tempos, and energize rhythms. Partly due to improvements in the recording process, Ellington’s strengths as a band pianist emerge most forcefully in the later years. On The Far East Suite–Special Mix (RCA/Bluebird), recorded in 1968, he’s in especially fine form. Listen to his masterful performance on “Depk,” in which he echoes and anticipates phrases in the horns, tugs against their rhythms, and plays single-notes with such intensity they sound like full chords. On “Ad Lib on Nippon,” an extended minor blues bristling with dissonance, he drives the band forward with pounding low-register chords. Ellington Indigos (Columbia) also features excellent ensemble work by Ellington in a program of well-known pop songs and several of his own standards (including a gorgeous, meditative piano introduction on “Solitude”). The Small-Group Pianist: Ellington’s skills as an ensemble pianist emerge with even greater clarity in more intimate settings. The small-group sessions Ellington made with alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges in the late 1950s (released by Verve as Back to Back and Side by Side) attest to his highly effective comping style. Instead of the jabbing, spare, rhythmically unpredictable comping of postwar bop players, Ellington favored an older, more orchestral approach, sustaining chords like the reed section or punching out brass-like hits between a soloist’s phrases. There are many opportunities to hear Ellington holding forth in trio settings, as well. Beyond the justly celebrated Piano Reflections (Capitol Jazz), he teams up with bass and drums on Piano in the Foreground (Columbia), Duke Ellington–The Pianist (Fantasy), and Money Jungle (Blue Note/Capitol). On this last disc–featuring Charles Mingus on bass and Max Roach on drums–Ellington plays with wild abandon. The pressure of the date and volatile combination of personalities brought out some of the most aggressive pianism of his career. Paring down even further, there are Ellington’s duets, most often with bassists. The half-dozen sides he made with Jimmy Blanton in 1940-41, available on Duke Ellington: Solos, Duets and Trios (RCA/Bluebird), have a relaxed, jam-session feel to them, even when arrangements were worked out in advance (e.g., “Pitter Panther Patter”). The piano duets on Great Times! Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (Riverside) are breezy and informal; they present Ellington not in his guise as “genius composer” but as a quick-thinking jazz player improvising in the moment. The Solo Pianist: There are not many of these recordings overall, but hearing Ellington alone is a good reminder of his early musical roots growing up in Washington, D.C., then absorbing the lessons of Harlem stride in New York during the 1920s. “Black Beauty” and “Swampy River,” his first solo sides recorded in 1928 (Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: 1928, Classics), show the impact of Fats Waller and Willie “The Lion” Smith, while “Lots O’ Fingers” from 1932 (Reflections in Ellington, Everybodys) reveals a degree of virtuosity not usually associated with Ellington. A very different solo style–introspective and impressionistic–emerges in the later decades, as heard in the haunting “Meditation” from the Second Sacred Concert (Fantasy). The Arranger: Ellington didn’t devote his writing energies solely to coming up with pathbreaking compositions. Together with Strayhorn, he often turned his attention to revamping music written by others, whether pop songs, dance numbers, or classical works like Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody and suites by Tchaikovsky and Grieg. Recollections of the Big Band Era (Atlantic Jazz) gives a solid sampling of Ellington’s and Strayhorn’s arranging abilities and wit. If you’ve never heard the Ellington band cover songs by Guy Lombardo, Fred Waring, and waltz-Meister Wayne King, this is your chance. Ellington also displayed creative arranging talents in revisiting his own earlier pieces. “The New East St. Louis Toodle-Oo” and “The New Black and Tan Fantasy” (both on Duke Ellington–Reminiscing in Tempo, Columbia/Legacy) offer instructive examples of this updating process at work, as does the album Masterpieces by Ellington (Columbia), featuring extended treatments (by Ellington and Strayhorn) of the song hits “Mood Indigo,” “Sophisticated Lady,” and “Solitude.” The Popular Songwriter: Songs hold a prominent place in Ellington’s output. In recent writing on Ellington, they’re often passed over or treated as secondary in importance to his instrumental compositions. But they certainly weren’t secondary to Ellington’s audiences, and he featured them nightly for their listening and dancing pleasure. Beyond the Ellington evergreens everyone knows and plays, there are many others that show his melodic gifts and mood-painting abilities. Some of my favorites are “I’m So In Love with You” (1930) from the Cotton Club period, “I Never Felt That Way Before” (1940), “Jump for Joy” (1941) from the musical of the same name, “I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So” (1946), and “Brown Penny” from the musical Beggar’s Holiday (1947). There’s no need to make inflated claims for these songs as great works of art. They’re simply engaging, attractive pieces that deserve consideration in any discussion of Ellington’s contributions to American music. How should we pay homage to Ellington this centennial year? Let’s recognize the immense scope of his artistic vision and marvel at the full range of his talents. He left an extraordinary musical legacy. Taking the broadest possible measure of its dimensions is the best birthday gift we can offer in return. –Mark Tucker College of William and Mary