Duke (85 page)

DE never read Ottley’s book:
DE, Harman interview, 1956.
“A place in the distant future”:
Ibid.
“A series of florid piano passages”:
Barry Ulanov, “Ellington’s Carnegie Hall Concert a Glorified Stage Show,”
Metronome,
Jan. 1944.

“To capture the character”:
The Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall Concerts: December 1944.
“A mix of (retitled) old and new compositions”:
van de Leur, 94.

“Organically larger form”:
Schuller,
The Swing Era,
150.

“We didn’t like the tone poems much”:
Jewell, 115.
“There is, however, the danger”:
Howard Taubman, “Ellington’s Band in Annual Concert,”
The New York Times,
Jan. 5, 1946.
“But for fans of the Duke’s ‘Mood Indigo’”:
“Music: Highbrow Blues,”
Time,
Jan. 14, 1946.

“Having the John Hammonds of the world”:
Cohen, 322. (DE said this to George Avakian.)

“Whether or not the concert”:
Abel Green, “Ellington, at B.O. and Musically, Niftily in Groove at Carnegie Hall Concert,”
Variety,
Jan. 27, 1943.
“The greatest pre-performance press”:
Grennard, “Ellington Preems Tone Poem at Carnegie Hall.”
The band’s annual gross:
EC. For a detailed discussion of DE’s financial status during this period, see Hasse, 272–74.
“I heard musicians made this kind of money”:
A Duke Named Ellington.

DE claimed to have lost $18,000:
Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” 245.

“Everyone seemed to think”:
Dance, 77.

“When I first joined that band”:
Crow, 142.
“The musicians trickled in very slowly”:
Avakian, oral-history interview.

Early in DE’s run at the Hurricane:
DE, Harman interview, 1964.
“Booking Ellington into Ciro’s”:
“Ciro’s, Hollyw’d, Books Ellington,”
Billboard,
Feb. 3, 1945.
“We don’t allow the help”:
Greer, oral-history interview.

“I remember getting off the train”:
Steve Voce, “Kay Davis: Singer Who Worked with Duke Ellington,”
Independent,
Feb. 28, 2012.

“I can’t afford to pay you”:
Büchmann-Møller, 98.
DE pulled the same trick on Dizzy Gillespie, failing to pay him for a 1959 recording session, then telling the trumpeter that “I can’t pay you what you’re really worth.” Gillespie was amused by his feint: “Whee, was that a cunning, elegant man! So I smile and I say, ‘Don’t give it no mind, Duke. Just so long as you
pay
me!’ And maybe a year later, he did” (Jewell, 74).
“He kids around with us”:
Hentoff, “This Cat Needs No Pulitzer Prize.”
“Duke was so involved with himself”:
George, 147.

“He would just play”:
Schuller,
Gunther Schuller,
185.

“When Duke was coming in”:
Jewell, 81.

“I saw so many women”:
Sherrill, oral-history interview.
“Shocking . . . the way the women kind of fell on their faces”:
Ruth Ellington, oral-history interview.
“He never seemed to be interested”:
Ellington, 127.
“It keeps my juices flowing”:
George, 155.

“Duke would check into two, three or four hotels”:
Ibid., 109. The authenticity of George’s anecdotes about DE’s sexual exploits obviously cannot be verified and has been widely questioned, but they are consistent in tone, subject matter, and language with the unpublished interviews that DE gave to Carter Harman in 1964.
Evie went after DE with a gun:
Ellington, 205.
(See also George, 139.)
“We can’t permit anything”:
George, 28.

“She did not allow Evie”:
Mercer Ellington, oral-history interview.
“I think Evie was his protection”:
Jacobs, oral-history interview.

“Duke Ellington, whose contours”:
Boyer, “The Hot Bach,” 214–15.
“Duke is six feet tall”:
Ibid., 222.
“I’ve had three educations”:
Ibid., 237.
“You have to try”:
Ibid., 218.
“As Bach says”:
Ibid., 226.

“Ellington has, like most entertainers”:
Ibid., 217.

Time
treated the poll as news:
“Music: Down Beat Poll,”
Time,
Jan. 13, 1941.
“Weird melodies”:
Undated advertisement, c. 1944, in Vail, 260.

“Because of my looks”:
Hajdu, 98.
“Hibbler’s no singer”:
Ulanov, 273.

“The figure $2,250”:
MM,
88–89. According to Claire Gordon, who was working for DE in 1943, it is possible that this additional royalty income had another source: “In the office, it seemed to be a good idea for me to get acquainted with Duke’s lesser-known, early compositions. There were several lists around the office. I compiled them into one super file and then started crosschecking with the ASCAP list. To my surprise, ASCAP did not credit eight or ten of Ellington’s songs. I typed a letter giving all the pertinent information: the name, date, publisher and recordings, if any, and sent them to the head office. Subsequently Duke received an ASCAP rating raise. This meant a check for several thousand more dollars a year for him. I don’t think he ever knew how that happened” (Gordon, 104).

The “dreaded medley”:
Max Jones claimed to have coined this phrase (Max Jones, oral-history interview).
“For one thing, the return of Eli Oberstein”:
“RCA Still Won’t Release the Duke,”
Variety,
Mar. 27, 1946.
“A little Saturday-night nigger music”:
McCuen, oral-history interview.

“Webster slapped Duke”:
Büchmann-Møller, 98.
“He just got drunk”:
George, 100.

“Highly strung”:
Jewell, 82.
“He had a habit”:
Terry, 139.
“He was very important to us”:
MM,
221.
“What is more, he became”:
Ibid., 222.
“There is no such thing”:
“New Musicians Mean a New Sound in My Band: Ellington,”
Down Beat,
Apr. 6, 1951.

“Probably unequaled by any other Negro band”:
“Duke Ellington Sealed to Musicraft 100G Deal While Still with RCA,”
Variety,
May 22, 1946.

“Duke Ellington—composer, conductor”:
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: The Treasury Shows,
vol. 1.
“No other dance band”:
Variety,
Apr. 18, 1945, quoted in Stratemann, 262.

“You don’t build a statue”:
Metronome,
undated clipping, c. Dec. 1946, in Vail, 287.
The headlines:
Paul Eduard Miller, “Is the Duke Declining? ‘Loss of Stars Killing His Band,’”
Hollywood Note,
July 1946; Bill Gottlieb, “‘I’m Not Slipping’—Duke Ellington: ‘My Current Ork Just as Good and Perhaps More Flexible,’ He Says,”
Down Beat,
June 17, 1946; Mike Levin, “Ellington Fails to Top Himself: Mix Finds Concert Good, Not Great,”
Down Beat,
Dec. 16, 1946.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“MORE A BUSINESS THAN AN ART”

SOURCES

Documents

DE, unpublished interviews with Carter Harman, 1956 and 1964, EC; Mercer Ellington, oral-history interview, OHAM; Norman Granz, oral-history interview, EC; Jimmy Jones, oral-history interview, EC;
Person to Person,
TV program, Mar. 15, 1957 (CBS); Gunther Schuller, liner notes for
Mirage: Avant-Garde and Third-Stream Jazz,
sound recording (New World);
What’s My Line?,
TV program, July 12, 1953 (CBS).

Books

Abbott,
“Mister Abbott”;
Cohen,
Duke Ellington’s America;
Dance,
Johnny Hodges;
Dance,
The World of Duke Ellington;
Dance,
The World of Jazz;
Duke,
Passport to Paris;
Ellington,
Duke Ellington in Person;
Franceschina,
Duke Ellington’s Music for the Theatre;
Gleason,
Celebrating the Duke;
Hajdu,
Lush Life;
Heath,
I Walked with Giants;
Houseman,
Front and Center;
Jewell,
Duke;
Schuller,
The Swing Era;
Simon,
Simon Says;
Stewart,
Boy Meets Horn;
van de Leur,
Something to Live For;
Wein,
Myself Among Others.

NOTES

An updated version of
The Beggar’s Opera:
The most detailed accounts of the making of
Beggar’s Holiday
are Daniel C. Caine, “A Crooked Thing: A Chronicle of
Beggar’s Holiday,
”
New Renaissance,
Fall 1986, and Franceschina, 59–75.
“
Beggar’s Holiday
was conceived”:
Perry Watkins, “Holiday Is Bi-Racial Production,”
Chicago Sun,
Apr. 6, 1947.

“I realized all of a sudden”:
Hajdu, 101.
“In fact, he wanted the recognition”:
Ibid.

John Latouche:
Latouche’s name is variously spelled “Latouche,” “La Touche,” and “LaTouche” in numerous primary sources, but the first version is accurate.
“Ever alert”:
Duke, 314.

“Latouche was not only lazy”:
Houseman, 191.

“Ellington would never leave his band”:
Hajdu, 101–2.
BS composed “Brown Penny”:
van de Leur, 98. Not only did he write the music, but the song’s lyrics were adapted (presumably by Latouche) from a poem by W.B. Yeats.
“Strayhorn would run up to the Duke’s apartment”:
Houseman, 192.

“The deed has been done”:
Caine, “A Crooked Thing.”
“The last twenty minutes”:
Houseman, 194. Some press accounts suggest that the last scene of the show was improvised throughout the run. See, for instance, Richard Harrington, “Duke Ellington’s Long-Lost ‘Holiday’: Smithsonian Revives Broadway Musical,”
The Washington Post,
Feb. 1, 1992.
“Something of an opera”:
“Twilight Alley,”
Billboard,
Dec. 14, 1946.

“I never saw Duke Ellington”:
Hajdu, 101–2.
“I think I could have made”:
Abbott, 217.

“Let appropriate salutes be fired”:
Brooks Atkinson, “The Play in Review: Beggar’s Holiday,”
The New York Times,
Dec. 27, 1946.
“The full-blooded musical score”:
“Three Musical Hits,”
Life,
Feb. 24, 1947.
“There are so many good tunes”:
Barry Ulanov,
Metronome,
undated clipping; reproduced in
DEMS Bulletin,
Sept.–Nov. 1992.
“It offers no really sympathetic character”:
Ibid.
“His fine settings look like a tombstone”:
Bentley, 7.