Jazz Perspectives Ellington Special Issue
Introduction

“I have no interest in posterity,” Ellington famously wrote in his autobiography Music is My Mistress 1 (he had resented the idea of an autobiography, too). While this was not the first time he suggested his music would perish with him, it may be that in the end he was somewhat less indifferent to his musical legacy than he had so firmly stated. After all, he saw to it that his comic opera Queenie Pie (1974), written when he was terminally ill, would be premiered posthumously. He also knew that his music scores had been carefully archived by Thomas Whaley, his musical aide-de-camp and copyist since 1941. This impressive collection of written music would become publicly available after it was moved to the Smithsonian Institution in 1988, together with other documents and objects. In addition, there were his recordings for the so-called stockpile: sessions Ellington had paid for out of his own pocket, many of which still were shelved at the time of his passing. Part of these materials were indeed issued in the ensuing years. While Ellington may have silently anticipated that there might be a future of sorts for his music, it is unlikely that could have foreseen the wealth of recordings, reissues, and print publications that materialized in the four decades after his death.

Several related groups have been active in safeguarding Ellington's legacy. First and foremost there are the numerous fans and collectors of Ellington's music, who have partly organized themselves in so-called Ellington Societies, with newsletters, regular meetings and annual international and local conferences since the 1980s. Some notable societies are in Washington DC (TDES Chapter 90), New York (TDES, Inc), Southern California (DESSC), Sweden (DESS), and England (DESUK).2 Since collectors need to know what is available, some of them have become discographers, who have published discographies in print3 and on the internet,4 while others provide corrections, additions and discussions in printed or web-published newsletters. The most impressive of these is DEMS-Bulletin, the platform of the Duke Ellington Music Society, founded by Benny Aasland and continued after his death by the late Sjef Hoefsmit.5 In the wake of the discographies came the work of those who look at Ellington's itineraries. Among these are Klaus Stratemann's Duke Ellington Day by Day and Film by Film 6 (a filmography as well), and Ken Vail's Duke's Dairy, Part 1 and 2: The Life of Duke Ellington, 1927–1974.7

While the discographies are aimed at the specialist record collector, the general audience will mostly seek out biographies and more interpretative studies of Ellington's life and music. Biographical books started to appear as early as 1946.8 The most famous biographical text is Ellington's earlier mentioned autobiography, co-written with Stanley Dance.9 This at times cryptic book is witty and informative, even though it merely talks about the people Ellington worked with, rather than about the maestro himself. Huon's out of print index is an indispensable addition.10 First-hand memoirs of Ellington's side-men—from his son Mercer11 to cornettist Rex Stewart12—have been published, next to more general biographies such as the ill-researched book by James Lincoln Collier,13 the richly illustrated Beyond Category by John Hasse,14 or more topical texts such as Janna Tull Steed's “spiritual biography”15 and Stuart Nicholson's Reminiscing In Tempo, which is almost entirely made up of quotes.16 With the exception of Collier's rather hostile views of Ellington, many biographies border on the hagiographic, and often seem more vested in repeating myths about the man and his music than providing new insights (possibly the most curious of these being The Piano Prince and His Orchestra, aimed at children17). Highly recommended is Mark Tucker's Duke Ellington Reader, a smartly compiled collection of texts on Ellington, which shows how debates around the man and his music changed over time.

Musicological analysis of Ellington's music started with Hodeir's 1954 close-reading of Concerto for Cootie,18 which became a model for future jazz analyses, such as the two tomes by Gunther Schuller19—each with detailed chapters on Ellington—Mark Tucker's exemplary Early Ellington and the seriously flawed Duke Ellington: Jazz Composer by Rattenbury.20 At the time of these publications, there were no published scores of Ellington's music, while the autographs currently housed at the Smithsonian Institution's Duke Ellington Collection (established in 1988) were not yet available. Therefore these authors relied on transcription, with varying success. Published scores are still a problem: they are rare and tend to be geared towards performance: critical editions of the orchestra's oeuvre are still badly needed. The best performance editions are those by David Berger, who draws both on surviving scores and parts and on astute record transcriptions. These scores are partly available in the Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington program. Still, the poor availability of scores to the general student of Ellingtonia is one of my pet peeves: to me it is incomprehensible that no program has been set up to create annotated editions of the orchestra's music (and for that matter, the music of many other jazz orchestras as well). As I wrote a decade ago,

an unrecorded and forgotten legacy, including works such as a multi-part early-thirties Cotton Club show, lies dormant in archival boxes. It makes one wonder what jazz musicology is waiting for—just to think what would happen if in some archive five hitherto unknown Beethoven symphonies would turn up.21

A new branch of publications comes from the field of critical musicology and social studies. Scholars from these fields try to understand Ellington and his music within its historical context. Among these are Harvey Cohen's Duke Ellington's America (reviewed in this volume), John Howland's highly recommended Ellington Uptown 22 and David Schiff's The Ellington Century. No less than three volumes with essays along these lines are forthcoming: two edited by Howland and one edited by Ed Green.23

The present volume of Jazz Perspectives is a collection of essays that seeks to document the current state of Ellington research. The contributions show how the sources at the Duke Ellington Collection as well as methodologies developed in critical musicology, social studies and media studies are shaping and reshaping our understanding of Ellington as composer, performer and cultural icon.

As we were preparing this volume, the world of Ellingtonia lost two eminent Ellington scholars: archivist Annie K. Kuebler and discographer-publicist Sjef Hoefsmit. They are dearly missed. I sincerely hope that their work will inspire future generations of jazz researchers.

Notes

¹Edward Kennedy Ellington and Stanley Dance (ed.). Music is My Mistress. (New York: Double Day, 1973), 459.

²These local societies' the acronyms indicate affiliation with The Duke Ellington Society (TDES).

³Such as Benny Aasland, The “Wax Works” of Duke Ellington (Danderyd: Aasland, 1954), Dick Bakker, Duke Ellington on Microgroove, 1923-1942 (Alphen aan den Rijn: Micrography, 1974), W.E. Timner, Ellingtonia: The Recorded Music of Duke Ellington and His Sidemen (4th Ed.) (Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1996), Jerry Valburn, The Directory of Duke Ellington's Recordings. (New York: Marlor Productions, 1986) and Luciano Massagli and Giovanni M. Volonté, The New DESOR, Vol 1 & 2: An Updated Edition of Duke Ellington's Story on Records, 1924–1974. (Milano: NP, 1999).

⁴For an overview of Ellington on the web see http://ellingtonweb.ca. Accessed 10/24/2012.

⁵Available online at http://www.depanorama.net/dems/. Accessed 10/24/2012.

⁶Klaus Stratemann, Duke Ellington: Day by Day and Film by Film (Copenhagen: JazzMedia, 1992).

⁷Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002.

⁸Barry Ulanov, Duke Ellington (New York: Creative Age Press. 1946).

⁹ Op. cit.

¹⁰H.F. Huon, The Index to Duke Ellington's Music is My Mistress (Pewaukee: QED-Co, 1980).

¹¹Mercer Ellington, Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir (New York: Da Capo, 1987).

¹²Rex Stewart, and Claire P. Gordon, (ed). Boy Meets Horn. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).

¹³James Lincoln Collier, Duke Ellington (New York: Oxford UP, 1987). For a critical review see Tucker, Notes Second Series, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Mar., 1989), pp. 499–502.

¹⁴John Edward Hasse, Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).

¹⁵Janna Tull Steed, Duke Ellington: A Spiritual Biography (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1999).

¹⁶Stuart Nicholson, Reminiscing in Tempo: A Portrait of Duke Ellington (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1999).

¹⁷Andrea Davis Pinkney, Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra (New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 1998).

²¹Walter Van de Leur, Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn. (New York: Oxford UP, 2002).

¹⁸Originally published in André Hodeir, Hommes et Problemes du Jazz (Paris: Flammarion, 1954), reprinted in Mark Tucker, The Duke Ellington Reader (New York: Oxford UP, 1993).

¹⁹Gunther Schuller, The History of Jazz Vol I: Early Jazz. Its Roots and Musical Development (New York: Oxford UP, 1968) and The History of Jazz Vol II: The Swing Era. The Development of Jazz, 1930–1945 (New York: Oxford UP, 1989).

²⁰Ken Rattenbury, Duke Ellington, Jazz Composer. (New Haven: Yale, 1990). For insightful reviews see Scott DeVeaux, in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 121–135, and Andrew Homzy, in Notes, Second Series, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Jun., 1992), pp. 1241–1246.

²²John Howland, Ellington Uptown: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and the Birth of Concert Jazz. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009).

²³John Howland, (ed). Duke Ellington. (Princeton: Princeton UP, forthcoming); John Howland, (ed). Duke Ellington Studies Anthology. (New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); Green, Ed. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington. (New York: Cambridge University Press, in press).