Duke Ellington Study Group conferences – ELLINGTON GALAXY: Recent Episodes
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Today is the Maestro’s 121st birthday and the members of the Duke Ellington Society of Sweden join members of other Ellington societies and Ellington fans in general in paying tribute to the memory of one of the most extraordinary personalities of jazz and music in the 20th century . The DESS Bulletin, the DESS website … Continue reading →
Phil Schaap was a frequent contributor to the Ellington conferences. We have already published his presentations at the Stockholm ’94 conference and here is the one he gave in Copenhagen in 1992. The topic for Schaap’s presentation was “After Duke: Six Ellington Sidement in Their Years After Leaving The Band”. The six sidemen selected for … Continue reading →
Wolfram Knauer, Director of the Jazzinstutut Darmstadt, did his first appearance at an Ellington Study Group Conference in Copenhagen in 1992. He had chosen to talk about Simulated Improvisation in Black, Brown and Beige. The presentation built on an article Dr. Knauer had published in the journal The Black Perspective in Music in 1990. In … Continue reading →
Duke Ellington recorded Tiger Rag for the first time on January 8, 1929 for Brunswick. It was an extended version, which was issued on a 12 inch 78 (Brunswick 6510) At the Ellington ’92 conference in Copenhagen, Dan Morgenstein – Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University for more than 30 years … Continue reading →
Brian Priestly was also one of the speakers at the Ellington ’92 conference in Copenhagen. Photo Bjarne Busk He talked about “Ellington The Pianist”. During the 45 minutes presentation, Priestly played eight Ellington recordings with the piano at the centre and used them to highlight different aspects of Ellington’s piano playing. From time to time, … Continue reading →
Another theme of the Copenhagen conference was “Remembering Duke”, which allowed speakers to share the memories of Duke and experiences from working with him. The first speaker on this theme was Leonard Feather, who of course had a lot to tell about his memories of Duke but also about himself. Feather’s presentation also gave those, … Continue reading →
The Danish bass player and radioman Erik Moseholm was another speaker on this theme. His topic was the Danish bass tradition and the inspiration of Ellington’s basists on it. He talked about the guitarist/basist Niels Foss the first major Danish bass player, Oscar Pettiford, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and of course about himself. The classical bass … Continue reading →
The 10th Ellington Study Group Conference took place in Copenhagen May 28-31, 1992. The lead organisers of the conference were Arnvid Meyer, Niels Toft and Karl Emil Knudsen – three leading figures in the Danish jazz and Ellington community. They organised the conference together with the recently founded “The Scandinavian Duke Ellington Society – Danish … Continue reading →
On June 24 – just before the summer break – we published the first part of “The Extended Ellington” concert, which ended the third day of the Ellington ’88 conference. The second part of the concert starts with what is the “world premiere performance” of The Queen’s Suite. It refers to the fact that this … Continue reading →
In 1974, Brian Priestly – jazz writer and pianist among other things – and the arranger and composer Alan Cohen wrote what Mark Tucker has labelled “the first serious analytical article on Black, Brown and Beige”. In the early 1970’s, they spent considerable time listening to and transcribing several recordings of the suite and they … Continue reading →