| Edward Kennedy Ellington was twelve years old when friends nicknamed him Duke, and in his thirties when he met a real one, in England. Not realizing that he was speaking to the Duke of York, the American Duke—the jazz great Duke Ellington—turned down the man’s request that he play a solo, opting to perform with his band instead. “All in all,” The New Yorker’s Richard O. Boyer recounted, the future King of England “had a bad time at the party,” having been rejected first by Ellington and then by Scotland Yard, which wouldn’t permit him to accompany the musician to a recording studio, citing the size of the crowd. Ellington—who died fifty years ago on Friday—appeared to be having more fun. The meeting of the Dukes took place in 1933, during Ellington’s first visit to Europe. The artist had been struggling at home. While jazz was keeping him rich amid the Depression, and fans continued fawning drunkenly over him despite Prohibition, Ellington was tired of performing at the Cotton Club, the Harlem night spot he’d helped inaugurate after some string-pulling by the Mob. Not for the last time, Boyer wrote, the musician’s overseas travels would deliver a “European cure,” a rejuvenation of artistry and spirit beyond the reach of American race laws. The three-part Profile, published in 1944, captures Ellington at a high point in his popularity, and his reluctance to discuss the contradiction between his cultural standing and second-class legal status. “You can say anything you want on the trombone,” Ellington told his interviewer, “but you gotta be careful with words.” | 
No comments:
Post a Comment