Jazz

“Tell ’em what happened! Tell ‘em what happened!” Duke Ellington exhorts Johnny “Jeep” Hodges in this 1957 performance of “Jeep’s Blues,” at a dance concert in Carrolton, Pennsylvania. A...

Be among the first to view (bird’s eye, as it were) Duke Ellington and Stephane Grappelli playing a medley that includes “Solitude,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t...

Duke Ellington’s first appearance at what was then called The New Orleans Jazz Festival and Louisiana Heritage Fair took place in 1970.  It was the third annual jazz festival in New Orleans, but the...

A Magnificent Suite Inspired by a Tour Touched by Tragedy It impressed me as a teen listening to Duke Ellington’s Great Paris Concert when he announced at the end of “Jam With Sam” that trumpeter...

Sitting In With Duke in Paris When I visited the University of Massachusetts in 1975 to look into returning to college, one of the first faculty members I met with was Archie Shepp.  I’d been astonished...

New England Milestones Duke Ellington, whose 117th birthday anniversary is today, is rightly identified with the City of New York. The Washington, D.C. native made his first foray into the Big Apple...

The Mediterranean Off the Coast of Sardinia, December 2018 My brother David, who lives in Paris, took this photograph during a trip he made to Sardinia after Christmas. His email subject line read “Azure,”...

Call me provincial, but hearing Duke Ellington announce, “Harry Carney has come all the way from Boston, Massachusetts to lead us now into ‘Jam With Sam’,” and his closing allusion...

Duke Ellington, whose 115th birthday anniversary is today, is rightly identified with the City of New York. The Washington, D.C. native made his first foray into the Big Apple in 1922, and from 1923...

Duke Jordan With all due respect to the great records he made as a leader, whenever Duke Jordan comes to mind, I think first of the intro he played on Charlie Parker’s “Embraceable You.” The Gershwin...