Duke Ellington’s Music Still Sweetly Thunders

Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington would have been 91 today.

In a very real sense, however, the Duke lives on today through his music as it resounds in some 50 compact discs, in hundreds of tribute albums, and in concerts by the still-splendid orchestra that Mercer Ellington took over when his father died in May, 1974.

Ellington’s admirers have worked to elevate his image from that of a popular songwriter to a more significant role as composer/arranger of orchestral works, from three-minute masterpieces such as “Ko-Ko” and “Harlem Airshaft” to extended pieces such as “Black, Brown & Beige,” “A Tone Parallel to Harlem,” “The Far East Suite” and “Night Creature” (this last recorded by the band in tandem with the Stockholm and Paris symphonies).

“He is respected more than ever today; this has a lot to do with the increased awareness of the greatness of black artists in general--musicians, painters, writers,” says jazz composer, arranger and band leader Toshiko Akiyoshi. “The jazz community always recognized him, but now there is more understanding of the contribution of black artists to society.

“After his death, I suddenly realized that he was very proud of his race, and some of his music was an expression of that pride.”

“In 20th-Century music, Duke Ellington is finally recognized as one of the half-dozen greatest masters of our time,” says composer and historian Gunther Schuller.

While San Francisco is staging the jazz world’s major event of the day, other celebrations are planned in New York and elsewhere. In Los Angeles, the local branch of the Ellington Society will hold its annual birthday meeting while in Washington, Ellington’s natal town, members of a jazz ensemble from the city’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts will offer a brief program of his music at his birth site, now known as the Duke Ellington Building.

San Francisco: McHenry Boatwright will be one of the singers at Grace Cathedral when the Ellington Orchestra today celebrates the 25th anniversary of Duke’s first sacred recital.

Reached in Copenhagen, where he lives when not touring with the orchestra, Mercer Ellington said: “This will be similar to the concert Pop gave when Dean Bartlett invited him to Grace Cathedral in 1965. We’ll have some of the same artists--Bunny Briggs, the singer and dancer, and narration by Brock Peters. Lil Greenwood, who sang with the band in the ‘60s, will be back, and we’ll revive ‘New World A-Comin’, a piano concerto, which Pop played originally. It will be performed by someone Ruth discovered--Lillianne Questel, a classical pianist from Haiti.”

The sacred concerts fell far short of the critical acclaim for which their composer had hoped. Some observers felt they were overloaded with vocals and that lyric writing was not Duke’s forte. Still, these presentations were central to Ellington’s thoughts in his final decade. There were three sets of religious works, two of which were performed in many houses of prayer; the third, completed when Duke was terminally ill with cancer, was presented at Westminster Abbey exactly seven months before his death.

New York: “We’ll have several observances here,” said Ruth Ellington Boatwright, Duke’s sister. “As always, Pastor John Gensel will preside over the Jazz Vespers at St. Peter’s Church.” (Gensel, a close friend of Duke and longtime pastor to the jazz community, was the subject of an Ellington composition, “The Shepherd Who Watches Over the Night Flock.”)

Following the Vespers, the New York chapter of the Duke Ellington Society will present a program of his music by Joe Temperley, the Scots-born musician who took over the late Harry Carney’s chair with Ellington in 1974. (Carney, the preeminent baritone saxophonist, was in the band for 47 years, loyal to the end.)

One tribute to the maestro is literally monumental. A 20-foot tall bronze sculpture, topped off by a life-size Ellington standing at a grand piano, has been completed and is awaiting placement in its designated site at the northeast entrance to Central Park in Manhattan.

The statue was a dream of Bobby Short, the singer and pianist who over the past few years, as president of the Duke Ellington Memorial Fund, has organized a series of fund-raisers to pay the million-dollar fee to sculptor Robert Graham. “It’s in his studio now,” Short said in a call from New York. “That area of the park is being completely renovated and relandscaped. We have Mayor Dinkins on our side, helping to expedite it, and we hope to have the statue in place by the end of this year--or at least by Duke’s next birthday.”

Ottawa: From May 17-20, the eighth annual Duke Ellington Conference will be held at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa. Former Ellingtonians will reminisce about Duke and his perennial associate Billy Strayhorn (composer of the band’s theme, “Take the A Train,” and close collaborator from 1939 until his death in 1967). Alice Babs, the Swedish diva who sang and many Ellington concerts, will come out of retirement. Harold Ashby will be there, as will Ellington educator Kenny Burrell.

* JAZZ LISTINGS: Page 92