Getting Down to Brass Facts

Ask cornetist-bandleader Bill Berry about his days with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and you’ll hear fascinating stories about how he first met Ellington in a dressing room at the Apollo Theatre, about saxophonist Johnny Hodges’ culinary expertise and what it was like traveling as the band’s only white musician through the then-segregated South.

But most of what you’ll hear from Berry is respect and admiration for his former boss, the great bandleader who died in 1974.

“Duke was pure magic. He really wasn’t anybody you could emulate. Everybody, including the guys who had been in the band for 40 years, were in awe of him. When he walked into a room, the room lit up. He was the only person I ever met that I knew right off the bat was a genius. There was no question about it.”

Such admiration makes it fitting that Berry’s L.A. Big Band will appear Sunday at the annual “Tribute to Duke Ellington” to be held at the Costa Mesa Red Lion Hotel.

“I saw him do things musically you wouldn’t believe,” Berry continued, during a phone call from his Toluca Lake home. “He could take his ideas to the orchestra and make them work.”

Berry, 66, was living in New York and working with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson when he was introduced to Ellington in 1961.

“This guy came into the club almost every night where we were playing and kept asking me, ‘Don’t you think you should meet Ellington?’ And I’d say, ‘Everybody should meet Ellington.’ Finally, we went up to the Apollo, where he was playing. I can still see the backstage door where they had this sign to the musicians that said, ‘Don’t ask to get your friends in for free.’

“We got right in, and I met Duke briefly in his dressing room, just a quick ‘hello, how do you do?’ Then we were climbing down this narrow, winding wrought-iron stairway from the dressing room and this guy stops me and asks me if I can go out with the band later that week. It turned out to be the band manager, and the guy I was with turned out to be Duke’s press agent. I said I’d have to give Maynard two weeks’ notice, but Maynard was gracious and let me go.”

Berry’s early ‘60s stint with Ellington came during the tumultuous battle for integration.

“I went through all the civil-rights era with Ellington. None of the bands were integrated except for Maynard’s. Not Basie’s. Not Ellington’s, really. But Duke and his band were way above all that. I stayed with them in the black hotels in the South and it was fine. [When faced with segregation] they took everything in stride. Ellington saw it as somebody else’s problem.”

Being the only white musician in the band gave Berry special responsibilities.

“There was this favorite truck stop just outside of Washington [D.C.] where we used to stop, the kind of place where they wouldn’t have let the Duke himself inside. I’d go in and order 50 hamburgers and 25 shakes to go.”

Food was a big issue with the Ellington band, Berry said, and especially with saxophonist Johnny Hodges.

“When you’re on the road all the time, when you’re never home, where and what you eat becomes very important.

“Johnny Hodges was a great cook and a great connoisseur of foods. He knew every good restaurant in the world. We were dining in Detroit one time and somebody from another table leaned over and looked at what we were eating and told the waiter, ‘That’s what I want.’ And the waiter said, ‘Sorry sir, but you can’t have any. That’s something Mr. Hodges had ordered special for the band.’ ”

Berry said it took him awhile after he left the band (the road grew old) to realize exactly what he’d learned from Ellington.

“I never really thought about it until last summer when I was on a panel with [trumpeter] Clark Terry and [drummer] Louie Bellson, and Clark said that everything he learned about leading a band he learned from Ellington, then Bellson agreed, and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s right. The whole way I operate comes from him.’ ”

After leaving Ellington in 1964, Berry began a long association with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. In 1971, when that orchestra needed a replacement for its regular Monday night appearance at New York’s Village Vanguard, Berry formed his first big band to fill the bill.

But later that same year, Berry, whose day job was with the “Merv Griffin Show” band, relocated to L.A. when the show moved. He formed another band, now known as the L.A. Big Band, which continues to make several Southland appearances each year.

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Berry had heart-bypass surgery in 1995, but it hasn’t slowed his pace. He travels as a soloist several times each year to Europe and Japan and, along with his wife, Betty, organizes the annual International Jazz Party, the seventh edition of which was held earlier this month in Los Angeles. When at home, he’s seen frequently on Sundays at Miceli’s in Hollywood.

Berry also continues to be active with the educational programs sponsored by the Monterey Jazz Festival, taking student bands to Europe and Japan each year. Graduates touched by the former Ellington trumpeter include saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Benny Green and bassist Larry Grenadier.

At the Ellington tribute, Berry and the 16-piece band (scheduled to include such notables as trumpeter Snooky Young, saxophonists Jackie Kelso, Herman Riley and Lanny Morgan, drummer Frank Capp and pianist Ross Tompkins) will play familiar Ellington tunes--”Take the A Train,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Rockin’ in Rhythm”--as well as some less familiar numbers, such as “Paris Blues” and longtime Ellington composer Billy Strayhorn’s “Blood Count.”

Singer Ernie Andrews will join the band for several numbers. Two dance floors will be provided. No doubt Ellington’s sophisticated presence will be felt.

“In a Sentimental Mood,” anyone?

* “Tribute to Duke Ellington,” with Bill Berry and the L.A. Big Band and singer Ernie Andrews, 6 to 10 p.m. Sunday, Red Lion Hotel, 3050 Bristol St., Costa Mesa. $20. (714) 553-9449.