Casting
Duke Ellington
Money Johnson
Harry Carney
Barry Lee Hall
John Coles
Mercer Ellington
Vince Prudente
Art Baron
Chuck Connors
Russell Procope
Harold Minerve
Percy Marion
Paul Gonsalves
Harold Ashby
Joe Benjamin
Quintin White
Anita Moore
Sobre el programa...
The year 1973 saw a Belgian edition of the Jazz from Newport event, featuring one of the very last performances that the great Duke Ellington ever gave. He passed away less than a year later and one of jazz’s most important sparks of genius – the one that got the whole world swinging – faded out.
So-named “Duke” for his elegance and debonair image, he’d lost none of his charm by his mid-70s, addressing the audience with the words: “all the kids in the band want you to know that we do love you madly.” Indeed, it was Duke’s charm that held such appeal, but his ease belied a hard journey that began in Washington pool halls where he learnt to play piano as a teenager, and then as a young adult forced to play “jungle music” for all-white crowds on his way up.
The role model status he attained, therefore, was hard-won and he is often considered America’s greatest ever composer by those who see jazz as the nation’s classical music. A glance at this concert’s repertoire confirms it: standard after standard, with Duke penning almost every one. A great figure with an incalculable influence on modern music.
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