The great Duke Ellington & His Orchestra perform the V.I.P.'s Boogie (1951) on this three-minute Snader Telescription.
Duke introduces the song himself, standing with microphone in hand, sweetly assuring us, "Very important persons naturally means you," us, the people who love his music.
He then begins introducing members of the band, one by one, each getting a little solo performance before Duke introduces the next musician -- Harry Carney on sax, Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet, Wade Cook on trumpet, Paul Gonsalves on sax, Britt Woodman on trumbone, Russell Procope on sax, Cat Anderson on trumpet, Quentin Jackson on mute trumbone, Willie Smith on sax.
 Any type of soundie or transcription with Duke Ellington is going to be good, but this one's a bit special for the individual introductions.
Other of Duke's telescriptions include Caravan (1952). Among the excellent solo moments (violin, clarinet) scattered through this four minutes of performance, the greatest is by the song's composer Juan Tizol, on valve trumbone. He gives it a truly exotic desert romance sense, really an ideal composition for his instrument.
This Snader telescription came with the date 1950 on it, but I think Willie Smith began recording with Ellington in 1951, & the Ellington sessions for the Snaders was March 14, 1952.
The jukebox soundies of the previous decade were pre-recorded with singers lip-syncing & bands hoping to match their silently filmed performance to the pre-recorded performance, so they dared not experiment or interpret or the visual wouldn't match up with the audio.
The transcriptions however are genuine performances & some of them are considered fairly important recordings, including Mood Indigo (1952), which is an arrangement unique to this performance.
It begins with an experimental rampage on Ellington's piano, then right into the slow melodic trumbones & sax which it will return to near the end. Enter clarinet solo, followed by muted trumpet solo, & Duke's solo.
Ah, the beauty of it. It's like a dream. I have a dark blue rhododendron growing in my garden, a cultivar named "Mood Indigo" after Ellington's number. When in full bloom, it really does just about equal the beauty of Ellington, the man & the song.
Staged as though it's an impromptu performance after hours at the Harlem Cats Eatery, Duke Ellington & His Orchestra star in Jam Session (1942).
Ellington made five soundies released in 1942, the filming beginning about mid-November of '51. These would be the last time Ellington was filmed with the Blanton-Webster Band, though already bassist Jimmy Banton has left, & Ben Webster would soon leave as well. Duke's orchestra & the Blanton-Webster Band were one & the same from 1939 to 1942, helping sustain a high watermark for Duke's arrangements.
Jam Session is a wonderful jukebox soundie with moments showcasing Ray Nance on violin, Rex Stewart on trumbone, Ben Webster on sax, Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton on trumbone, Barney Bigard on clarinet, & Sonny Greer on drum kit.
The number is actually called "C Jam Blues" & gives everyone their moment in the moonlight. As the camera follows around the cafe from performer to performer, people start wandering in from the street, including some babes, two of whom Duke leaves with at the end.
In 2001, Jam Session was added to the National Film Treasury catalog of American films with cultural importance. Since I'm a great lover of soundies, it is just so great to see the National Film Preservation Board took notice too.
 Flamingo (1942) is a fine example of how very much can be fitted into a single three-minute soundie. Not all soundies honestly rise to the level of quality cinema but this one's a great short-subject.
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra perform with Herb Jeffreys on the crooner's vocal solo: "Flamingo, like a flame in the sky/ Flying over the island/ To my lover nearby."
Like so many fine Ellington numbers, it has the feel of far off exotic places of beauty & romance.
Jump-cut to a little set evoking a tropical islan, we see dancers Janet Collins & Talley Beatty of the Katherine Dunham dance troup, playing island miss & sailor in such a hot erotic piece of choreography.
The dancers pretty much make this soundie their own, & stealing the spotlight from a couple guys like Ellington & Jeffreys takes a lot of gumption.
 With the Duke Ellington orchestra backing them up, singer-dancers Marie Bryant & Paul White peform on Bli-Bip (1942), a number written by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Sid Kuller.
The song debuted in 1941 in the Jump for Joy Review launched at the Mayan in Los Angeles, & Bryant & White are from the original cast.
We don't physically see Duke or his orchestra in this; it focuses on the singing & dancing of this charming pair, in a soda fountain setting.
The jitterbug number is full of wonderful scat lyrics & Paul White sings it & dances it for its humor. But Marie Bryant treats the the song a bit more seroiusly: "My love for you's intense/ Even if it don't make sense/ Bli-blip bah-beh flam flam flam hip-da-babaloo bayem."
 There've been others to interpret these wild lyrics, including most famously Ella Fitzgerald, but Bryant & White are from the original cast of the Jump for Joy Review.
Ivie Anderson sings the title song I Got it Bad & That Ain't Good (1942) for Duke Ellington & His Orchestra. Ivie would like the Blanton-Webster Band would not be with Duke after this, & her wonderful performance can be considered a farewell.
Ivie's leaning from a window overlooking a rooftop where Duke & the Orchestra perform against a stylized cityscape backdrop.
As she sings the bluesy jazz number, the picture momentarily fades into a memory of the singer & her boyfriend at home, she adoring, he indifferent. This little reenactment is performed by Ivie & Duke Ellington himself.
Returning to the rooftop we see her man, Duke, surrounded by babes as he plays his piano. Other band members are now slow-dancing with their gorgeous girlfriends, everyone in a moody mood.
The song is called "Cottontail" but the soundie was titled Hot Chocolate (1941), putting the song title in parenthesis, this & Jam Sessionbeing rare example of a soundie not titled for the specific song.
As this soundie opens, Duke Ellington & His Orchestra are performing at the Orpheum in a show called Jump for Joy, & we see the theater & its marquis all in lights.
The camera closes in on a poster outside the theater which boasts of others in the show, Ivie Anderson, Herb Jeffries, Big Joe Turner, Al Guster, & the wildly zoot suited trio of "Pot Pan & Skillet."
A few of these acts are preserved on separate Ellington soundies, including I Got It Bad & That Ain't Good featuring Ivie Anderson, Flamingo featuring vocalist Herb Jeffreys, & Bi-Blip with Marie Bryant & Paul White singing & dancing their hearts out.
 During the instrumentation for Hot Chocolate ("Cottontail") Ellington shouts out the name of Ben Webster just as Ben stands for his sax solo. We then see through the microphone connection to a radio audience which bursts into amazing dances.
This troupe is Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, who do acrobatic jiggerbug beyond fabulous. Herbert "Whitey" White founded this dance group in 1935 as regulars at the Savoy Ballroom, the greatest of Harlems great dance clubs, where black folk bumped shoulders with white folk in pre-integration times, the primary qualification for a big welcome being that you could dance.
Whitey selected his dancers right off the Savoy dance floor; it was veritably a nightly audition. he hired members of his troupe out to other clubs, including the Cotton Club, & rich folks hired them to spice up lavish private parties.
They were soon appearing in feature films besides a handful of soundies. The "second generation" of the troupe appears in Hot Chocolate which provides one more chance to see Whitey's Lindy Hoppers in action, making this soundie all the more importantly thrilling.
As an aside, the title of this soundie derives from Whitey's Lindy Hoppers having also been known as The Hot Chocolates.
A promotional documentary prepared & narrated by once-famed radio announcer Alois Havrila, Record Making with Duke Ellington & His Orchestra (1937) was not filmed on a stage but authentically in a sound studio, & shows the actual cutting of a 78 rpm master for lacquer records.
It runs five minutes, showing Duke preparing his band before the recording begins, while a sound technician listens in to balance what will soon be recorded. "The signal goes out, all ready!" & the performance starts.
The attentive ear will catch bits of "Daybreak Express," "How Do I Rate With You" & "Turn Off the Moon." But because Havrila's informative narration continues, this can't be watched for the strength of the orchestral performance. It is nevertheless revealing & interesting on the processing of records.
Even such little revelations as the record label being fused to the vinyl as it was pressed was fascinating, as opposed to being stuck on the disc after it's made. But note in close-up that Ivie Anderson's name was mispelled on said label for the recording of "Oh, Babe!, Maybe Someday."
After our quick journey through the factory we're taken back to the recording studio for a closing image of Ivie & Duke being captured direct to vinyl. And lordy how great was Ivie!
 RKO Jamboree #7: Duke Ellington & His Orchestra (1943) is a delightful sampler of Duke's great talent & tasteful showmanship.
It opens with an instrumental combination of "Mood Indigo" & "Sophisticated Lady," goes into "It Don't Mean a Thing," & concludes with "Don't Get Around Much Anymore."
It is staged to look like a performance at the Hurricane Restaurant in Hollywood but was actually filmed at the Movietone Studio in New York.
 "Mood Indigo/Sophisticated Lady" ranges from Duke playing piano alone, to extremely rich full orchestral.
His own piano is the real highlight, but he was not the sort of guy to hog the spotlight. He shows off his orchestra with a number of solo moments in the other two songs.
Trading off solo vocalists for "It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got that Swing)" are by Ray Nance also with violin, & Taft Jordan, a great variant recording from the better known versions Duke did with Ivie Anderson or Ella Fitzgerald.
The tempo drops from wonderfully up on "It Don't Mean a Thing" to a slow-dance "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" with a particularly fine sax solo & muted slide trumbone solo.
 During Duke Ellington's tour in Australia in 1970, a commercial was made to advertise both the Ellington orchestra's presence down-under, & the Craven cigarette brand.
We see orchestra members on the airplane fairly relaxed, & someone lights a cigarette, but smoking is a natural rather exaggerated presence so most of the commercial seems not to be acting but just some good behind-the-scenes footage.
The camera follows Duke into a studio where the orchestra begins to play a piece of music written for this commercial, titled "The Craven Filter Song." A couple of the band members are smoking during the take, ending on a high note from Cat Anderson, & a close-up of a Craven cigarette pack on Duke's piano.
Duke was in fact a heavy smoker but is not personally shown smoking, which cannot have been an accident, as he was extremely conscious and concientious when it came to his public image. The irony is that smoking eventually killed him.
 "Music is my life," said Ellington in the opening second of his thirty-second television commercial for Zenith brand stereo system, filmed for American television the same year he did the Craven Filters ad in Australia.
He gets up from his piano & goes delivers with an actor's credibility a monolog about the excellence of Zenith turntables & sound systems, which someone like himself can really appreciate.
With such jibberish spewing forth from his lips as "New dual dimension, circle of sound," he's certainly not saying anything personal, but it's nice to hear his voice, watch him put that needle down on his own record.
I bet they paid him a shitload of money to recommend Zenith, which, by the by, wasn't a bad system for the time.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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