Ellington-Strayhorn: World Premiere of Such Sweet Thunder!, 4 of 4; Both Pianists At Once (+Music For Paying Subscribers)

(As always, you should go to the Index to find the previous essays on this topic. Again, the actual audio is reserved for paying subscribers, below.)

In the previous three essays, we have uncovered a lot of information about Such Sweet Thunder. We learned that British saxophonist and composer John Dankworth set two sonnets to Duke’s melodies, for his wife Cleo Laine, an excellent singer. We heard a rare radio interview with Duke, and read a detailed analysis by Jack Chambers.

Now, here is something previously unknown about one of three movements composesd by Strayhorn, entitled “Half the Fun”: Strayhorn plays a little piano on the “official” studio recording, uncredited. The piano is silent for most of this movement, but it has a solo near the end. Here’s how Duke played the solo at the Town Hall premiere on April 28, 1957. (As before, the complete recordings are reserved for paying subscribers, below.) There is a left hand chordal part which he repeats after moving it down an octave, so that he has room to play tremolos above it in the right hand. After the band plays some more, he plays the final low Db that you’ll hear:

And here’s what Duke told the audience after that piece:

What did he mean by “that piano solo on the end”? There was only one low note at the end, not really a solo. But in this short comment, he’s not explaining the whole story. To understand, let’s listen to that same passage, but from the studio recording, that is, the version that is on the original LP. This was recorded on August 7, 1956, more than eight months before the concert premiere. (Like a few of the other movements, it was not originally written to be part of the suite, as I’ve explained.) The repeating left hand is there, but instead of tremolos, there are trills descending right through the left hand part, overlapping the left hand and finally ending up below it:

Because the hands crossed and overlapped, this could only have done either by overdubbing, or by recording on two pianos at once. Either way, Duke’s comment at Town Hall tells us that the other pianist was Strayhorn. And when he said he played Strayhorn’s part, he did not mean that the entire part was to be played by Strayhorn. He meant that for the “live” performance, he did his best to play both his part and Billy’s part. Billy was present that night—in fact, he spoke very briefly at the end—but as Duke said, he was not on stage. Besides, there was probably not a second piano available.

One might ask, why would Duke and Billy have decided to record a second piano part? Duke could have easily played it himself, either by changing it as he did at Town Hall, or by overdubbing. As David Hajdu has documented in his Strayhorn biography, Billy’s relationship with Duke was complicated, and Duke did not always give him proper credit. In fact, the Shakespeare suite was at the beginning of a new agreement between them. As part of this, it’s likely that Duke and Billy decided to share in recording the piano part so that Strayhorn could get a payment for the recording session as well. (But I will show in a later essay that Duke also did this in 1950, so it might not have been only a result of their new agreement.)

British jazz historian and musician Brian Priestley emailed me about a concert performance. This supports my statement that Duke sought to involve Strayhorn where possible (in this case to pay him as a performer):

At the Leeds Music Festival of October 18, 1958 - the first time I saw the Ellington band - Duke played “Half The Fun” but without, as far as I recall, any piano during the coda.  But, with the stage lights dimming during that coda, a spotlight picked out the piano while Strayhorn walked out from the wings and played that one low note, as Ellington called for him to be applauded.  Quite possibly, he did the same thing on other dates of the same European tour, but I don’t think I ever saw reference to it.

For concerts, for the piano section near the end of “Half the Fun,” since there were never two pianos available, Duke played a different part from the recording, that was manageable with two hands. For example, here is what he played at the Cote d’Azur in 1966:

That time, he simply left out the left hand altogether.

In the two excerpts above from the Town Hall premiere, you may have noticed that the applause is not overwhelming. That’s because the hall was, unfortunately, only about half full. As you may remember from Part 1, George Avakian lost a lot of money on this concert series. Besides, the first half of this program was a classical piece, so this event was not on the radar of most jazz fans. Leonard Feather praised the new Ellington-Strayhorn suite, and mourned the low attendance:

And, as promised in Part 2 of this series, here is the British magazine Melody Maker that includes Feather’s complete review. Just by chance, this issue from May 18, 1957 has an amazing selection of articles, including:

An interview with Billy Eckstine. (p.3)

Steve Race, noted British pianist and broadcast host, states that British jazz was derivative of American jazz, and discusses other topics. (p.5)

A summary of the controversial Esquire article where Dizzy Gillespie said that Armstrong was “Tomming” and that Americans don’t appreciate jazz. (p.5)

News of Stuff Smith, Cootie Williams and others. (p.6)

An interview with the outspoken Bob Brookmeyer. (p.7)

Feather’s review of Such Sweet Thunder (p.9)

A rare interview with pioneer jazz arranger Don Redman (p.9)—AND MORE:

Ellington,thunder,gillespie Re Armstrong,stuff Smith,brookmeyer,melody Maker 1957 05 18 Ocr

8.9MB ∙ PDF file

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on Such Sweet Thunder. I’ll be back soon.

All the best,
Lewis

P.S. Paying subscribers, the final recordings from the premiere concert are below.