Ellington's Unproduced Show, Man with Four Sides,1 of 4: History, and Music Recordings
The late Erik Weidemann (1930-2001) was a musicologist, educator, and journalist in jazz. He had many interests but was best known for his work on the history of jazz in his native Denmark, and on Ellington. At the annual Ellington conference in 1990, which that year was held in Ottawa, Canada, he presented some of his extensive research on Duke’s musical, Man With Four Sides. You can watch his presentation online, and here you can read a written summary of Weidemann’s talk, made by Ulf Lundin, a very active member of the Ellington Society of Sweden (although he currently lives in France). Below, you can read the sheet that Weidemann handed out to the audience, and in Danish, his detailed journal article. (These two items are at the bottom, for everyone to enjoy.)
In these essays I will share with you some major new information about the show, including pages from Ellington’s own typed script (never before shared), a newly found recording of some of the songs, and more. We will also learn about his attempts to raise funds—despite those efforts, like many of Ellington’s proposed musicals, it was not performed. Finally, we will discuss what the script reveals about Ellington’s attitudes toward women.
It’s worth noting that even though Billy Strayhorn was associated with Ellington from 1939 until his death in 1967, they also did projects separately during those years. During 1955 Strayhorn was mostly off on his own, and he was not involved with Man with Four Sides.
Details of all of Ellington’s musicals and other stage works, such as music for dance and theater productions, are in John Franceschina’s book. In his memoir, Music is My Mistress (p.191), Ellington says that he wrote this musical during a gig in New York that lasted from late June through August 2, 1955, and that may indeed be when he put the finishing touches on it. But Franceschina notes that the germ of the work dates as far back as Duke’s notes for a script entitled Mr. and Mrs. Lane, dated 1944 and now in the Smithsonian collection. The Lanes are the central characters in the show.
The libretto or “book” of 71 pages was copyrighted on September 14, 1955:
It included the script, as well as lyrics, without music, for the songs. (“It’s Rumor,” which has music that we’ll hear, is not in the script, but Weidemann saw a pencilled note from Duke to add that song. That note is not in the copy of the script that I studied.) People often ask, “Which comes first, the music or the words?” Well, it was common for Duke’s instrumental pieces to have lyrics added later—not by Duke—in order to turn them into popular vocal numbers. But here we can see that when Ellington wrote his own vocal numbers, he often wrote the lyrics first. In fact Mercer wrote in his book that “he always wrote down ideas for lyrics as they occurred to him,” without music and not necessarily for a particular show.
There were 15 or 16 songs in all, plus a Finale that combines elements of songs previously used. Franceschina and Weidemann do not agree on the number, or even the titles, of the songs. The reason is that in the typed script, it’s not always clear from the layout what is sung and what is spoken. Also, many of the songs don’t have a title at the top, and, as you know, the title of a song can be the first line, last line, or a refrain, so the two authors were just guessing about some of the titles.
The musical included three “recycled” numbers: “The Blues” came from Black, Brown, and Beige of 1943. “Like A Train” (that’s Duke’s title, but it’s sometimes listed as “Train Blues”), is the so-called “Night Train” theme (as titled on the hit record by saxophonist Jimmy Forrest, released in 1952), from Duke’s 1946 piece, “Happy-Go-Lucky Local.” For this show, Duke wrote new lyrics to it. “Come On Home” was recorded and copyrighted in 1952. Weidemann notes that, unlike the two from the 1940s, it’s possible that this one was written specifically for the musical, because by 1952 Duke was definitely working on this show. It features singer Jimmy (sometimes spelled Jimmie) Grissom (1928-1975). His birth name was Obbie Vernon Scott, but he took a stage name inspired by his uncle Dan Grissom (1910-1963), who was a featured singer and saxophonist with Jimmie Lunceford. The family was from Leland, Mississippi, where they were both born. You will sometimes read that Dan also sang with Duke. To my knowledge that is false. But Jimmy was with the band on and off throughout the 1950s. Dan’s singing has a mixed reputation, but Jimmy was really an excellent singer. Let’s listen to him on the 1952 studio recording of “Come On Home”:
The best proof that Ellington was working on the show in 1952 is that he recorded a rehearsal on July 25th of that year, where he and Grissom ran through several of the songs. Duke did not generally record rehearsals, so clearly it was important to him to hear how the songs sounded. “She Didn’t Have Much to Say” was never recorded again and was not copyrighted. There is only one run-through of it on the rehearsal tape. At this point, Wendell Marshall has joined in on bass. Let’s listen:
Duke also rehearsed two other songs that day, “Weatherman” and “She,” sometimes listed as “She (Sensuous).” “She” already been around for a while. According to Weidemann, there is a Duke piano solo version from an unknown date in the winter of 1950-51. (I haven’t heard this and it’s not in any of the discographies.) It was recorded in a studio in April 1951, as we’ll hear next time. In the 1952 rehearsal, Duke and Grissom go over it four times, plus there is a funny moment with two “false starts.” First, Grissom accidentally starts off on the wrong note. Duke plays him the correct note, and Jimmy says “I thought so—ah, lost me, didn’t you?” Then he starts singing it too quickly so that it doesn’t line up with Duke’s piano part. In a rare moment, Duke sings to him how it should go. Someone is playing percussion with his hands here as well. Here is that moment from the rehearsal tape:
More to come!!
All the best,
Lewis
P.S. Thank you to Steven Lasker, Anders Asplund, Bo Haufman, Olivia Wong, and Len Pogost for assistance with this essay.
P.P.S. Here is the sheet that Weidemann gave out at his talk. This copy comes from Ellington specialist Roger Boyes, and those are his handwritten notes:
Weidemann later published his research in Danish, in Musik & Forskning No. 16, 1990-1991. But you can easily read it in any language using Google Translate, especially the smartphone version which translates anything you aim at with your camera. The last few pages are a useful discography of the recordings relevant to Duke’s show—no translation needed for that:
All the best,
Lewis
Duke was a busy man....
Running Google Chrome in Windows, I can't get Translate to work on the long piece. It says it isn't in Swedish. Perhaps it's put off by the opening paragraph.