Duke (96 page)

Tovey, Donald, 122

Towers, Jack, 218

Townsend, Irving, 64, 285, 290, 292, 296, 298

Tracy, Jack, 275

Traill, Sinclair, 196

Trent, Jo., 48, 52

A
Tribute to Duke Ellington,
359

tributes to Ellington, 341–42, 342n, 343, 358, 360

Tricky Sam.
See
Nanton, Joseph

Tucker, Earl “Snakehips,” 147–48

Tucker, Mark, 54

Turner, Big Joe, 229, 230, 231

Turney, Norris, 347–48

“The 20th Century Jazz Revue,” 43

Twilight Alley (Beggar’s Holiday),
258–61

Tynes, Margaret, 295

Udkoff, Bob, 180

Ulanov, Barry: on
Beggar’s Holiday,
261; biography of Ellington, 256; on
Black, Brown and Beige,
237; on the Blanton-Webster band, 208; on
Creole Rhapsody,
121; on Ellington’s extramarital affairs, 100, 175, 176; on Ellington’s family life, 26, 27–28, 171; on Ellington’s music education, 31; on foreign tours, 136; on Hammond, 160; on Mills, 71, 180; on
New World A-Coming,
244; on Strayhorn, 185, 198; on Vodery, 93

United Scenic Artists, 257

The
Untouchables
(1987), 110

Up from Slavery
(Washington), 22–23

“Upper Manhattan Medical Group,” 285, 352

Vacchiano, William, 221

Van de Leur, Walter, 188, 245, 280

Van Vechten, Carl, 75, 96

Variety:
on
Black, Brown and Beige,
246; on book rumors, 237; on the Cotton Club, 173; on
Creole Rhapsody,
125–26; on Ellington’s break with Mills, 181; and Green, 49; and Hammond, 161–63; on
Jump for Joy,
229; on Musicraft contract, 255–56; on race issues, 317; on
St. Louis Blues,
96–97; on The Washingtonians, 53, 78

vaudeville, 41, 45, 49, 52, 92, 135,
230, 266

Venuti, Joe, 85

Victor Records, 47, 66, 79n, 88, 182–83, 236,
241,
243,
248,
255

Vocalion Records, 62, 69

Vodery, Will, 93

Voelker, John, 301, 305

“voice leading,” 111–12

Volstead Act, 55, 56

Waller, Fats, 92, 212

Waller, Fred, 147

“Warm Valley,” 86, 209, 210, 215

Washington, Booker T., 22, 23

Washington, D. C., 15, 21–25, 27, 44

Washington, Dinah, 276

Washington, Fredi,
96,
96–100, 129

The
Washington Post,
331–32

The Washingtonians,
47,
48–51, 53–54, 59, 61–62, 65–66, 68–69

Waters, Ethel, 75, 128, 134, 252

Watkins, Perry, 257, 259

Watt, Douglas, 9

Webb, Chick, 87

Webster, Ben: and the ASCAP boycott, 222; background, 205–7; and
Black, Brown and Beige,
240; and the Blanton-Webster band, 209–10, 212, 215,
218
; and the Cotton Club years, 86; departure from band, 254; and Ellington’s composing style, 13; and hiring of Gonsalves, 347; and
Jump for Joy,
233; and salary disputes, 249

Webster, Paul Francis, 228

Weidman, Jerome, 327

Weill, Kurt, 7, 257

Wein, George, 70, 276, 286–87, 343

Welk, Lawrence, 86, 346

Welles, Orson, 225, 232–34, 257

West, Mae, 73

Whaley, Tom, 209, 343

“What You Gonna Do When the Bed Breaks Down?”, 33

Whetsel, Arthur: background, 41; and
Black and Tan,
97; and the Cotton Club years, 83, 92,
133
; and “Creole Love Call,” 127; and the Harlem Renaissance, 46; and “Mood Indigo,” 106; publicity still,
96
; replaced by Jones, 174n; retirement, 173; and the Washingtonians, 49; widow of, 176

Whetsel, Margaret, 176

White, George, 23

White, Paul, 230

White, Stanford, 21

Whiteman, Paul, 4, 7, 51, 90, 118–19, 121–24, 126, 239, 270

Wiggins, Bernice, 34

“Wild Cat Blues,” 44

Wilder, Joe, 168

Wilkins, Barron, 46–47

Wilkins, Ernie, 282

Will Big Bands Ever Come Back?,
315

William Morris Agency, 179, 181–82, 238, 246–47, 252, 253, 262

Williams, Bert, 52

Williams, Charles Melvin “Cootie”: and the ASCAP boycott, 220–21; and
Black, Brown and Beige,
4; and the Blanton-Webster band, 209, 210–11; and the Cotton Club years, 90–91,
133
; departure from band, 234; and
Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,
170; and Ellington’s composing style, 13, 114; and Ellington’s funeral, 359; and Ellington’s sound, 12; and foreign tours, 319; on Greer, 270; illness, 338, 352; move to Goodman’s band, 216–17, 216n; on race issues, 159; and recording sessions, 162–64; return to band, 308, 314, 315–16; and Sacred Concerts, 341; and “St. Louis Blues,” 127; and Strayhorn, 192; and television appearances, 306; and timing of gigs, 151

Williams, Hank, 267

Williams, Joe, 359

Williams, Mary Lou, 359

Williams, Ned, 125, 162, 181, 279

Wilson, Edmund, 56, 158

Wilson, John S., 299, 331, 333, 358

Wilson, Teddy: and “Cotton Tail,” 215n; and Musicraft label, 255; and the Newport Jazz Festival, 287, 289; and race issues, 162–63, 217; and Strayhorn, 190, 192; and Webster, 205–6

Wilson, Woodrow, 23

Winchell, Walter, 83

With Louis and the Duke
(Bigard), 197

Woode, Jimmy, 287, 289, 307

Woodman, Britt, 306

Woodson, Carter G., 44

Woodyard, Sam: and
Afro-Bossa,
315; and band discipline, 322; and Duke’s Serenaders, 42; hired, 284–85; illness, 338; importance to band’s sound, 307–8; and
New Orleans Suite,
347–48; and the Newport Jazz Festival, 288–90; and Sacred Concerts, 330, 341; and
Time
cover, 291; and Wild Bill Davis, 342

The
World of Duke Ellington
(Dance), 354

World War I, 55

World War II, 234, 252–53, 256

World-Telegram,
9

X, Malcolm, 28, 168

Yale University, 341–42

Yaryan, John S., 328

Young, Lester, 206, 207, 215

Your Saturday Date with the Duke,
255–56, 273

Ziegfeld, Florenz, 92–94

Ziegfeld Follies,
80, 101

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Terry Teachout is the drama critic of
The Wall Street Journal,
the critic-at-large of
Commentary,
and the author of “Sightings,” a biweekly column for the Friday
Journal
about the arts each weekday in America. He blogs about the arts at www.terry teachout.com.

Satchmo at the Waldorf,
Teachout’s first play, was produced in 2012 by Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Massachusetts; Long Wharf Theatre of New Haven, Connecticut; and Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater. He has also written the libretti for three operas by Paul Moravec,
The Letter
(premiered by the Santa Fe Opera),
Danse Russe
(premiered by Philadelphia’s Center City Opera Theater), and
The King’s Man
(premiered by the Kentucky Opera). His previous books include
Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong,
All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine,
A Terry Teachout Reader,
and
The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken.
In 1992, he rediscovered the manuscript of
A Second Mencken Chrestomathy
among Mencken’s private papers and edited it for publication. He served on the National Council on the Arts from 2004 to 2010 and was a Guggenheim Fellow for 2012.

Born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1956, Teachout attended St. John’s College, William Jewell College, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1975 to 1983 he lived in Kansas City, where he worked as a jazz bassist. He now lives with his wife, Hilary, in New York City and Connecticut.

*
One of the neighborhood’s landmarks is a slickly designed eight-story luxury apartment house called the Ellington whose website offers potential occupants “a level of living in sync with the vitality of U.”

†
J.E. played piano, too, accompanying himself by ear in homespun versions of operatic arias and turn-of-the-century popular songs like “Sweet Adeline.”

‡
The low-born, dark-skinned Louis Armstrong had so pronounced a preference in the opposite direction that he once wrote a piece for
Ebony
called “Why I Like Dark Women.”

§
Ellington also left unnotated his second “composition,” a mildly bawdy song called “What You Gonna Do When the Bed Breaks Down?” that he later described in
Music Is My Mistress
as “a pretty good ‘hug-and-rubbin’’ crawl.”

¶
Ellington agreed. “I started out playing for pussy, not money,” he told a journalist in 1964.

**
Fred Guy, who replaced Snowden on banjo, stayed with the band until 1949. He started playing guitar in 1931, around the same time that other jazz banjo players were switching to the less percussive-sounding six-stringed instrument, thereafter becoming the unobtrusive but rock-steady linchpin of the rhythm section. “He was rather a serious type of fellow, and was always giving us advice,” Ellington said, “but his guitar was a metronome and the beat was always where it was supposed to be.”

††
In jazz parlance, a “head arrangement” is a musical routine that is collectively worked out by the members of a band in rehearsal or on the bandstand. Such improvised “charts” are only written down, if at all, after the fact.

‡‡
In addition to some sixty-odd songs written with Ellington and his musicians, Mills is also credited with having cowritten “If Dreams Come True,” “Lovesick Blues,” “Minnie the Moocher,” “Moonglow,” “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “Washboard Blues,” and “When My Sugar Walks Down the Street.”

§§
Ellington always pronounced the last word of the title “
TOAD
-lo,” a reference to the “todalo,” a black dance step. He may have meant for it to be spelled “Toddle-O” on the label of the original recording, but the word was spelled “Toodle-O” in 1926 and “Toddle-Oo” or “Toodle-Oo” on many (though not all) subsequent versions. Though Ellington copyrighted the song as “East St. Louis Toodle-O” and continued to spell it in that manner, “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo” became the “official” title by default after 1927. The song is usually known by the latter name today.

¶¶
The band recorded a 78 called “A Nite at the Cotton Club” for Victor in April of 1929, but it is a studio re-creation, not the real thing. Irving Mills serves as the master of ceremonies, and his introduction shows that a night at the Cotton Club was widely understood to be an expensive pleasure: “Great to see so many friends here tonight, enjoying themselves in spite of the cover charge!”