The History of Jazz (27 page)

Until this point, Ellington’s brass players had taken the lead in the giving the band an original personality, but now Duke’s new additions to the reed section would change the group in a similarly decisive manner. Saxophonist Harry Carney had played with Duke on a New England tour before the Cotton Club engagement, but now began a full-time association that would last almost a half century. His rich baritone lines would anchor the Ellington sax section and contribute greatly to the group’s overall sound. At times Ellington would assign the higher intervals of a chord to Carney’s baritone, a striking effect that brought an ethereal quality to the section work. In other contexts, Carney served as an important solo voice, adding a languorous, weighty character to many of Duke’s mood pieces. Carney had grown up in Boston, where he had lived down the street from Johnny Hodges, another saxophonist who joined Ellington around the time of the Cotton Club engagement. Hodges, whose career with Ellington spanned over forty years, may have lacked the versatility of a Benny Carter, the vigor of a Coleman Hawkins, or the fluency of a Frank Trumbauer, yet no other player of his generation forged such a deeply personal approach to the saxophone. Like Miley and Nanton, Hodges produced a tone so rich that even a single note could resonate with a universe of emotion. Nicknamed the Rabbit—one explanation linked it to his preference for lettuce and tomato sandwiches, another to his fast footwork—Hodges was more like the tortoise in his approach to the saxophone: breathy phrases often tarried far behind the beat and at times took on a delicious, liquid quality, especially when Hodges delivered one of his calling cards, a lazy glissando sliding from the low to high register of the horn. It remains to this day one of the most singular sounds in the history of jazz. Hodges was especially effective on slow numbers—indeed, no other soloist in the band played a more important role in defining the character of Ellington’s ballads—but also ranked among the finer, although rarely acknowledged, masters of the blues. Clarinetist Barney Bigard, another newcomer to the Ellington band during this time, would boast only a fifteen-year tenure with the band—making him a transient compared to the other lifers in the group, although this would be a lengthy stint by the measure of any other jazz band. Playing the Albert system clarinet favored by so many other New Orleans pioneers (among them his own teacher Lorenzo Tio Jr.), Bigard extracted a rich woody tone from his instrument. In an apt comparison, Ellington suggested that the delicacy of Bigard’s melodic lines was akin to the beautiful filigree work in wrought iron so characteristic of the clarinetist’s hometown. Bigard’s playing never lost its strong ties to the traditional New Orleans style, and though that idiom was somewhat at odds with the direction the band was now taking, Ellington delighted in Bigard’s clarinet as one more highly personal sound in an orchestra of distinctive voices.

Performing six nights a week at the Cotton Club, participating in radio broadcasts, and recording prolifically, Ellington now needed to increase his own productivity. These new settings also demanded greater versatility, given the wide range of acts the band was now supporting with its music. Despite these pressures, Ellington flourished in the face of recurrent deadlines, expanding considerably his range of compositional devices and refining his skills in orchestration. “Black Beauty,” a piece Ellington recorded several times during this period, indicates the scope of these changes: it opens with an introductory sequence of rich chords, which linger ambiguously over an uncertain harmonic center before finally settling into a wistful melody in the key of B flat, while the jazzier second theme emerges after an uncharacteristic modulation into A flat. This adventurous approach to tonality, unusual in jazz or popular music at the time, would become an Ellington trademark. Especially noteworthy was Ellington’s willingness to use dissonance and polytonality (at times crossing the border into atonality). These remarkable passages would sometimes appear only in an introduction, as in “Black Beauty” or, even more magnificently, in opening the second movement of
Black, Brown and Beige
from 1943; occasionally, they linger longer, as in Ellington’s inspired vignette “The Clothed Woman” from 1947. But, most often, these surprising interjections would surface for one or two bars in the middle of a piece, before subsiding into the fold of a more conventional harmonic sequence. Majestically, imperiously, Ellington made progressive composition and popular music share the same stage. Duke’s approach to the piano amplified this anomalous vision of the future of jazz. On top of a fairly traditional stride style he would add flourishes and asides of the most amazing sort, bursts of dissonant chords, whole-tone scales, unexpected percussive attacks, or querulous arpeggios. Ellington’s solo piano versions of “Black Beauty” and “Swampy River” from October 1, 1928, already reveal the foundations of this distinctive school of pianism, one that echoed the stride of Willie “The Lion” Smith and anticipated the astringency of Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor.

But Ellington’s piano skills were featured all too rarely during these years, with his band now serving more and more as a voice for his musical ambitions. It is especially illuminating to compare Ellington’s big band charts from the late 1920s with Don Redman’s efforts for Henderson and other bands. Redman’s writing is packed full with musical activity—call-and-responses, breaks, dense section work, repeated rhythmic figures, and other devices. Ellington’s arrangements are much sparser, more focused, less frenetic. This clarity and balance stood out whether Ellington was writing mood pieces (“Black Beauty,” “Misty Morning”), his so-called jungle pieces (“The Mooche”), or even standard blues (“Beggar Blues,” “The Blues with a Feeling”); while, with a few exceptions, even the showy uptempo numbers maintain a cohesive musical identity. An atomistic, stream-of-consciousness compilation of devices, along the lines of what Redman attempted in his “Whiteman Stomp” had no place in Duke’s holistic music.

The maturing of Ellington’s compositional skills and the influx of new soloists served to buffer the impact of Bubber Miley’s departure from the group in 1929. Ellington, who usually preferred to avert his gaze from his band members’ various indiscretions, apparently fired Miley after the trumpeter consistently showed up disheveled and intoxicated or missed entire performances. “Every time some big shot come up to listen to the band, there wasn’t no Bubber Miley,” explained Cootie Williams. “And he had the whole band built around Bubber Miley. … That’s the only man [Ellington] ever fired in his life.”
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Williams stepped in as Miley’s replacement, and though he had never heard Miley play in person and was given little direction by Duke, he soon developed a growl style of his own. “One night I had the plunger, and I said ‘wah, wah.’ And I woke everybody up. And they said, ‘That’s it. That’s it. Keep on.’ ” Williams, like so many others, maintained a career-long partnership with Ellington: this initial stint would continue until 1940, while a second association with the orchestra would last from 1962 until after the bandleader’s death in 1974.

Duke’s brass section was further reinforced during this period by the addition of trombonists Juan Tizol in 1929 and Lawrence Brown in 1932—initiating an association with Ellington that, for both, would last many years. Tizol was seldom featured in solos with the band, but he contributed “Caravan” and “Perdido,” two pieces that would become widely played jazz standards, as well as lesser known gems such as “Moonlight Fiesta” and “Pyramid.” Brown’s buttery trombone tone—at times reminiscent of the sound of a cello—was highlighted on a number of Ellington pieces, including “The Sheik of Araby,” “Ducky Wucky,” “Slippery Horn,” and “Stompy Jones.” But, over and above their musical contributions, these two players also provided a much-needed anchor of stability in a group prone to peccadilloes: Brown was a minister’s son who avoided alcohol, smoking, and gambling; Tizol, whose vices were restricted to an occasional drink and a penchant for practical jokes, set a new standard for punctuality in the band. Known to arrive a half-hour or an hour before engagements, Tizol was subjected to his colleagues’ ribbing about his conscientiousness—but when Ellington could not attend a rehearsal, he often entrusted the band to Tizol’s demanding supervision.

Duke’s ascendancy during the Cotton Club years enabled him not only to weather the onset of the Great Depression, but even to flourish at a time when most bandleaders needed to retrench. Ellington’s group was one of the most widely recorded jazz ensembles of the period, while regular radio broadcasts further expanded his audience. In 1930, Ellington made the jump to the silver screen, participating in his first Hollywood movie,
Check and Double Check
, and appeared with Maurice Chevalier at New York’s Fulton Theater. In 1931, Ellington was invited to meet President Hoover at the White House, a rare honor for a black jazz musician. After leaving the Cotton Club, that same year, Ellington embarked on a series of highly profitable tours. Traveling in their own Pullman car, bringing their own lighting equipment, sporting different uniforms for each show—even if there were four or five shows in a day: the Ellington band conveyed an aura of slick professionalism that few, if any, African American groups of that era could match. And the critical accolades also started coming Duke’s way. In 1932, R. D. Darrell, a conservatory-trained musician who served as critic for a number of influential periodicals, wrote a prescient and detailed study of Ellington’s music, rhapsodizing over the bandleader’s “noble, spontaneous, unforced melodies … which spring into being as simply, as naturally as those of Mozart or Schubert.”
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In November 1932, Percy Grainger, the distinguished composer and chairman of the music department at New York University, invited Ellington and his orchestra to play for a classroom of students and distinguished guests. Grainger took the occasion to compare Ellington’s work to that of Bach and Delius.

This high-flung praise from the bastions of classical music did little to quell Ellington’s desire for greater popular success. In the past, he had avoided hiring a full-time singer for the band, but now brought in Ivie Anderson as a featured vocalist. It was not lost on Ellington that the public’s musical tastes were, more and more, gravitating toward singers. Indeed, Duke’s replacement at the Cotton Club, Cab Calloway, would never inspire comparisons to Bach or Schubert, but his scat-jive vocals, epitomized in the “hi-de-ho” call-and-response effects on his hit “Minnie the Moocher,” delighted audiences. Calloway had led the Alabamians in Chicago and, later, the Missourians in New York, and in 1929 had appeared in the revue
Hot Chocolates
, before securing the coveted Cotton Club job. Incorporating a heavy dose of novelty songs and scat vehicles into a more conventional hot jazz sound, Calloway achieved a celebrity—and record sales—to rival Ellington’s at the time. The addition of Anderson gave a new dimension to Duke’s band, and though she may have lacked the eccentric individualism of a Calloway (or many of the other Ellington sidemen, for that matter), she was one of the most versatile jazz singers of her era, equally capable of heartfelt ballads, growling scat singing, or wistful blues.

The presence of a vocalist was just one of several factors that served to crystallize Ellington’s growing interest in popular songs. Irving Mills, in his careful management of Duke’s affairs, was especially sensitive to the commercial potential of the bandleader’s skills as a tunesmith. In truth, Mills’s role went far beyond the usual promotional activities and apparently extended to creative matters. Although he is listed as Ellington’s collaborator on many pieces, the exact scope of Mills’s contribution to Duke’s songwriting is a matter of dispute. However, it is likely that he made suggestions on the types of tunes that might be popular, encouraged Ellington to simplify the often dense textures of his compositions, and arranged to have lyrics written. For his own part, Ellington did not shy away from the opportunities presented by the growing market for popular music. Ellington’s compositional output was still meager compared to the burst of creativity he would experience in the late 1930s—he copyrighted more songs in 1938 and 1939 than in the rest of the decade combined—even so, these early years of the Depression would see the debut of many of his most memorable and lasting songs including “Mood Indigo,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Solitude,” and “In a Sentimental Mood.” And though he would never challenge a Gershwin or Berlin as a hit maker— Ellington’s melodies were too complex, too rooted in the vertical conception of a jazz pianist, for that to happen—his body of work as Tin Pan Alley songsmith would be impressive even if he had never led a band or performed as a pianist.

Throughout the decade, these forays into popular music coexisted with Duke’s more ambitious attempts to raise jazz to the level of art music. As early as his 1931 work “Creole Rhapsody,” Ellington was fighting against the constraints of 78 rpm recordings, tackling a longer form that required the label to use both sides of the disc to contain this single performance. Two versions of the piece were recorded that year, one issued on the Brunswick label that lasted six minutes, while the extended arrangement for Victor took over eight minutes (requiring it to be issued on a twelve-inch record). Although this piece is not wholly satisfying—the melodic material is fairly simpleminded—the structural complexity and effective shifts in mood, especially on the Victor version, clearly revealed Ellington’s aspirations to extend the range of jazz music far beyond the conventions of the day. This pathbreaking attempt at extended composition would soon be surpassed by Ellington’s “Symphony in Black” (1934), not a true symphony but rather a nine-minute suite in four parts that incorporated music from several earlier Ellington pieces, and by his thirteen-minute “Reminiscing in Tempo” (1935), which, in its compositional intricacy and strong melodic and harmonic material, proved to be the most fully realized longer work that Ellington had yet written.