#Adelaide gigs in april

[sarockradio]

Wild Berry: The Ultimate Chuck Berry Experience are back for one night only at the Arkaba Hotel!!

Playing all your favourite Chuck Berry hits; You Never Can Tell, Maybelline, Little Queenie, Johnny B Goode, Rock and Roll Music and many more!!

Featuring Dominic Anthony with an 8-piece live band comprising of world-class musicians, plus state-of-the-art sound and lighting.

Wild Berry takes you right into the world of Chuck Berry in a concert event not to be missed”

Support act: Motown Dreamers

Doors: 7pm

Date: Friday 19 April

Venue: Arkaba Hotel

Address: 150 Glen Osmond Rd, Fullarton SA.

Book Now!

Tickets:

http://bthe.re/wildberry

#chuckberry #wildberry #YouNeverCanTell #Maybelline #LittleQueenie #JohnnyBGoode #RockandRollMusic #arkaba #dancing #concertinadelaide #adelaideshow #gig #liveshow

[merrock]

CHARACTER INFORMATION

face claim: adelaide kane

full name: aurora maddox

nickname(s) / goes by: rory

pronouns & gender: she/her, cis woman

sexuality: bisexual

birth date: april 26th, 1989

birth place: merrock, maine

arrival to merrock: local

housing: Living in a condo downtown with her daughter Louise

occupation: Barista, freelance photographer, and runs an OnlyFans page

work place: Cobblestone Cafe & her condo

family: Tommy Maddox, Louise Maddox

relationship status: Single mother

PERSONALITY

Rory always felt like she was different- maybe that had something to do with how she grew up or maybe she just was an outsider all around. She has always had a hard time opening up to people about her struggles because she never wants to need others to help her. She's feisty and independent and doesn't always make the best decisions and has some bad luck, but she overall tries to do the right thing and help those she's close to. She was always obsessed with photography since she was little and the love never went away.

WRITTEN BY: Bree (she/her), cst.

BACKGROUND / BIO

triggering / sensitive topics: pregnancy, only fans

Growing up in the chaotic Maddox household was a lot for Rory to handle. There never seemed to be any moments of just good ol’ family time. Okay, well, at least as a “whole” family. There were times of family love displayed when she was spending time with Tommy. In fact, it wasn’t until well into her adulthood that Rory realized that the “car sleepovers” were actually pretty traumatic… and the fact that she still occasionally spent nights in the second-hand SUV she’d acquired kind of said a lot about her…

After high school, Rory went to community college in Merrock to get her associates in Photography, knowing since she was able to peer through the viewfinder to take pictures that she was in love with the idea of capturing people in their best lights. But she knew that trying to set herself up in a career in photography would never come easy- nothing ever did. So she turned to working as a barista while getting her associates.

Managing to save up enough and securing two scholarships, Rory started attending Maine Media College for Photography. She moved into a small apartment with three other individuals near Rockport to keep costs down and picked up another job as a waitress while there. The brunette lived in and around Rockport for six years, finishing up her program and starting to branch out to organizations around there for work. She picked up a few gigs here and there, but she still didn't seem to have enough notability around Rockport to keep things steady.

Frustrated and exhausted, Rory packed up and moved back to Merrock to bring some familiarity back to her life. Another small apartment in the downtown area with a couple roommates and her job back at Cobbiestone Cafe and Rory felt like she was 18 again. It was a comfort and a hassle all at the same time, so hearing that one of her friends from Rockport was moving to New York seemed like the perfect out. Not for a long time, but she insisted on helping them move their whole life to NYC. A wild week in the Big Apple and thousands of photos taken later, Rory returned to Merrock with more than she had intended to, and nine months later, she was a mother to a beautiful baby girl, Louise.

Tommy had done such an amazing job of making her feel safe throughout her whole life. He honestly always had. Despite her sometimes being exhausted by his overly protective brother speeches, after having Louise, she started to understand a little bit more of how that felt. A fear of what could happen to someone that you care so much for when you have no control over their safety directly anymore… that was a feeling that came over her regularly as she dropped Louise off for daycare. But it wasn’t as though she could work with Louise around.

Work was an interesting topic for Rory. Her most obvious source of income was her photography business that she’d gotten started just before finding out that she was pregnant with Louise, but it was far from her largest source of income. That title went to her Only Fans account that was up and running for quite a few years now. At first, it felt extremely uncomfortable as she began to make videos, but the more she did, the more she came to actually enjoy it. It seemed so weird, but as she put a mask on (literally), she was able to escape from Rory Maddox’s life and become an entirely different person for her fans.

[everythingadelaidemusic]

This week I interviewed the man with the beautiful voice, Stu Daniels. Looking forward to playing a show with him next Sunday at Pirate life.

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

I'm Stu Daniels from the Adelaide foothills. I have young children, a wife, a dog, chickens... it's crazy busy! I work a 9-5 job and pretty much play music in all the spare time!

What got you into the music industry?

For as long as I can remember I’ve always been drawn to music and its always been an outlet for me. As a famous author once said 'Where words fail, music speaks". This quote really resonates with me as writing my own music helps me to say the things that I need to say, and it also helps get a lot off of my mind. So it really is quite therapeutic for me!

Apart from that I guess music always has been in the family... fun-fact: My great-great grandfather actually composed the music for the coronation of King George V! Also, my dad and grandfather played in live bands which exposed me to live performances at an early age.

What are you short and long terms goals?

Firstly, to head back into the studio to finish recording some solo work, ready to be put out into the world, it won't be too far away.

I played in Tamworth this year at TCMF23, it's inspired and helped me realise that alternative country genre is where my music belongs as it really connected with me and where I am at with my song writing. Since I’ve been back home I've been writing with a folk/blues country inspired sound and it just feels right.

Long term... I'll release the tracks and EP I've been working on, hopefully connect with others and increase my fan base on socials and more live performances.

How was it dealing with the Covid Pandemic? Is everything back to normal?

It was chaotic at home, with everyone locked in...

But it gave me a chance to write more, experiment with my sound. But of course all venues shut up, so I really felt it, not being out there performing. I love playing, connecting with people who like what I'm doing, I really missed that.

It's been slow to get back in, but it's definitely picking up

You have a gig at Pirate life on April 16. What can we expect to see from you on this day?

40 minutes of my heart and soul!

I've got some real emotive songs in the set, and some foot tapping numbers, I'll throw a love song in there and maybe even a new one!

What is your career highlight so far.

Definitely supporting the legendary band, The Animals is a highlight for me personally. Being able to play before such talented and highly held artists and also chatting to them about their successes gave me so much inspiration. The audience were awesome, and it felt like such a good moment in time, I don’t think I will ever forget that feeling.

Your new single “enemies” is great. Can you tell us a little bit about this song?

I wrote this song during Covid actually. When everything was shut and there were restrictions on what we could do, it really got me down for a bit. Not knowing a way out, I took to the guitar. The lyrics really unravel what was going on in my mind, the spiral into the dark. Every mistake that you do and things you say, some people don't let it go and I guess the hardest critic is yourself sometimes. While this emotive song is quite sombre and confronting, it's is also about rising above the haters, the demons in your own head and feeling ok with where you're at.

With new venues like The Hindley Street Music Hall opening up, what do you think of the Adelaide music scene?

There are a lot of venues who have shut due to the Pandemic. The new venues that are opening are great for Adelaide, we all want to get out there again. They are definitely booking out quickly as so many artists, local and interstate want the opportunity to play again. It seems like a fresh bunch of really cool and good new music is starting to come through, but it was also sad to see a few bands fall away and not return.

Who are the most successful Adelaide bands in the last 2 decades

Probably the first ones that spring to mind are Bad Dreems and West Thebarton

What Adelaide bands should we look out for?

Corda Negra blew me away with their amazingly good acoustic folk.

The first muso I met in Tamworth was Scott Rathman Jnr who by chance is also from Adelaide – I think he is looking at recording by all accounts.

And of course, my other music project – Already Gone – which diverges more towards Indie Rock.

If you could invite 4 musicians to dinner dead or alive) who would you invite?

Probably John Bonham, Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix and Freddie Mecury and hope for a post dinner jam session!

If you were given the chance to support one artist in the world, who would you pick?

Don McLean as he is a great storyteller through song and also American Pie is one of my all-time favourite songs.

If you were stuck on a deserted island with only one record, what would it be?

I’m bad at these sort of questions as I’m always changing what my favourite record is! So perhaps a best of album by the Beatles or Creedence Clearwater Revival as there are a lot of great songs covered (although this is probably cheating!)

Where can people find out more about you?

Socials: Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, and of course come see me play and my next gig!

[comedyinsydney]

Australia’s School of Stand Up Comedy is live in Melbourne with a new batch of funny people. They will be hitting the stage for their first live gig this Thursday at 730pm, inside the Ibis Hotel, 15 Therry St, Melbourne. Joining them live on stage is special guest funny man and MC, Robbie G and Tshaka. Grab tickets at the door after 7pm on on our website. We’re back in Sydney on Sat for our 5week Course. They are half way through their course and will be performing live on April 1st, with special guest Comic/MC Rob Andrews and support Henry Zhu. Catch us in Canberra March 19th. Thanks for supporting live comedy and the new up and coming future funny men and women. Australia’s School of Stand Up Comedy “ Where we show you how to tickle their funny bone” https://www.comedyintheraw.com.au/comedy-school-courses/ 2023 Final Course Dates: Sydney : June 4th-8th and July 16-Aug 13th. Brisbane - April 23rd-27th (prep for Fest course) or Sept 3rd-7th (Final courses in Brisbane) Adelaide - July 30th-Aug 3rd ( Final course in Adelaide) Canberra - March 19th-23rd (prep for Fest course) + Sept 17th-21st Melbourne - Aug 20th-24th ( Final course in Melbourne ) #bonkerzcomedyaustralia #standupcomedyschools #comedyclubssydneycbd #comedy #sydneycbd #comedyclubs #comedysydney #comedyschoolmelbourne #laughter  #bonkerzaustralia #liveperformances #comedians #comedyschooladelaide #festivals #comedyfestivals #fringefestivals #comedyschoolcanberra #openmiccomedysydney #bonkerzcomedyaustralia #standupcomedyschoolssydney #comedyclubssydneycbd #comedyschoolbrisbane https://www.instagram.com/p/CpcgwdLS_tL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[jethromakesmusic]

Sitting here in Sydney airport about to board my flight home to Adelaide, and it has me thinking about how great-full I am to be able to create and play music for a living. I started ‘Jethro’ back in April when I was in Sydney for some other business. Six months on and I am back here on my own, booking my own writing sessions, spending time with other artists and producers, showing my face at local gigs, and meeting with label reps. I honestly can’t believe how far this journey has come in such a short period of time. And I have so many beautiful people to thank for pushing me along the way. You know who you are! Keep doing the things you love and don’t stop grinding until you get there... even though sometimes you may feel like giving up. Most importantly, make sure you enjoy the process along the way. The grind is real folks... but if you never try, you will never succeed. Watch this space 💛 (at Sydney Airport) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo0o7vNgia9/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1fq8oib0l3aj4

[blackkudos]

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death in a career spanning over fifty years.

Born in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward, and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. In the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Though widely considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington embraced the phrase "beyond category" as a liberating principle, and referred to his music as part of the more general category of American Music, rather than to a musical genre such as jazz.

Some of the musicians who were members of Ellington's orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in jazz. Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington often composed specifically to feature the style and skills of his individual musicians.

Often collaborating with others, Ellington wrote more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, with many of his works having become standards. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizol's "Caravan", and "Perdido", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. After 1941, Ellington collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or suites, as well as additional short pieces. Following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major career revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in several films, scoring several, and composed stage musicals.

Due to his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and thanks to his eloquence and charisma, Ellington is generally considered to have elevated the perception of jazz to an art form on a par with other more traditional musical genres. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize for music in 1999.

Early life

Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington in Washington, D.C. Both his parents were pianists. Daisy primarily played parlor songs and James preferred operatic arias. They lived with his maternal grandparents at 2129 Ida Place (now Ward Place), NW, in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Duke's father was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15, 1879, and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1886 with his parents. Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1879, the daughter of a former American slave. James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy. When Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D.C. worked to protect their children from the era's Jim Crow laws.

At the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners and teach him to live elegantly. Ellington's childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, and began calling him "Duke." Ellington credited his chum Edgar McEntree for the nickname. "I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. So he called me Duke."

Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was more interested in baseball. "President Roosevelt (Teddy) would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play", he recalled. Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C. He gained his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games.

In the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Ellington wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag" (also known as the "Poodle Dog Rag"). He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet learned to read and write music. "I would play the 'Soda Fountain Rag' as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot", Ellington recalled. "Listeners never knew it was the same piece. I was established as having my own repertoire." In his autobiography, Music is my Mistress (1973), Ellington wrote that he missed more lessons than he attended, feeling at the time that playing the piano was not his talent.

Ellington started sneaking into Frank Holiday's Poolroom at the age of fourteen. Hearing the poolroom pianists play ignited Ellington's love for the instrument, and he began to take his piano studies seriously. Among the many piano players he listened to were Doc Perry, Lester Dishman, Louis Brown, Turner Layton, Gertie Wells, Clarence Bowser, Sticky Mack, Blind Johnny, Cliff Jackson, Claude Hopkins, Phil Wurd, Caroline Thornton, Luckey Roberts, Eubie Blake, Joe Rochester, and Harvey Brooks.

Ellington began listening to, watching, and imitating ragtime pianists, not only in Washington, D.C., but in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, where he vacationed with his mother during the summer months. Dunbar High School music teacher Henry Lee Grant gave him private lessons in harmony. With the additional guidance of Washington pianist and band leader Oliver "Doc" Perry, Ellington learned to read sheet music, project a professional style, and improve his technique. Ellington was also inspired by his first encounters with stride pianists James P. Johnson and Luckey Roberts. Later in New York he took advice from Will Marion Cook, Fats Waller, and Sidney Bechet. Ellington started to play gigs in cafés and clubs in and around Washington, D.C. His attachment to music was so strong that in 1916 he turned down an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Three months before graduating he dropped out of Armstrong Manual Training School, where he was studying commercial art.

Working as a freelance sign-painter from 1917, Ellington began assembling groups to play for dances. In 1919 he met drummer Sonny Greer from New Jersey, who encouraged Ellington's ambition to become a professional musician. Ellington built his music business through his day job: when a customer asked him to make a sign for a dance or party, he would ask if they had musical entertainment; if not, Ellington would offer to play for the occasion. He also had a messenger job with the U.S. Navy and State departments, where he made a wide range of contacts. Ellington moved out of his parents' home and bought his own as he became a successful pianist. At first, he played in other ensembles, and in late 1917 formed his first group, "The Duke's Serenaders" ("Colored Syncopators", his telephone directory advertising proclaimed). He was also the group's booking agent. His first play date was at the True Reformer's Hall, where he took home 75 cents.

Ellington played throughout the Washington, D.C. area and into Virginia for private society balls and embassy parties. The band included childhood friend Otto Hardwick, who began playing the string bass, then moved to C-melody sax and finally settled on alto saxophone; Arthur Whetsol on trumpet; Elmer Snowden on banjo; and Sonny Greer on drums. The band thrived, performing for both African-American and white audiences, a rarity in the segregated society of the day.

Music career

Early career

When his drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join the Wilber Sweatman Orchestra in New York City, Ellington made the fateful decision to leave behind his successful career in Washington, D.C., and move to Harlem, ultimately becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance. New dance crazes such as the Charleston emerged in Harlem, as well as African-American musical theater, including Eubie Blake's Shuffle Along. After the young musicians left the Sweatman Orchestra to strike out on their own, they found an emerging jazz scene that was highly competitive and hard to crack. They hustled pool by day and played whatever gigs they could find. The young band met stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith, who introduced them to the scene and gave them some money. They played at rent-house parties for income. After a few months, the young musicians returned to Washington, D.C., feeling discouraged.

In June 1923, a gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey, led to a play date at the prestigious Exclusive Club in Harlem. This was followed in September 1923 by a move to the Hollywood Club – 49th and Broadway – and a four-year engagement, which gave Ellington a solid artistic base. He was known to play the bugle at the end of each performance. The group was initially called Elmer Snowden and his Black Sox Orchestra and had seven members, including trumpeter James "Bubber" Miley. They renamed themselves The Washingtonians. Snowden left the group in early 1924 and Ellington took over as bandleader. After a fire, the club was re-opened as the Club Kentucky (often referred to as the Kentucky Club).

Ellington made eight records in 1924, receiving composing credit on three including "Choo Choo". In 1925, Ellington contributed four songs to Chocolate Kiddies starring Lottie Gee and Adelaide Hall, an all-African-American revue which introduced European audiences to African-American styles and performers. Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra grew to a group of ten players; they developed their own sound by displaying the non-traditional expression of Ellington's arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and sultry saxophone blues licks of the band members. For a short time soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet played with them, imparting his propulsive swing and superior musicianship to the young band members.

Cotton Club engagement

In October 1926, Ellington made an agreement with agent-publisher Irving Mills, giving Mills a 45% interest in Ellington's future. Mills had an eye for new talent and published compositions by Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Fields, and Harold Arlen early in their careers. After recording a handful of acoustic titles during 1924–26, Ellington's signing with Mills allowed him to record prolifically, although sometimes he recorded different versions of the same tune. Mills often took a co-composer credit. From the beginning of their relationship, Mills arranged recording sessions on nearly every label including Brunswick, Victor, Columbia, OKeh, Pathê (and its Perfect label), the ARC/Plaza group of labels (Oriole, Domino, Jewel, Banner) and their dime-store labels (Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo), Hit of the Week, and Columbia's cheaper labels (Harmony, Diva, Velvet Tone, Clarion) labels which gave Ellington popular recognition. On OKeh, his records were usually issued as The Harlem Footwarmers, while the Brunswick's were usually issued as The Jungle Band. Whoopee Makers and the Ten Black Berries were other pseudonyms.

In September 1927, King Oliver turned down a regular booking for his group as the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club; the offer passed to Ellington after Jimmy McHugh suggested him and Mills arranged an audition. Ellington had to increase from a six to eleven-piece group to meet the requirements of the Cotton Club's management for the audition, and the engagement finally began on December 4. With a weekly radio broadcast, the Cotton Club's exclusively white and wealthy clientele poured in nightly to see them. At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illegal alcohol. The musical numbers were composed by Jimmy McHugh and the lyrics by Dorothy Fields (later Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler), with some Ellington originals mixed in. (Here he moved in with a dancer, his second wife Mildred Dixon). Weekly radio broadcasts from the club gave Ellington national exposure, while Ellington also recorded Fields-JMcHugh and Fats Waller–Andy Razaf songs.

Although trumpeter Bubber Miley was a member of the orchestra for only a short period, he had a major influence on Ellington's sound. As an early exponent of growl trumpet, Miley changed the sweet dance band sound of the group to one that was hotter, which contemporaries termed Jungle Style. In October 1927, Ellington and his Orchestra recorded several compositions with Adelaide Hall. One side in particular, "Creole Love Call", became a worldwide sensation and gave both Ellington and Hall their first hit record. Miley had composed most of "Creole Love Call" and "Black and Tan Fantasy". An alcoholic, Miley had to leave the band before they gained wider fame. He died in 1932 at the age of 29, but he was an important influence on Cootie Williams, who replaced him.

In 1929, the Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Girl, along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante, Eddie Foy, Jr., Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn. Will Vodery, Ziegfeld's musical supervisor, recommended Ellington for the show, and, according to John Hasse's Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington, "Perhaps during the run of Show Girl, Ellington received what he later termed ' valuable lessons in orchestration from Will Vodery.' In his 1946 biography, Duke Ellington, Barry Ulanov wrote:

From Vodery, as he (Ellington) says himself, he drew his chromatic convictions, his uses of the tones ordinarily extraneous to the diatonic scale, with the consequent alteration of the harmonic character of his music, its broadening, The deepening of his resources. It has become customary to ascribe the classical influences upon Duke – Delius, Debussy and Ravel – to direct contact with their music. Actually his serious appreciation of those and other modern composers, came after his meeting with Vodery.

Ellington's film work began with Black and Tan (1929), a nineteen-minute all-African-American RKO short in which he played the hero "Duke". He also appeared in the Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check released in 1930. That year, Ellington and his Orchestra connected with a whole different audience in a concert with Maurice Chevalier and they also performed at the Roseland Ballroom, "America's foremost ballroom". Australian-born composer Percy Grainger was an early admirer and supporter. He wrote "The three greatest composers who ever lived are Bach, Delius and Duke Ellington. Unfortunately Bach is dead, Delius is very ill but we are happy to have with us today The Duke". Ellington's first period at the Cotton Club concluded in 1931.

The early 1930s

Ellington led the orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using piano cues and visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a baton. By 1932 his orchestra consisted of six brass instruments, four reeds, and a four-man rhythm section. As a bandleader, Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian; he maintained control of his orchestra with a combination of charm, humor, flattery and astute psychology. A complex, private person, he revealed his feelings to only his closest intimates and effectively used his public persona to deflect attention away from himself.

Ellington signed exclusively to Brunswick in 1932 and stayed with them through late 1936 (albeit with a short-lived 1933–34 switch to Victor when Irving Mills temporarily moved him and his other acts from Brunswick).

As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis, dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933. Ivie Anderson was hired as their featured vocalist in 1931. She is the vocalist on "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932) among other recordings. Sonny Greer had been providing occasional vocals and continued to do in a cross-talk feature with Anderson. Radio exposure helped maintain Ellington's public profile as his orchestra began to tour. The other records of this era include: "Mood Indigo" (1930), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933), "Solitude" (1934), and "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935)

While the band's United States audience remained mainly African-American in this period, the Ellington orchestra had a significant following overseas, exemplified by the success of their trip to England and Scotland in 1933 and their 1934 visit to the European mainland. The British visit saw Ellington win praise from members of the serious music community, including composer Constant Lambert, which gave a boost to Ellington's interest in composing longer works.

Those longer pieces had already begun to appear. He had composed and recorded Creole Rhapsody as early as 1931 (issued as both sides of a 12" record for Victor and both sides of a 10" record for Brunswick), and a tribute to his mother, "Reminiscing in Tempo", took four 10" record sides to record in 1935 after her death in that year. Symphony in Black (also 1935), a short film, featured his extended piece 'A Rhapsody of Negro Life'. It introduced Billie Holiday, and won an Academy Award as the best musical short subject. Ellington and his Orchestra also appeared in the features Murder at the Vanities and Belle of the Nineties (both 1934).

For agent Mills the attention was a publicity triumph, as Ellington was now internationally known. On the band's tour through the segregated South in 1934, they avoided some of the traveling difficulties of African-Americans by touring in private railcars. These provided easy accommodations, dining, and storage for equipment while avoiding the indignities of segregated facilities.

Competition was intensifying though, as swing bands like Benny Goodman's, began to receive popular attention. Swing dancing became a youth phenomenon, particularly with white college audiences, and danceability drove record sales and bookings. Jukeboxes proliferated nationwide, spreading the gospel of swing. Ellington's band could certainly swing, but their strengths were mood, nuance, and richness of composition, hence his statement "jazz is music, swing is business".

The later 1930s

From 1936, Ellington began to make recordings with smaller groups (sextets, octets, and nonets) drawn from his then-15-man orchestra and he composed pieces intended to feature a specific instrumentalist, as with "Jeep's Blues" for Johnny Hodges, "Yearning for Love" for Lawrence Brown, "Trumpet in Spades" for Rex Stewart, "Echoes of Harlem" for Cootie Williams and "Clarinet Lament" for Barney Bigard. In 1937, Ellington returned to the Cotton Club which had relocated to the mid-town Theater District. In the summer of that year, his father died, and due to many expenses, Ellington's finances were tight, although his situation improved the following year.

After leaving agent Irving Mills, he signed on with the William Morris Agency. Mills though continued to record Ellington. After only a year, his Master and Variety labels, the small groups had recorded for the latter, collapsed in late 1937, Mills placed Ellington back on Brunswick and those small group units on Vocalion through to 1940. Well known sides continued to be recorded, "Caravan" in 1937, and "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" the following year.

Billy Strayhorn, originally hired as a lyricist, began his association with Ellington in 1939. Nicknamed "Swee' Pea" for his mild manner, Strayhorn soon became a vital member of the Ellington organization. Ellington showed great fondness for Strayhorn and never failed to speak glowingly of the man and their collaborative working relationship, "my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine". Strayhorn, with his training in classical music, not only contributed his original lyrics and music, but also arranged and polished many of Ellington's works, becoming a second Ellington or "Duke's doppelganger". It was not uncommon for Strayhorn to fill in for Duke, whether in conducting or rehearsing the band, playing the piano, on stage, and in the recording studio. The 1930s ended with a very successful European tour just as World War II loomed in Europe.

Ellington in the early to mid-1940s

Some of the musicians who joined Ellington at this time created a sensation in their own right. The short-lived Jimmy Blanton transformed the use of double bass in jazz, allowing it to function as a solo/melodic instrument rather than a rhythm instrument alone. Terminal illness forced him to leave by late 1941 after only about two years. Ben Webster, the Orchestra's first regular tenor saxophonist, whose main tenure with Ellington spanned 1939 to 1943, started a rivalry with Johnny Hodges as the Orchestra's foremost voice in the sax section.

Trumpeter Ray Nance joined, replacing Cootie Williams who had defected to Benny Goodman. Additionally, Nance added violin to the instrumental colors Ellington had at his disposal. Recordings exist of Nance's first concert date on November 7, 1940, at Fargo, North Dakota. Privately made by Jack Towers and Dick Burris, these recordings were first legitimately issued in 1978 as Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live; they are among the earliest of innumerable live performances which survive. Nance was also an occasional vocalist, although Herb Jeffries was the main male vocalist in this era (until 1943) while Al Hibbler (who replaced Jeffries in 1943) continued until 1951. Ivie Anderson left in 1942 after eleven years: the longest term of any of Ellington's vocalists.

Once again recording for Victor (from 1940), with the small groups recording for their Bluebird label, three-minute masterpieces on 78 rpm record sides continued to flow from Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's son Mercer Ellington, and members of the Orchestra. "Cotton Tail", "Main Stem", "Harlem Airshaft", "Jack the Bear", and dozens of others date from this period. Strayhorn's "Take the "A" Train" a hit in 1941, became the band's theme, replacing "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo". Ellington and his associates wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices who displayed tremendous creativity. Mary Lou Williams, working as a staff arranger, would briefly join Ellington a few years later.

Ellington's long-term aim though was to extend the jazz form from that three-minute limit, of which he was an acknowledged master. While he had composed and recorded some extended pieces before, such works now became a regular feature of Ellington's output. In this, he was helped by Strayhorn, who had enjoyed a more thorough training in the forms associated with classical music than Ellington. The first of these, "Black, Brown, and Beige" (1943), was dedicated to telling the story of African-Americans, and the place of slavery and the church in their history. Ellington debuted Black, Brown and Beige in Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943, beginning an annual series of concerts there over the next four years. While some jazz musicians had played at Carnegie Hall before, none had performed anything as elaborate as Ellington's work. Unfortunately, starting a regular pattern, Ellington's longer works were generally not well received.

A partial exception was Jump for Joy, a full-length musical based on themes of African-American identity, debuted on July 10, 1941, at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. Hollywood luminaries such as actors John Garfield and Mickey Rooney invested in the production, and Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles offered to direct. At one performance though, Garfield insisted Herb Jeffries, who was light-skinned, should wear make-up. Ellington objected in the interval, and compared Jeffries to Al Jolson. The change was reverted, and the singer later commented that the audience must have thought he was an entirely different character in the second half of the show.

Although it had sold-out performances, and received positive reviews, it ran for only 122 performances until September 29, 1941, with a brief revival in November of that year. Its subject matter did not make it appealing to Broadway; Ellington had unfulfilled plans to take it there. Despite this disappointment, a Broadway production of Ellington's Beggar's Holiday, his sole book musical, premiered on December 23, 1946. under the direction of Nicholas Ray.

The settlement of the first recording ban of 1942–43, leading to an increase in royalties paid to musicians, had a serious effect on the financial viability of the big bands, including Ellington's Orchestra. His income as a songwriter ultimately subsidized it. Although he always spent lavishly and drew a respectable income from the Orchestra's operations, the band's income often just covered expenses.

Early post-war years

World War II brought about a swift end to the big band era as musicians went off to serve in the military and travel restrictions made touring difficult. When the war ended, the focus of popular music shifted towards crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford, so Ellington's wordless vocal feature "Transblucency" (1946) with Kay Davis was not going to have a similar reach. With inflation setting in after 1945, the cost of hiring big bands went up and club owners preferred smaller jazz groups who played in new styles such as bebop. Dancing in clubs also subjected club owners to a new wartime tax which continued for many years after, which made small bands more cost-effective for club owners.

Ellington continued on his own course through these tectonic shifts. While Count Basie was forced to disband his whole ensemble and work as an octet for a time, Ellington was able to tour most of Western Europe between April 6 and June 30, 1950, with the orchestra playing 74 dates over 77 days. During the tour, according to Sonny Greer, the newer works were not performed, though Ellington's extended composition, Harlem (1950) was in the process of being completed at this time. Ellington later presented its score to music-loving President Harry Truman. Also during his time in Europe, Ellington would compose the music for a stage production by Orson Welles. Titled Time Runs in Paris and An Evening With Orson Welles in Frankfurt, the variety show also featured a newly discovered Eartha Kitt, who performed Ellington's original song "Hungry Little Trouble" as Helen of Troy.

In 1951, Ellington suffered a significant loss of personnel: Sonny Greer, Lawrence Brown, and most importantly Johnny Hodges left to pursue other ventures, although only Greer was a permanent departee. Drummer Louie Bellson replaced Greer, and his "Skin Deep" was a hit for Ellington. Tenor player Paul Gonsalves had joined in December 1950 after periods with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie and stayed for the rest of his life, while Clark Terry joined in November 1951.

During the early 1950s, Ellington's career was at a low point with his style being generally seen as outmoded, but his reputation did not suffer as badly as some artists. André Previn said in 1952: "You know, Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, Oh, yes, that's done like this. But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound, and I don’t know what it is!" However, by 1955, after three years of recording for Capitol, Ellington lacked a regular recording affiliation.

Career revival

Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956 returned him to wider prominence and introduced him to a new generation of fans. The feature "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" comprised two tunes that had been in the band's book since 1937 but largely forgotten until Ellington, who had abruptly ended the band's scheduled set because of the late arrival of four key players, called the two tunes as the time was approaching midnight. Announcing that the two pieces would be separated by an interlude played by tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, Ellington proceeded to lead the band through the two pieces, with Gonsalves' 27-chorus marathon solo whipping the crowd into a frenzy, leading the Maestro to play way beyond the curfew time despite urgent pleas from festival organizer George Wein to bring the program to an end.

The concert made international headlines, led to one of only five Time magazine cover stories dedicated to a jazz musician, and resulted in an album produced by George Avakian that would become the best-selling LP of Ellington's career. Much of the music on the vinyl LP was, in effect, simulated, with only about 40% actually from the concert itself. According to Avakian, Ellington was dissatisfied with aspects of the performance and felt the musicians had been under rehearsed. The band assembled the next day to re-record several of the numbers with the addition of artificial crowd noise, none of which was disclosed to purchasers of the album. Not until 1999 was the concert recording properly released for the first time. The revived attention brought about by the Newport appearance should not have surprised anyone, Johnny Hodges had returned the previous year, and Ellington's collaboration with Strayhorn had been renewed around the same time, under terms more amenable to the younger man.

The original Ellington at Newport album was the first release in a new recording contract with Columbia Records which yielded several years of recording stability, mainly under producer Irving Townsend, who coaxed both commercial and artistic productions from Ellington.

In 1957, CBS (Columbia Records' parent corporation) aired a live television production of A Drum Is a Woman, an allegorical suite which received mixed reviews. His hope that television would provide a significant new outlet for his type of jazz was not fulfilled. Tastes and trends had moved on without him. Festival appearances at the new Monterey Jazz Festival and elsewhere provided venues for live exposure, and a European tour in 1958 was well received. Such Sweet Thunder (1957), based on Shakespeare's plays and characters, and The Queen's Suite (1958), dedicated to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, were products of the renewed impetus which the Newport appearance helped to create, although the latter work was not commercially issued at the time. The late 1950s also saw Ella Fitzgerald record her Duke Ellington Songbook (Verve) with Ellington and his orchestra—a recognition that Ellington's songs had now become part of the cultural canon known as the 'Great American Songbook'.

Ellington at this time (with Strayhorn) began to work directly on scoring for film soundtracks, in particular Anatomy of a Murder (1959), with James Stewart, in which Ellington appeared fronting a roadhouse combo, and Paris Blues (1961), which featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as jazz musicians. Detroit Free Press music critic Mark Stryker concludes that the work of Billy Strayhorn and Ellington in Anatomy of a Murder a trial court drama film directed by Otto Preminger, is "indispensable, [although] . . . too sketchy to rank in the top echelon among Ellington-Strayhorn masterpiece suites like Such Sweet Thunder and The Far East Suite, but its most inspired moments are their equal."

Film historians have recognized the soundtrack "as a landmark – the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic music, that is, music whose source is not visible or implied by action in the film, like an on-screen band." The score avoided the cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores and rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged the New Wave cinema of the '60s". Ellington and Strayhorn, always looking for new musical territory, produced suites for John Steinbeck's novel Sweet Thursday, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt.

In the early 1960s, Ellington embraced recording with artists who had been friendly rivals in the past, or were younger musicians who focused on later styles. The Ellington and Count Basie orchestras recorded together. During a period when he was between recording contracts, he made records with Louis Armstrong (Roulette), Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane (both for Impulse) and participated in a session with Charles Mingus and Max Roach which produced the Money Jungle (United Artists) album. He signed to Frank Sinatra's new Reprise label, but the association with the label was short-lived.

Musicians who had previously worked with Ellington returned to the Orchestra as members: Lawrence Brown in 1960 and Cootie Williams in 1962.

"The writing and playing of music is a matter of intent.... You can't just throw a paint brush against the wall and call whatever happens art. My music fits the tonal personality of the player. I think too strongly in terms of altering my music to fit the performer to be impressed by accidental music. You can't take doodling seriously."

He was now performing all over the world; a significant part of each year was spent on overseas tours. As a consequence, he formed new working relationships with artists from around the world, including the Swedish vocalist Alice Babs, and the South African musicians Dollar Brand and Sathima Bea Benjamin (A Morning in Paris, 1963/1997).

Ellington wrote an original score for director Michael Langham's production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada which opened on July 29, 1963. Langham has used it for several subsequent productions, including a much later adaptation by Stanley Silverman which expands the score with some of Ellington's best-known works.

Last years

Ellington was a Pulitzer Prize for Music nominee in 1965 but no prize was awarded that year. Then 66 years old, he said: "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young." In 1999 he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize (not the Music prize), "commemorating the centennial year of his birth, in recognition of his musical genius, which evoked aesthetically the principles of democracy through the medium of jazz and thus made an indelible contribution to art and culture."

In September 1965, he premiered the first of his Sacred Concerts. He created a jazz Christian liturgy. Although the work received mixed reviews, Ellington was proud of the composition and performed it dozens of times. This concert was followed by two others of the same type in 1968 and 1973, known as the Second and Third Sacred Concerts. These generated controversy in what was already a tumultuous time in the United States. Many saw the Sacred Music suites as an attempt to reinforce commercial support for organized religion, though Ellington simply said it was "the most important thing I've done". The Steinway piano upon which the Sacred Concerts were composed is part of the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Like Haydn and Mozart, Ellington conducted his orchestra from the piano – he always played the keyboard parts when the Sacred Concerts were performed.

Despite his advancing age (he turned 65 in the spring of 1964), Ellington showed no sign of slowing down as he continued to make vital and innovative recordings, including The Far East Suite (1966), New Orleans Suite (1970), Latin American Suite (1972) and The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (1971), much of it inspired by his world tours. It was during this time that he recorded his only album with Frank Sinatra, entitled Francis A. & Edward K. (1967).

Although he made two more stage appearances before his death, Ellington performed what is considered his final full concert in a ballroom at Northern Illinois University on March 20, 1974.

The last three shows Ellington and his orchestra performed were one on March 21, 1973 at Purdue University's Hall of Music and two on March 22, 1973 at the Sturges-Young Auditorium in Sturgis, Michigan.

Personal life

Ellington married his high school sweetheart, Edna Thompson (d. 1967), on July 2, 1918, when he was 19. The next spring, on March 11, 1919, Edna gave birth to their only son, Mercer Kennedy Ellington.

Ellington was joined in New York City by his wife and son in the late twenties, but the couple soon permanently separated. According to her obituary in Jet magazine, she was "homesick for Washington" and returned. In 1928, Ellington became the companion of Mildred Dixon, who traveled with him, managed Tempo Music, inspired songs at the peak of his career, and reared his son Mercer.

In 1938 he left his family (his son was then 19) and moved in with Beatrice "Evie" Ellis, a Cotton Club employee. Their relationship, though stormy, continued after Ellington met and formed a relationship with Fernanda de Castro Monte in the early 1960s. Ellington supported both women for the rest of his life.

Ellington's sister Ruth (1915–2004) later ran Tempo Music, his music publishing company. Ruth's second husband was the bass-baritone McHenry Boatwright, whom she met when he sang at her brother's funeral. As an adult, son Mercer Ellington (d. 1996) played trumpet and piano, led his own band, and worked as his father's business manager.

Ellington died on May 24, 1974, of complications from lung cancer and pneumonia, a few weeks after his 75th birthday. At his funeral, attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day. A genius has passed." He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx, New York City.

Legacy

Memorials

Numerous memorials have been dedicated to Duke Ellington, in cities from New York and Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. Ellington is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.

In Ellington's birthplace, Washington, D.C., the Duke Ellington School of the Arts educates talented students, who are considering careers in the arts, by providing intensive arts instruction and strong academic programs that prepare students for post-secondary education and professional careers. Originally built in 1935, the Calvert Street Bridge was renamed the Duke Ellington Bridge in 1974.

In 1989, a bronze plaque was attached to the newly named Duke Ellington Building at 2121 Ward Place, NW. In 2012, the new owner of the building commissioned a mural by Aniekan Udofia that appears above the lettering "Duke Ellington".

In 2010 the triangular park, across the street from Duke Ellington's birth site, at the intersection of New Hampshire and M Streets, NW was named the Duke Ellington Park. Ellington's residence at 2728 Sherman Avenue, NW, during the years 1919–1922, is marked by a bronze plaque.

On February 24, 2009, the United States Mint launched a new coin featuring Duke Ellington, making him the first African American to appear by himself on a circulating U.S. coin. Ellington appears on the reverse (tails) side of the District of Columbia quarter. The coin is part of the U.S. Mint's program honoring the District and the U.S. territories and celebrates Ellington's birthplace in the District of Columbia. Ellington is depicted on the quarter seated at a piano, sheet music in hand, along with the inscription "Justice for All", which is the District's motto.

Ellington lived for years in a townhouse on the corner of Manhattan's Riverside Drive and West 106th Street. After his death, West 106th Street was officially renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard. A large memorial to Ellington, created by sculptor Robert Graham, was dedicated in 1997 in New York's Central Park, near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, an intersection named Duke Ellington Circle.

A statue of Ellington at a piano is featured at the entrance to UCLA's Schoenberg Hall. According to UCLA Magazine:

When UCLA students were entranced by Duke Ellington's provocative tunes at a Culver City club in 1937, they asked the budding musical great to play a free concert in Royce Hall. 'I've been waiting for someone to ask us!' Ellington exclaimed.

On the day of the concert, Ellington accidentally mixed up the venues and drove to USC instead. He eventually arrived at the UCLA campus and, to apologize for his tardiness, played to the packed crowd for more than four hours. And so, "Sir Duke" and his group played the first-ever jazz performance in a concert venue.

The Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival is a nationally renowned annual competition for prestigious high school bands. Started in 1996 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the festival is named after Ellington because of the large focus that the festival places on his works.

Tributes

After Duke died, his son Mercer took over leadership of the orchestra, continuing until his own death in 1996. Like the Count Basie Orchestra, this "ghost band" continued to release albums for many years. Digital Duke, credited to The Duke Ellington Orchestra, won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Mercer Ellington had been handling all administrative aspects of his father's business for several decades. Mercer's children continue a connection with their grandfather's work.

Gunther Schuller wrote in 1989

Ellington composed incessantly to the very last days of his life. Music was indeed his mistress; it was his total life and his commitment to it was incomparable and unalterable. In jazz he was a giant among giants. And in twentieth century music, he may yet one day be recognized as one of the half-dozen greatest masters of our time.

Martin Williams said: "Duke Ellington lived long enough to hear himself named among our best composers. And since his death in 1974, it has become not at all uncommon to see him named, along with Charles Ives, as the greatest composer we have produced, regardless of category."

In the opinion of Bob Blumenthal of The Boston Globe in 1999: "[i]n the century since his birth, there has been no greater composer, American or otherwise, than Edward Kennedy Ellington."

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Duke Ellington on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

While his compositions are now the staple of the repertoire of music conservatories, they have been revisited by artists and musicians around the world both as a source of inspiration and a bedrock of their own performing careers.

Dave Brubeck dedicated "The Duke" (1954) to Ellington and it became a standard covered by others, both during Ellington's lifetime (such as by Miles Davis on Miles Ahead, 1957) and posthumously (such as George Shearing on I Hear a Rhapsody: Live at the Blue Note, 1992). The album The Real Ambassadors has a vocal version of this piece, "You Swing Baby (The Duke)", with lyrics by Iola Brubeck, Dave Brubeck's wife. It is performed as a duet between Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. It is also dedicated to Duke Ellington.

Miles Davis created his half-hour dirge "He Loved Him Madly" (on Get Up with It) as a tribute to Ellington one month after his death.

Stevie Wonder wrote the song "Sir Duke" as a tribute to Ellington in 1976.

Joe Jackson interpreted Ellington's work on The Duke (2012) in new arrangements and with collaborations from Iggy Pop, Sharon Jones and Steve Vai.

There are hundreds of albums dedicated to the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn by artists famous and obscure. Sophisticated Ladies, an award-winning 1981 musical revue, incorporated many tunes from Ellington's repertoire. A second Broadway musical interpolating Ellington's music, Play On!, debuted in 1997.

Wikipedia

[avaliveradio]

New Release Last Train by Sleuth transports us somewhere else

This song is about experiencing death, but not in a sinister or painful way. I suppose the metaphor for Death is the idea of the train arriving to transport us somewhere else, and our reluctance to leave, even though our time has run out.

New Release: Last Train

Genre: Alt-folk ballad

Located in:   Portland, Victoria, Australia

I love this song because it is a very different flavor in my catalog, and I am always trying to challenge myself to span genres. This song is quite different from my usual sound, which has been compared to Chelsea Wolfe, Beth Gibbons, and Tori Amos. It has a much more ‘folk’ feel to it though.

This song was written in my kitchen on a stormy day. My husband played a few of the initial chords and suggested I try writing lyrics that weren’t ‘emotionally based,’ a more abstract style. There was a coffee cup on the bench, the weather outside, and we’d been talking about death beforehand... the result was a song about someone’s final moments of life and what they try to hold on to, in vain, in those last breaths as they are taken away. 

Message from the Artist...

This release is my 5th solo release for the year and my 9th release including collaborations for 2020. Being locked down where I live due to COVID restrictions has made it even more critical that I keep writing. 

I’d always planned to write my album Lux in 2020, and am currently right on schedule - Last Train is the 4th track in the album, due out in 2021. The album as a whole is a huge accomplishment for me - I’ve already won awards for tracks on it, and grown my following and listener base significantly, and I am excited to give my fans something new to hear! 

There is an official music video for this track, and I’ve deliberately chosen a ‘pop-cartoon’ style to it, to emphasize that it’s not a morbid song. There are plans for a tour in 2021 in the pipeline, provided that I can get enough funding support.

Artists Bio...

Sleuth is Melissa Francis, an enigmatic south-western Victorian singer-songwriter. She typically composes minimalist funk electro, dark and soulful jazz, and quirky alt-pop. Lyrically dark, melodically bitter, her music explores autobiographical themes of feminism, identity, grief, and emancipation, spanning genres from moody jazz to electro lounge and hard pop. Mel has performed original music on synths and loop pedals for the last 4 years, frequently playing solo live in pubs and cafes, and festivals, as well as writing, producing, and collaborating. Her first 3-month regional tour for debut album ‘Umbra Anima’ and 2nd EP ‘alter ego’ was nearly completed when COVID struck Victoria, so she was fortunate to only have the last 3 scheduled gigs out of 25 canceled in late March and April 2020.

Her original debut album 'Umbra Anima' (January 2019) was described as 'incredible, cinematic… vocal work that would make Beth Gibbons proud… 5-stars’. (Forte Music Magazine) EDM track Empty Room was the winner of RadioEasternFM's New Music competition winner Feb ‘19. She was 2019 Roar Award winner for Best New Creative Artist and signed with distribution label Noisehive in May 2020. 

Most recently she received an AIR award nomination for electronica EP ‘alter ego’, and also a nomination for a ‘long stage’ Music Victoria Award for 2020. Releasing prolifically over 2019, including collab funk-fusion album ‘Fly By Design’, + singles with Adelaide wordsmith ‘Eskatology’, + EDM producer ‘Nos Rider’, she also features on Nyctophiliac’s (Macedonia) noirish trip-hop album ’Everyday Existence’, providing impeccable vocals on Sweet Oblivion + The Still.  

Lockdown has not stopped Sleuth, who just keeps on writing, inspired by everything around her. Her next album, LUX, is anticipated late 2020, with singles ‘Hibernate’, and ‘Breathe’, dark trance track ‘Abyss Of Your Heart’ and ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’ already released. Still to come for the album are releases ‘Finish Line’, ‘Vinyl Scratch,’ and ‘Umbilicus.’

LINKS:  https://www.twitter.com/sleuthmusic1 https://instagram.com/sleuthmusic11 https://www.facebook.com/sleuthmusician YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZD75606pc70

[ralph-fydt]

@harakiriau has a few shows lined up in April. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Albury. Be sure to come to any of these! We plan to make the live performance a promising one to watch and be apart of! #lineup #music #announcement #gigs #adelaide #sydney #melbourne #albury #poster #band #metalcore https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXw2QwloMv/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=17305gtnohb1d

[everything-offspring]

Eddie Perfect drops a bombshell as he sets his sights on Broadway

By Paul Ewart April 29, 2017

HE BECAME a household name thanks to his portrayal of lovestruck musician and all-round nice guy, Mick Holland, on Offspring.

But while Channel Ten recently announced that the hit drama would return for its seventh season later this year — with filming currently underway — Eddie Perfect has dropped a bombshell that will leave fans shocked.

Exclusively chatting to news.com.au Perfect reveals that he won’t be returning for the next season of the show.

“No, I’m not!” says the gravel-voiced 39-year-old. “I’ve taken a step away from it to concentrate on writing.

“I just had to choose, so I made a choice and that’s all it came down to. It’s nothing to do with Offspring or not liking it — I love doing it. But I’ve always had these Sophie’s Choice type experiences, you know, between the gig that’s very high profile and brings a lot of kudos … and then the other project that’s completely unknown, driven by myself, is creative and could be oodles of work for absolute naught, but you’ve gotta roll the dice and back yourself up at some point.”

What he’s doing is a dream come true. In a case of art imitating life, just as his famous TV alter-ego’s career took him overseas, Perfect has landed the gig of a lifetime — writing the score for a new Broadway musical version of Beetlejuice.

The original 1988 Tim Burton film, starring Gina Davis, Alec Baldwin and Winona Rider was a cult classic. So there’s a lot of pressure to get the stage version right.

“It’s very difficult because we have to graft a story onto it while staying true to the spirit of the film,” he explains.

“So that the fans will feel that it belongs in that world, but they’ll also get a story that has something meaningful to say.”

Revealing previously untold details of the big budget project, produced by Warner Brothers, Perfect says that the story will be far darker than the big screen original.

“It’s about a lot of things,” says the musician. “But it’s vastly about the relationship between the father and daughter who are grieving the loss of their mother … why do we continue to choose living? What’s life about?

“If we get it right it’ll be all the things a good musical should be: funny, fast, ridiculous, with great songs and a great heart at the engine of it.

Part of his decision to make the leap is undoubtedly the phenomenal success his good mate, Tim Minchin, has had with musical, Matilda. A show that has become one of the most successful stage productions in the last decade.

“Tim’s success is testament to the fact that Australians can write musical theatre,” says a smiling Perfect.

“That’s what I’m doing now. He’s a really supportive person. Having written with a lot of people overseas, he’s always saying that there’s no reason why Australians can’t do more of this. We tend to have a bit of a parochial attitude, you know ‘little us in the corner’ thinking we don’t have the right or ability to work at that level, but with a lot of hard work anything is possible.”

Following in Minchin’s footsteps, Eddie took a leap of faith and flew to New York three years ago where he met with Broadway execs and called in favours. But as a complete unknown it was pretty tough.

“It was actually Tim who said to me that there’s this project, Beetlejuice, floating around and they haven’t found a composer-lyricist yet,” he recalls.

“I said, ‘what if I just wrote two songs for free?’ It wouldn’t cost them any money and if they hated it there’d be nothing lost. I ended up writing three songs and I got the gig, which was pretty miraculous!”

Though still cloud nine, the father of two is fully aware of the pressure to succeed.

“Absolutely!” he says. “You don’t get the mountain, you just get given the opportunity to climb it. And it’s a beautiful opportunity, but it’s totally yours to f**k up!

“There’s all the usual doubts: am I good enough to be writing at this level? Am I going to choke? Am I gonna get fired? So I’ve just been working my guts out to make sure I’m always ahead of declines and turning stuff in.”

The other pressing commitment on his time is the upcoming Adelaide Cabaret Festival. An annual fixture on the Australian arts calendar, Eddie is in the hot seat as its co-creative director for the second year running.

“There really isn’t a festival like the Adelaide Cabaret Festival anywhere else in the world,” he enthuses.

“Which is quite difficult to believe! People come in to see something that immediately appeals to them, but then they’ll turn left or right after the obvious choice and take a risk on another show.

“To that end there is a lot of what you’d call crowd pleasing material, but what we think is interesting about the festival is not only seeing one show that you know is going to be good, but allowing yourself to be open to the idea of seeing stuff that repels you, seduces you, enlightens you … whatever.”

Although Perfect is very passionate about the arts scene in Australia, given his new-found gig, could he soon follow the lead of his buddy Tim Minchin (who now lives in the Hollywood Hills) and decamp to America?

“At some point I’ll have to do a stint in New York,” he says. “Hopefully when Beetlejuice goes into rehearsals … but I don’t know if I’d want to be a New Yorker per se, but there’s worse things than spending a year there!”

Just as he’s keeping the door firmly open on relocating. Perfect is also very much in the ‘never say never’ camp when asked about a return to the Offspring role that earned him a Logie nomination.

“Of course,” he says on playing Mick again. “I don’t know how long it’s going to go on for and if I could do it I would, but at the moment I’m just about to get on a plane to New York and do another big workshop, so it makes that kind of aspect really difficult.”

“It’s a strange experience, putting all your eggs into one basket, but it’s my number one dream so I feel really fortunate to be doing it and I just hope like hell that the end result is something accessible.

“The pressure is so high, but it’s glorious. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”

Eddie Perfect is co-artistic director at the upcoming Adelaide Cabaret Festival, which runs June 9-24. See www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au

SOURCE: http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/television/eddie-perfect-drops-a-bombshell-as-he-sets-his-sights-on-broadway/news-story/6f7051691d4adc660ea9699b060442cf

[sarockradio]

"ROCK MOVES"

with Julie Reynolds

TUES & THURS 2PM

This Week:

Known for their successful collaboration with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in July 2005 with "Zeppelin Flies Again," marked a remarkable achievement in their career. The synergy between the Zep Boys and the orchestra resulted in an astonishing success.

Subsequently, the band extended their collaborative efforts with orchestras, gracing renowned venues such as the Sydney Opera House, Hammersmith Odeon in London, and various locations across the UK and Europe.

For the past 15 years, the Zep Boys have prioritized working with orchestras, creating memorable performances.

Now, however, the band is eager to return to their roots and revisit the pubs where they initially flourished. Vince Contarino expresses the band's sentiment, stating, "We've toured with orchestras playing to sold-out houses globally, but it's the 'true believers' who are responsible for our success in band mode, over hundreds of gigs and lineup changes, we are thrilled to return to The Gov, where we've experienced some of the most legendary Zep Boys shows. We are incredibly excited for this homecoming!"

ZEP BOYS AT THE GOV SAT 20TH APRIL 2024

Tickets:

https://thegov.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/724b4577-af8c-464d-b829-a7ebd6820023

Join us!

"ROCK MOVES"

with Julie Reynolds

TUES & THURS 2PM

LISTEN LIVE @

WWW.SAROCK.COM.AU

#listenlive #adelaidemusicscene #adelaideradio #sarockradio #southaustraliaradio #supportlivemusic #australianmusic #radiostation #internetradio #rockmoves #musicinterview #juliereynolds #vincecontarino #zepboys #ledzepplin

[theothersidepress]

Authentic Mediumship – A Dying Art?

http://ift.tt/2oFwYe4

My dear father died suddenly in 1980 – three months after assuring me that we would live forever. The shock catapulted me into a state of impossible grief and an unwitting spiritual odyssey in search of answers. Tough gig for a seventeen-year-old. Having grown up in a family where love was our religion, I had minuscule knowledge of death and flatly refused to accept the searing finality of it all.

Back in the day, I lived in Adelaide, South Australia, where talk of death and mediumship was taboo and soothsayers were written off as crackpots. So was I, for a while.

My first beacon of light arrived in the form of a book called ‘Many Mansions’ – an introduction to the fascinating world of eminent ‘sleeping prophet’ Edgar Cayce. Several enlightening books followed, including Dr. Raymond Moody’s groundbreaking ‘Life after Life.’ Spiritual books became my elixir.

The profound healing experience that accompanies authentic, evidential mediumship, arrived some twenty years later complete with a sketched portrait of my father. It completely floored me. The grievous years in between were akin to a train wreck. The profound healing experience that accompanies authentic, evidential mediumship, arrived some twenty years later,

Fast forward to present day cyberspace and the burgeoning ‘psychic medium industry.’ These Google results paint quite a picture:

‘Psychic medium’ = 3.9 million results

‘Psychic medium google listings’ =6.5 million results

‘Authentic psychic mediums’ = 1.2 million results

‘Fake psychic mediums’ = 286,000 results.

‘Spiritual healing’ = 63.8 million results.

Who would have guessed that mediumship would morph from taboo to trendy? An emerging breed of ‘psychic glitterati’ starring in stage and TV shows, hawking weekend workshops and online certificate courses that have us believe anyone can be a psychic medium. Death has never been so glamorous.

Perhaps I shouldn’t write about such things. Perhaps I shouldn’t have spent time at the Arthur Findlay College (UK) where I witnessed highly-attuned mediums provide detailed, evidential information to perfect strangers, right down to the full name, address, and red-checked tablecloth in the deceased person’s kitchen. Where ego-driven students strutted their stuff on stage before being swiftly cut down to size and counseled about the art of true mediumship. Where an entertaining yet overtly cynical workshop tutor said: ‘Only 1% of students have the gift of mediumship – everyone else is wasting their money.’

In my experience, authentic, highly-attuned mediums have been few and far between. I’ve learned that psychic and medium are two separate things, and psychics are not necessarily spiritual. We are all born with psychic abilities that can be developed over time, while mediumship is a different ball game. A ‘wannabe’ can spend thirty years developing mediumship skills and still be ‘mediocre’. There’s no harm in trying.

I learned that an attuned, gifted medium provides detailed, evidential information from loved ones in spirit, while a ‘gift of the gab’ psychic medium generally snatches ‘snippets’ of information from spirit fleshes out the message with psychic and psychology skills. Predictive psychic skills can be impressive – but it’s not mediumship. How often have I heard: ‘Spirit is telling me…’ when in fact it’s often psychic impressions being ‘read’ from a person’s energy field.

Common personality traits also include humility, compassion, preference for private sittings and a respectful perception of their mediumship gift as essentially an instrument of healing; a personal act of service; a lifelong, evolving apprenticeship.

As I meandered through various spiritual circles and schools of thought, my unexpected foray into the local spiritualist church scene proved to be a captivating experience that provided deeply invaluable insights into mediumship and psychic phenomena.

Church services commonly included psychic flower readings and other demonstrations of clairvoyance and mediumship. Most of the demonstrators I saw, were predominantly psychic and used basic psychology to flesh out messages. Some were so underdeveloped that they shouldn’t have been on public platforms. Especially the ones whose blunt, insensitive delivery of messages did more harm than good to the bereaved who frequented these churches.

But then there were two ‘old school’ English mediums whose honed gifts left the rest for dead. I was continually amazed to see grief dissolve when detailed, evidential, deeply healing messages were conveyed from deceased loved ones.

In one memorable case, a long-time spiritualist said he had waited for 30 years to hear convincing, evidential information about his brother who was killed during WW2. And the most common message conveyed from the other side? ‘I’m sorry.’

Over time, captivation gradually turned to disillusionment when well-meaning yet under-developed ego-driven ‘pop up’ psychic mediums began to appear. Everybody wanted to be a medium, it seemed. Some frequented church platforms, while others began charging money for public shows – with family or friends the common targets of messages. It became clear that the majority of ‘pop-ups’ spent more time on self-promotion and harvesting Facebook likes, than mediumship development and self-awareness.

I parted company with the local spiritual scene several years ago, choosing to relocate to the east coast of Australia and focus on my shamanic healing path instead. My faith in mediumship was also restored thanks to connections with international groups and organisations dedicated to protecting authentic mediumship from drowning in the commercial quagmire. They also provide vital education resources about this fascinating, yet increasingly exploited healing realm that vulnerable, grieving souls often turn to when seeking solace.

As fate would have it, a recent newspaper ad headlined ‘Psychic Reality Show’ captured my attention. The psychic medium promoted herself as being on par with US celebrity medium John Edward. This I had to see. Turns out the bubbly, ‘gift of the gab’ style psychic was a former corporate high-flyer whose dreams about her colleagues led to a demand for readings.

Her psychic ‘fishing expedition-guessing game’ delivered predominantly predictive psychic information, a few names of deceased loved ones and fewer accurate evidential ‘hits.’ She also confessed that she didn’t know much about the ‘other side’ but was looking into it.

As the psychic bade us farewell with a special gift of thirty-minute readings for just $100, the fluoro light directly above my head began to flicker loudly. People glanced at me with strange looks, including the psychic.

I laughed. That was just my dad…again…a wildly humorous, electrical engineer in his earthly life.

Inspired to seek out higher standards of mediumship, I ventured out to several ‘alternative’ style expos promoting ‘amazingly gifted mediums’ – as they do. Six psychic medium demonstrations later, only two fit the ‘attuned, evidential’ bill but I was pleasantly reminded of the joy that a ‘seasoned’ medium can bring. I laughed out loud when a gorgeously gifted medium brought through a woman’s father who ‘wouldn’t be seen dead at a mediumship show during his earthly life.’

These days, I don’t believe in death. My mother died a decade ago and I handled the grief with strength, grace and understanding. A gifted medium also helped me and my mother resolve seemingly irreparable differences. Sweet relief! And I love her more than ever. Powerful stuff.

An attuned, evidential medium can certainly be a conduit to help us heal our grief, access hidden reserves of strength and inspiration, motivate us to embrace the gift of life. I also believe that our loved ones have a ‘life’ to live on the ‘other side’ until it’s time for us to reunite once again – and am happy to leave them to it.

  Linda Summer

Scribe @ Lost For Words

© 19 April 2017

  Author information

Linda Summer

|

from The Otherside Press http://ift.tt/2oT3BRW via IFTTT

[everythingadelaidemusic]

This week I interviewed great Adelaide Punk band ‘The wired Serenity’. After a delay while the band got a new singer, we finally got time to do this Interview. Here it is

Can you tell us a little history about The Wired Serenity? Members etc?

The Wired Serenity (TWS) formed when a group of passionate music students, from the special interest music program at Playford International College, got together to create original music. They had their first gig at Broadcast Bar on 23rd Dec 2021 playing a mix of covers and originals, unbelievably back then one original was still having the lyrics generated the day before that event. The band has learnt a lot since those early days and recent restructuring with a new singer joining the band has cemented the decision to produce and perform high quality music.

The band now consists of Dylan on the drums, Toby on lead guitar, Bernard on Bass and Winifred (Fred) on vocals. There is also a rhythm guitarist that has been dabbling with TWS at rehearsals and there might be an announcement about that soon. TWS are so excited about the direction the band is taking.

They will have their debut their new singer Fred on 15 April 2023. TWS will be back where it all began, at The Broadcast Bar, 66A Grote St Adelaide this time with Brat 86 and Hoffmann and the Cosmonauts on the line up for the night.

Which musicians/bands are your biggest inspirations?

There is no doubt Dylan is a fan of Dani Washington, the drummer from Neck Deep. He says the style is complex but in a way that it doesn’t overfill the song and is still easy to listen to.

Toby’s biggest inspiration is Marty Friedman, guitarist from Megadeath. Marty creates very melodic, but still fast, guitar solos and harmonies by incorporating classical music theory. Toby originally developed his writing style on this however has branched off to his own style that he has found comfortable.

Bernard is inspired by Ryan Martinie from Mudvayne, He fuses a lot of genre specific techniques into his playing but it works. Bernard likes his style because it is non-traditional and unique.

Fred is heavily inspired by the 80’s and 90’s, especially bands like Tears for Fears and Radiohead, with biggest inspiration from Jeff Buckley, Fred was absolutely obsessed with him back in high school.

What is your impression of the Adelaide Music Scene?

Adelaide really does have an immense amount of talent, so many other local bands clearly doing what they love, and their passion is so intense. The bands are incredibly supportive of each other as well, there is a real community feel in the industry. The venues TWS have played at have all been very friendly and supportive with good crowd interaction.

What is your writing structure? Is it a jam together, or does someone bring a song in already written and you put it all together?

TWS each bring something in at different times and then expand on that as a group. Sometimes one of the band members will have an idea and we’ll workshop on it together; this can be as simple as allocating time to create and just mucking around until something sticks. Toby has focused on writing some of the music, Fred and Dylan usually come up with lyrics or melodies, Bernard is the in-house editor and deals with quality control, but TWS all work on different things at different times.

Your song Faker is one I have heard a lot recently. Can you tell me what it is about and how it came about?

Faker was written by our past member Jaydn. Sadly, the future of this song is currently in limbo with some ongoing issues from the recent restructure, but TWS are excited about the new direction the band and its music are taking. The new singer Fred has released work as a solo artist in the past and TWS are super excited with the dynamics in the band now. The new sound is more refined, and TWS are confident with the new direction the band has taken. They already have a new song called “Without Me” that they are really thrilled about sharing with everyone.

Do you have a favourite venue to play?

TWS have enjoyed all the venues they have played at, but Broadcast Bar has to be one of their favourites. It’s not a big venue but it’s quirky and fun and Bryan is very encouraging of emerging bands. He was the first venue to give TWS a shot at playing on stage and has continued to be super supportive of the music. This is the reason TWS wanted to debut the new lineup back where it all began, the Broadcast Bar. If you haven’t been there go check it out, some amazing new talent comes through that venue.

When can we expect to hear new music from you?

TWS have a couple of existing songs that are undergoing some changes that are in the production pipeline already and they have a completely new song called “Without me” on its way as well. This is the first song created with the new band line up and will debut on 15 April 2023 at The Broadcast Bar, we are so excited to see how the song is received by the crowd.

What is your career highlight so far?

Dylan’s pick for a career highlight is The Halloween Show that was held at Lowlife Bar. The crowd really embraced the theme and some of the costumes were insane. It was a good turn out and the crowd was so engaged with the music. There was a smoke machine, fake cobwebs hanging from the ceilings and so many people in costumes, it created such a good atmosphere.

Playing as the support act for Teenage Joans at the PUSH Music Career Expo was a great experience and was the highlight for Bernard. This event was held at Northern Sound System, Elizabeth, such a great facility providing an opportunity for bands in the north to be able to access a high-quality venue.

Toby said being invited to play at Slingshot Festival was his highlight. With back-to-back gigs on the weekends during the festival, TWS played at Arthur Art Bar for the first time. It was awesome to see people walking past on the street, stop and then decide to come in during our set.

Fred still credits performing with Dylan and Toby at events for school. Some might say it sounds lame but that was the first real step into serious performing, and honestly had a really big impact on Fred. Despite where TWS play in the future those early performances will always resonate with the band.

What is your ideal festival line up?

Having a punk genre background logically TWS would go for a punk genre festival. Local Bands they really enjoy performing with are Newgate Crowd and Violet Harlot, but they would also be keen to perform with Tunnel Vision and Lola.

If TWS could invite Interstate bands, then Spici Water would be on the list and the wish list bands for the festival would be Dragged Under, Radiohead and My Chemical Romance.

If you could invite 3 musicians (dead or alive) who would you choose?

When choosing possible musicians(dead or alive) for a festival, the ex-drummer of Slip Knot Joey Jordison or Taylor Hawkins drummer of Foo Fighters would both be high on the list, as well as Chester Bennington, the singer from Linkin Park. These musicians have all left a massive impact on the music industry.

If you were stuck on a deserted island with only 1 album, what would you pick?

There probably wouldn’t be a lot of vibes on a deserted island so these albums are the bands pick to bring some good vibes to such an isolated venue:

• Dylan – The Peace and the Panic, Neck Deep

• Toby – V by Havok

• Bernard – Government Plates by Death Grips

• Fred – Danger Days by My Chemical Romance

What are you long and short term goals?

The short-term goal for TWS is to get out there more, finish recording and release their first EP. All proceeds from performing go towards recoding their music.

Long term TWS would love to be successful enough to make a career from the music, travel, go on tour and be the band that others want to open for.

Finally, where can people find out more about you? Socials etc?

The Wired Serenity (TWS)

Left to Right:

Bernard Chrominski (Bass)

Winifred Lewis (Vocals)

Dylan Ballone (Drums)

Toby Trenwith (Guitar)

https://instagram.com/thewiredserenity?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[comedyinsydney]

You still have time to book into our first Sydney Stand Up Comedy Course of the year. Our 5 day course kicks off on Sunday Feb 5th. ( our 5 week course starts Feb 25th) All seats $399.99 ( regular $599.99) Take advantage of the cash back deal and you can get your course even cheaper. The first 5 students in each city, receive Bonus Joke Writing Tools and several live gigs. Courses start in March and April for Brisb, Melb, Canberra and Adelaide. Looking to start a new career? Tick off a thing to do on your bucket list? Do you enjoy making people laugh? Come on, U can do it! Australia’s School of Stand Up Comedy “ Where we show U how to tickle their funny bone” https://www.comedyintheraw.com.au/comedy-school-courses/ https://www.comedyintheraw.com.au/courses/intro-to-stand-up-comedy-101/ #bonkerzcomedyaustralia #standupcomedyschoolsaustralia #comedyclubssydneycbd #comedy #sydneycbd #comedyclubs #comedysydney #comedyschoolmelbourne #laughter  #bonkerzaustralia #sydneypubs #liveperformances #comedians #comedyschooladelaide #festivals #comedyfestivals #fringefestivals #comedyschoolcanberra #openmiccomedysydney #bonkerzcomedyaustralia #standupcomedyschoolssydney #comedyclubssydneycbd #comedyschoolbrisbane (at City Of Sydney RSL Club) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn6FmJoyPXv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[tune-collective]

Midnight Oil Plot 'Great Circle' 2017 World Tour

Midnight Oil Plot 'Great Circle' 2017 World Tour

Midnight Oil will grind the diesel and the dust on their first world tour in more than two decades.

The Aussie rock legends set pulses racing with an announcement last year of a comeback and the promise of “some gigs in Australia and overseas during 2017.” That original statement, it turns out, was wildly underplaying their true plans. 

The ARIA Hall of Famers on Friday unveiled their 50-date-plus Great Circle 2017 world tour, and announced three box sets including a collection called The Overflow Tank which is stuffed with more than 14 hours of previously unreleased and rare works.

The classic line-up of Peter Garrett (vocals), Rob Hirst (drums), Martin Rotsey (guitar), Jim Moginie (guitar, keys), and Bones Hillman (bass) will circle the globe over six months, starting and ending where it all began with gigs in Sydney (a secret pub show will launch the trek).

Through the warmer months, the expedition will stop for multiple dates in the Americas and Europe, playing iconic venues such as Sao Paulo’s Espaço das Americas and the Wiltern in L.A., London’s Hammersmith Apollo and the Olympia in Paris. The voyage will climax with an 18-date homecoming run in October and November, and including shows in several regional centers; Michael Gudinski’s Frontier Touring will produce the Australia leg. 

Midnight Oil The Great Circle 2017 World Tour   https://t.co/xHPooHCIys #Oils2017 pic.twitter.com/j1QYasfax4

— Midnight Oil (@midnightoilband) February 16, 2017

These will be the Oils’ only shows since they disbanded in 2002, save for a pair of stadium benefit concerts, “Waveaid” at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2005 and “Sound Relief” at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2009 (and their respective small warmup gigs). They’ve not embarked on a major outing since the early 1990s. 

A reunion became a fantasy when Peter Garrett walked from the band 15 years ago to embark on a career in federal politics. Though he never quite shut the door on rock ‘n’ roll. When he announced his retirement prior to the general elections of 2013, the Oils’ door swung wide open. 

“I went off and did something else for 10 years,” Garrett quipped during a press conference Friday on Sydney Harbour. The band, he added, has “never felt better, fresher, nastier, sweeter and more energetic.”

After forming in 1972, Midnight Oil went on to become one of Australia’s most popular bands – and certainly its most politically-charged. Through song, the group pushed for indigenous rights, and they took an anti-war stance. The 1987 set Diesel and Dust came in at No. 1 in the 100 Best Australian Albums, a compendium of homegrown recordings published in 2010. The group was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006.

The fire of activism still burns in the group, and the shaky political climate should only add fuel. “We’re part of the pushback and we are not alone,” drummer Rob Hirst said at the media gathering to announce the tour. “There’s a whole bunch of people here, and throughout Europe and other places that we’re touring, who feel the same way.”

Details on Midnight Oil’s boxsets and a first ever complete vinyl collection can be found at midnightoil.com/store. Click here for full international dates.

SOUTH AMERICA April 25 — Pepsi on Stage, Porto Alegre April 27 — Live, Curtiba April 29 — Espaço das Americas, São Paolo  April 30 — Vivo Rio, Rio De Janeiro  April 2 — NET Live, Brasilia    

NORTH AMERICA May 6 — Center Stage, Atlanta, GA     May 9 — The Filmore, Silver Spring, MD May 11 — House of Blues, Boston, MA May 13 — Webster Hall, New York City, NY May 16 — Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA May 18 — The Vic, Chicago, IL     May 20 — Danforth Theatre, Toronto, Canada May 23 — Paramount Theatre, Denver, CO     May 25 — The Wiltern, Los Angeles, CA May 27 — Fox Theatre, Oakland, CA May 29 — Revolution Hall, Portland, OR May 31 — Moore Theatre, Seattle, WA June 2 — The Commodore, Vancouver, Canada

EUROPE + UK June 21 — E-Werk, Cologne, Germany June 23 — Paradiso, Amsterdam, Holland June 25 — Huxleys Neue Welt, Berlin, Germany June 27 — Amager Bio, Copenhagen, Denmark June 29 — Rockafeller Music Hall, Oslo, Norway July 1 — Furuviksparken, Gävle, Sweden July 4 — Hammersmith Apollo, London, UK July 6 — Olympia, Paris, France July 7 — Festival de Beauregard, Hérouville-Saint-Claire, France  July 9 — Les Deferlantes Festival, Argeles-sur-Mer, France July 12 — Volkshaus, Zurich, Switzerland     July 14 — Musilac, Aix Les Bains, France     July 16 — Les Vieilles Charrues, Carhaix, France July 18 — Batschkapp, Frankfurt, Germany July 21 — Colours of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

NEW ZEALAND Sept. 9 — Vector Arena, Auckland, NZ     Sept. 11 — Horncastle Arena, Christchurch, NZ    

AUSTRALIA Oct. 2 — ANZAC Oval, Alice Springs, NT (w/ Dan Sultan & Apakatjah) Oct. 4 — Darwin Amphitheatre, Darwin, NT (w/ Dan Sultan & Irrunytju Band) Oct. 7 — Kuranda Amphitheatre, Cairns, QLD (w/ Urthboy) Oct. 10 — Townsville Ent. Centre, Townsville, QLD (w/ Urthboy) Oct. 12 — Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton, QLD (w/ Urthboy) Oct. 14 — Big Pineapple Fields, Sunshine Coast, QLD (w/ The Living End & Jebediah) Oct. 15 — Riverstage, Brisbane, QLD (w/ The Jezabels) Oct. 19 — Hockey Fields, Coffs Harbour, NSW (w/ Jebediah & Jack River) Oct. 21 — Hope Estate, Hunter Valley, NSW (w/ Birds of Tokyo & Ash Grunwald) Oct. 24 — AIS Arena, Canberra, ACT (w/ Something For Kate) Oct. 26 — The Village Green Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, SA (w/ Spiderbait & Bad//Dreems) Oct. 28 — Perth Arena, Perth, WA (w/ Spiderbait) Oct. 1 — Derwent Entertainment Centre, Hobart, TAS (w/ The Jezabels) Oct. 3 — Gateway Lakes, Wodonga, VIC (w/ The Living End) Oct. 4 — Hanging Rock, Mt Macedon, VIC (w/ John Butler Trio, Something for Kate, Frank Yamma & David Bridie) Oct. 6 — Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne, VIC (w/ The Jezabels & Adalita) Oct. 8 — WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong, NSW (w/ Abbe May) Oct. 11 — The Domain, Sydney, NSW (w/ John Butler Trio & A.B.Original)

Source: Billboard

http://tunecollective.com/2017/02/17/midnight-oil-plot-great-circle-2017-world-tour/

[blackkudos]

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than six decades.

Born in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. In the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Although widely considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington embraced the phrase "beyond category" as a liberating principle and referred to his music as part of the more general category of American Music rather than to a musical genre such as jazz.

Some of the jazz musicians who were members of Ellington's orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in the idiom. Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, with many of his pieces having become standards. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizol's "Caravan", and "Perdido", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. In the early 1940s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or suites, as well as additional short pieces. Following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in several films, scored several, and composed a handful of stage musicals.

Ellington was noted for his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and for his eloquence and charisma. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999.

Early life and education

Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy (Kennedy) Ellington in Washington, D.C. Both his parents were pianists. Daisy primarily played parlor songs, and James preferred operatic arias. They lived with Daisy's parents at 2129 Ida Place (now Ward Place), NW, in D.C.'s West End neighborhood. Duke's father was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15, 1879, and moved to D.C. in 1886 with his parents. Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1879, the daughter of a former American slave. James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy.

When Edward Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D.C. worked to protect their children from the era's Jim Crow laws.

At age seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners and teach him elegance. His childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner and dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, so they began calling him "Duke". Ellington credited his friend Edgar McEntree for the nickname. "I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. So he called me Duke."

Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was more interested in baseball. "President Roosevelt (Teddy) would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play", he recalled. Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C. His first job was selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games.

Ellington started sneaking into Frank Holiday's Poolroom at age fourteen. Hearing the music of the poolroom pianists ignited Ellington's love for the instrument, and he began to take his piano studies seriously. Among the many piano players he listened to were Doc Perry, Lester Dishman, Louis Brown, Turner Layton, Gertie Wells, Clarence Bowser, Sticky Mack, Blind Johnny, Cliff Jackson, Claude Hopkins, Phil Wurd, Caroline Thornton, Luckey Roberts, Eubie Blake, Joe Rochester, and Harvey Brooks.

In the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Ellington wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag" (also known as the "Poodle Dog Rag"). He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet learned to read and write music. "I would play the 'Soda Fountain Rag' as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot", Ellington recalled. "Listeners never knew it was the same piece. I was established as having my own repertoire." In his autobiography, Music is my Mistress (1973), Ellington wrote that he missed more lessons than he attended, feeling at the time that playing the piano was not his talent.

Ellington continued listening to, watching, and imitating ragtime pianists, not only in Washington, D.C., but in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, where he vacationed with his mother during the summer. He would sometimes hear strange music played by those who could not afford much sheet music, so for variations, they played the sheets upside down. Henry Lee Grant, a Dunbar High School music teacher, gave him private lessons in harmony. With the additional guidance of Washington pianist and band leader Oliver "Doc" Perry, Ellington learned to read sheet music, project a professional style, and improve his technique. Ellington was also inspired by his first encounters with stride pianists James P. Johnson and Luckey Roberts. Later in New York he took advice from Will Marion Cook, Fats Waller, and Sidney Bechet. Ellington started to play gigs in cafés and clubs in and around Washington, D.C. His attachment to music was so strong that in 1916 he turned down an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Three months before graduating he dropped out of Armstrong Manual Training School, where he was studying commercial art.

Career

Early career

Working as a freelance sign-painter from 1917, Ellington began assembling groups to play for dances. In 1919 he met drummer Sonny Greer from New Jersey, who encouraged Ellington's ambition to become a professional musician. Ellington built his music business through his day job: when a customer asked him to make a sign for a dance or party, he would ask if they had musical entertainment; if not, Ellington would offer to play for the occasion. He also had a messenger job with the U.S. Navy and State departments, where he made a wide range of contacts.

Ellington moved out of his parents' home and bought his own as he became a successful pianist. At first, he played in other ensembles, and in late 1917 formed his first group, "The Duke's Serenaders" ("Colored Syncopators", his telephone directory advertising proclaimed). He was also the group's booking agent. His first play date was at the True Reformer's Hall, where he took home 75 cents.

Ellington played throughout the D.C. area and into Virginia for private society balls and embassy parties. The band included childhood friend Otto Hardwick, who began playing the string bass, then moved to C-melody sax and finally settled on alto saxophone; Arthur Whetsol on trumpet; Elmer Snowden on banjo; and Sonny Greer on drums. The band thrived, performing for both African-American and white audiences, a rarity in the segregated society of the day.

When his drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join the Wilber Sweatman Orchestra in New York City, Ellington left his successful career in D.C. and moved to Harlem, ultimately becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance. New dance crazes such as the Charleston emerged in Harlem, as well as African-American musical theater, including Eubie Blake's Shuffle Along. After the young musicians left the Sweatman Orchestra to strike out on their own, they found an emerging jazz scene that was highly competitive with difficult inroad. They hustled pool by day and played whatever gigs they could find. The young band met stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith, who introduced them to the scene and gave them some money. They played at rent-house parties for income. After a few months, the young musicians returned to Washington, D.C., feeling discouraged.

In June 1923, a gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey, another at the prestigious Exclusive Club in Harlem. This was followed in September 1923 by a move to the Hollywood Club (at 49th and Broadway) and a four-year engagement, which gave Ellington a solid artistic base. He was known to play the bugle at the end of each performance. The group was initially called Elmer Snowden and his Black Sox Orchestra and had seven members, including trumpeter James "Bubber" Miley. They renamed themselves The Washingtonians. Snowden left the group in early 1924 and Ellington took over as bandleader. After a fire, the club was re-opened as the Club Kentucky (often referred to as the Kentucky Club).

Ellington then made eight records in 1924, receiving composing credit on three including "Choo Choo". In 1925, Ellington contributed four songs to Chocolate Kiddies starring Lottie Gee and Adelaide Hall, an all-African-American revue which introduced European audiences to African-American styles and performers. Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra grew to a group of ten players; they developed their own sound by displaying the non-traditional expression of Ellington's arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and saxophone blues licks of the band members. For a short time, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet played with them, imparting his propulsive swing and superior musicianship to the young band members.

Cotton Club engagement

In October 1926, Ellington made an agreement with agent-publisher Irving Mills, giving Mills a 45% interest in Ellington's future. Mills had an eye for new talent and published compositions by Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Fields, and Harold Arlen early in their careers. After recording a handful of acoustic titles during 1924–26, Ellington's signing with Mills allowed him to record prolifically, although sometimes he recorded different versions of the same tune. Mills often took a co-composer credit. From the beginning of their relationship, Mills arranged recording sessions on nearly every label including Brunswick, Victor, Columbia, OKeh, Pathê (and its Perfect label), the ARC/Plaza group of labels (Oriole, Domino, Jewel, Banner) and their dime-store labels (Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo), Hit of the Week, and Columbia's cheaper labels (Harmony, Diva, Velvet Tone, Clarion) labels which gave Ellington popular recognition. On OKeh, his records were usually issued as The Harlem Footwarmers, while the Brunswick's were usually issued as The Jungle Band. Whoopee Makers and the Ten Black Berries were other pseudonyms.

In September 1927, King Oliver turned down a regular booking for his group as the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club; the offer passed to Ellington after Jimmy McHugh suggested him and Mills arranged an audition. Ellington had to increase from a six to eleven-piece group to meet the requirements of the Cotton Club's management for the audition, and the engagement finally began on December 4. With a weekly radio broadcast, the Cotton Club's exclusively white and wealthy clientele poured in nightly to see them. At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illicit alcohol. The musical numbers were composed by Jimmy McHugh and the lyrics by Dorothy Fields (later Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler), with some Ellington originals mixed in. (Here he moved in with a dancer, his second wife Mildred Dixon). Weekly radio broadcasts from the club gave Ellington national exposure, while Ellington also recorded Fields-JMcHugh and Fats Waller–Andy Razaf songs.

Although trumpeter Bubber Miley was a member of the orchestra for only a short period, he had a major influence on Ellington's sound. As an early exponent of growl trumpet, Miley changed the sweet dance band sound of the group to one that was hotter, which contemporaries termed Jungle Style. In October 1927, Ellington and his Orchestra recorded several compositions with Adelaide Hall. One side in particular, "Creole Love Call", became a worldwide sensation and gave both Ellington and Hall their first hit record. Miley had composed most of "Creole Love Call" and "Black and Tan Fantasy". An alcoholic, Miley had to leave the band before they gained wider fame. He died in 1932 at the age of 29, but he was an important influence on Cootie Williams, who replaced him.

In 1929, the Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Girl, along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante, Eddie Foy, Jr., Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn. Will Vodery, Ziegfeld's musical supervisor, recommended Ellington for the show, and, according to John Hasse's Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington, "Perhaps during the run of Show Girl, Ellington received what he later termed 'valuable lessons in orchestration’ from Will Vodery.” In his 1946 biography, Duke Ellington, Barry Ulanov wrote:

From Vodery, as he (Ellington) says himself, he drew his chromatic convictions, his uses of the tones ordinarily extraneous to the diatonic scale, with the consequent alteration of the harmonic character of his music, its broadening, The deepening of his resources. It has become customary to ascribe the classical influences upon Duke – Delius, Debussy and Ravel – to direct contact with their music. Actually his serious appreciation of those and other modern composers, came after his meeting with Vodery.

Ellington's film work began with Black and Tan (1929), a 19-minute all-African-American RKO short in which he played the hero "Duke". He also appeared in the Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check, released in 1930. That year, Ellington and his Orchestra connected with a whole different audience in a concert with Maurice Chevalier and they also performed at the Roseland Ballroom, "America's foremost ballroom". Australian-born composer Percy Grainger was an early admirer and supporter. He wrote "The three greatest composers who ever lived are Bach, Delius and Duke Ellington. Unfortunately Bach is dead, Delius is very ill but we are happy to have with us today The Duke". Ellington's first period at the Cotton Club concluded in 1931.

The early 1930s

Ellington led the orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using piano cues and visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a baton. By 1932 his orchestra consisted of six brass instruments, four reeds, and a four-man rhythm section. As a bandleader, Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian; he maintained control of his orchestra with a combination of charm, humor, flattery and astute psychology. A complex, private person, he revealed his feelings to only his closest intimates and effectively used his public persona to deflect attention away from himself.

Ellington signed exclusively to Brunswick in 1932 and stayed with them through late 1936 (albeit with a short-lived 1933–34 switch to Victor when Irving Mills temporarily moved him and his other acts from Brunswick).

As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis, dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933. Ivie Anderson was hired as the Ellington Orchestra's featured vocalist in 1931. She is the vocalist on "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932) among other recordings. Sonny Greer had been providing occasional vocals and continued to do in a cross-talk feature with Anderson. Radio exposure helped maintain Ellington's public profile as his orchestra began to tour. The other records of this era include: "Mood Indigo" (1930), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933), "Solitude" (1934), and "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935)

While the band's United States audience remained mainly African-American in this period, the Ellington orchestra had a significant following overseas, exemplified by the success of their trip to England and Scotland in 1933 and their 1934 visit to the European mainland. The British visit saw Ellington win praise from members of the serious music community, including composer Constant Lambert, which gave a boost to Ellington's interest in composing longer works.

Those longer pieces had already begun to appear. He had composed and recorded "Creole Rhapsody" as early as 1931 (issued as both sides of a 12" record for Victor and both sides of a 10" record for Brunswick), and a tribute to his mother, "Reminiscing in Tempo", took four 10" record sides to record in 1935 after her death in that year. Symphony in Black (also 1935), a short film, featured his extended piece 'A Rhapsody of Negro Life'. It introduced Billie Holiday, and won an Academy Award as the best musical short subject. Ellington and his Orchestra also appeared in the features Murder at the Vanities and Belle of the Nineties (both 1934).

For agent Mills the attention was a publicity triumph, as Ellington was now internationally known. On the band's tour through the segregated South in 1934, they avoided some of the traveling difficulties of African-Americans by touring in private railcars. These provided easy accommodations, dining, and storage for equipment while avoiding the indignities of segregated facilities.

Competition was intensifying, though, as swing bands like Benny Goodman's began to receive popular attention. Swing dancing became a youth phenomenon, particularly with white college audiences, and danceability drove record sales and bookings. Jukeboxes proliferated nationwide, spreading the gospel of swing. Ellington's band could certainly swing, but their strengths were mood, nuance, and richness of composition, hence his statement "jazz is music, swing is business".

The later 1930s

From 1936, Ellington began to make recordings with smaller groups (sextets, octets, and nonets) drawn from his then-15-man orchestra and he composed pieces intended to feature a specific instrumentalist, as with "Jeep's Blues" for Johnny Hodges, "Yearning for Love" for Lawrence Brown, "Trumpet in Spades" for Rex Stewart, "Echoes of Harlem" for Cootie Williams and "Clarinet Lament" for Barney Bigard. In 1937, Ellington returned to the Cotton Club, which had relocated to the mid-town Theater District. In the summer of that year, his father died, and due to many expenses, Ellington's finances were tight, although his situation improved the following year.

After leaving agent Irving Mills, he signed on with the William Morris Agency. Mills though continued to record Ellington. After only a year, his Master and Variety labels (the small groups had recorded for the latter), collapsed in late 1937, Mills placed Ellington back on Brunswick and those small group units on Vocalion through to 1940. Well known sides continued to be recorded, "Caravan" in 1937, and "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" the following year.

Billy Strayhorn, originally hired as a lyricist, began his association with Ellington in 1939. Nicknamed "Swee' Pea" for his mild manner, Strayhorn soon became a vital member of the Ellington organization. Ellington showed great fondness for Strayhorn and never failed to speak glowingly of the man and their collaborative working relationship, "my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine". Strayhorn, with his training in classical music, not only contributed his original lyrics and music, but also arranged and polished many of Ellington's works, becoming a second Ellington or "Duke's doppelganger". It was not uncommon for Strayhorn to fill in for Duke, whether in conducting or rehearsing the band, playing the piano, on stage, and in the recording studio. The 1930s ended with a very successful European tour just as World War II loomed in Europe.

Ellington in the early to mid-1940s

Some of the musicians who joined Ellington at this time created a sensation in their own right. The short-lived Jimmy Blanton transformed the use of double bass in jazz, allowing it to function as a solo/melodic instrument rather than a rhythm instrument alone. Terminal illness forced him to leave by late 1941 after only about two years. Ben Webster, the Orchestra's first regular tenor saxophonist, whose main tenure with Ellington spanned 1939 to 1943, started a rivalry with Johnny Hodges as the Orchestra's foremost voice in the sax section.

Trumpeter Ray Nance joined, replacing Cootie Williams who had defected to Benny Goodman. Additionally, Nance added violin to the instrumental colors Ellington had at his disposal. Recordings exist of Nance's first concert date on November 7, 1940, at Fargo, North Dakota. Privately made by Jack Towers and Dick Burris, these recordings were first legitimately issued in 1978 as Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live; they are among the earliest of innumerable live performances which survive. Nance was also an occasional vocalist, although Herb Jeffries was the main male vocalist in this era (until 1943) while Al Hibbler (who replaced Jeffries in 1943) continued until 1951. Ivie Anderson left in 1942 for health reasons after eleven years: the longest term of any of Ellington's vocalists.

Once again recording for Victor (from 1940), with the small groups recording for their Bluebird label, three-minute masterpieces on 78 rpm record sides continued to flow from Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's son Mercer Ellington, and members of the Orchestra. "Cotton Tail", "Main Stem", "Harlem Air Shaft", "Jack the Bear", and dozens of others date from this period. Strayhorn's "Take the "A" Train" a hit in 1941, became the band's theme, replacing "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo". Ellington and his associates wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices who displayed tremendous creativity. Mary Lou Williams, working as a staff arranger, would briefly join Ellington a few years later.

Ellington's long-term aim though was to extend the jazz form from that three-minute limit, of which he was an acknowledged master. While he had composed and recorded some extended pieces before, such works now became a regular feature of Ellington's output. In this, he was helped by Strayhorn, who had enjoyed a more thorough training in the forms associated with classical music than Ellington. The first of these, Black, Brown and Beige (1943), was dedicated to telling the story of African-Americans, and the place of slavery and the church in their history. Black, Brown and Beige debuted at Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943, beginning an annual series of Ellington concerts at the venue over the next four years. While some jazz musicians had played at Carnegie Hall before, none had performed anything as elaborate as Ellington's work. Unfortunately, starting a regular pattern, Ellington's longer works were generally not well received.

A partial exception was Jump for Joy, a full-length musical based on themes of African-American identity, debuted on July 10, 1941, at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. Hollywood luminaries such as actors John Garfield and Mickey Rooney invested in the production, and Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles offered to direct. At one performance though, Garfield insisted Herb Jeffries, who was light-skinned, should wear make-up. Ellington objected in the interval, and compared Jeffries to Al Jolson. The change was reverted, and the singer later commented that the audience must have thought he was an entirely different character in the second half of the show.

Although it had sold-out performances, and received positive reviews, it ran for only 122 performances until September 29, 1941, with a brief revival in November of that year. Its subject matter did not make it appealing to Broadway; Ellington had unfulfilled plans to take it there. Despite this disappointment, a Broadway production of Ellington's Beggar's Holiday, his sole book musical, premiered on December 23, 1946. under the direction of Nicholas Ray.

The settlement of the first recording ban of 1942–43, leading to an increase in royalties paid to musicians, had a serious effect on the financial viability of the big bands, including Ellington's Orchestra. His income as a songwriter ultimately subsidized it. Although he always spent lavishly and drew a respectable income from the Orchestra's operations, the band's income often just covered expenses.

Early post-war years

Musicians enlisting in the military and travel restrictions made touring difficult for the big bands and dancing became subject to a new tax, which continued for many years, affecting the choices of club owners. By the time World War II ended, the focus of popular music was shifting towards singing crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford. As the cost of hiring big bands had increased, club owners now found smaller jazz groups more cost-effective. Some of Ellington's new works, such as the wordless vocal feature "Transblucency" (1946) with Kay Davis, was not going to have a similar reach as the newly emerging stars.

Ellington continued on his own course through these tectonic shifts. While Count Basie was forced to disband his whole ensemble and work as an octet for a time, Ellington was able to tour most of Western Europe between April 6 and June 30, 1950, with the orchestra playing 74 dates over 77 days. During the tour, according to Sonny Greer, the newer works were not performed, though Ellington's extended composition, Harlem (1950) was in the process of being completed at this time. Ellington later presented its score to music-loving President Harry Truman. Also during his time in Europe, Ellington would compose the music for a stage production by Orson Welles. Titled Time Runs in Paris and An Evening With Orson Welles in Frankfurt, the variety show also featured a newly discovered Eartha Kitt, who performed Ellington's original song "Hungry Little Trouble" as Helen of Troy.

In 1951, Ellington suffered a significant loss of personnel: Sonny Greer, Lawrence Brown and, most importantly, Johnny Hodges left to pursue other ventures, although only Greer was a permanent departee. Drummer Louie Bellson replaced Greer, and his "Skin Deep" was a hit for Ellington. Tenor player Paul Gonsalves had joined in December 1950 after periods with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie and stayed for the rest of his life, while Clark Terry joined in November 1951.

During the early 1950s, Ellington's career was at a low point with his style being generally seen as outmoded, but his reputation did not suffer as badly as some artists. André Previn said in 1952: "You know, Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, Oh, yes, that's done like this. But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound, and I don’t know what it is!" However, by 1955, after three years of recording for Capitol, Ellington lacked a regular recording affiliation.

Career revival

Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956 returned him to wider prominence and introduced him to a new generation of fans. The feature "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" comprised two tunes that had been in the band's book since 1937 but largely forgotten until Ellington, who had abruptly ended the band's scheduled set because of the late arrival of four key players, called the two tunes as the time was approaching midnight. Announcing that the two pieces would be separated by an interlude played by tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, Ellington proceeded to lead the band through the two pieces, with Gonsalves' 27-chorus marathon solo whipping the crowd into a frenzy, leading the Maestro to play way beyond the curfew time despite urgent pleas from festival organizer George Wein to bring the program to an end.

The concert made international headlines, led to one of only five Time magazine cover stories dedicated to a jazz musician, and resulted in an album produced by George Avakian that would become the best-selling LP of Ellington's career. Much of the music on the vinyl LP was, in effect, simulated, with only about 40% actually from the concert itself. According to Avakian, Ellington was dissatisfied with aspects of the performance and felt the musicians had been under rehearsed. The band assembled the next day to re-record several of the numbers with the addition of artificial crowd noise, none of which was disclosed to purchasers of the album. Not until 1999 was the concert recording properly released for the first time. The revived attention brought about by the Newport appearance should not have surprised anyone, Johnny Hodges had returned the previous year, and Ellington's collaboration with Strayhorn had been renewed around the same time, under terms more amenable to the younger man.

The original Ellington at Newport album was the first release in a new recording contract with Columbia Records which yielded several years of recording stability, mainly under producer Irving Townsend, who coaxed both commercial and artistic productions from Ellington.

In 1957, CBS (Columbia Records' parent corporation) aired a live television production of A Drum Is a Woman, an allegorical suite which received mixed reviews. His hope that television would provide a significant new outlet for his type of jazz was not fulfilled. Tastes and trends had moved on without him. Festival appearances at the new Monterey Jazz Festival and elsewhere provided venues for live exposure, and a European tour in 1958 was well received. Such Sweet Thunder (1957), based on Shakespeare's plays and characters, and The Queen's Suite (1958), dedicated to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, were products of the renewed impetus which the Newport appearance helped to create, although the latter work was not commercially issued at the time. The late 1950s also saw Ella Fitzgerald record her Duke Ellington Songbook (Verve) with Ellington and his orchestra—a recognition that Ellington's songs had now become part of the cultural canon known as the 'Great American Songbook'.

Around this time Ellington and Strayhorn began to work on film soundtrack scoring. The first of these was Anatomy of a Murder (1959), a courtroom drama directed by Otto Preminger and featuring James Stewart, in which Ellington appeared fronting a roadhouse combo. This was followed by Paris Blues (1961), which featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as jazz musicians. In 2009 Detroit Free Press music critic Mark Stryker wrote that Ellington and Strayhorn's work in Anatomy of a Murder , is "indispensable, [although] . . . too sketchy to rank in the top echelon among Ellington-Strayhorn masterpiece suites like Such Sweet Thunder and The Far East Suite, but its most inspired moments are their equal."

Film historians have recognized the soundtrack "as a landmark – the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic music, that is, music whose source is not visible or implied by action in the film, like an on-screen band." The score avoided the cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores and rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged the New Wave cinema of the '60s". Ellington and Strayhorn, always looking for new musical territory, produced suites for John Steinbeck's novel Sweet Thursday, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt.

In the early 1960s, Ellington embraced recording with artists who had been friendly rivals in the past, or were younger musicians who focused on later styles. The Ellington and Count Basie orchestras recorded together with the album First Time! The Count Meets the Duke (1961). During a period when Ellington was between recording contracts, he made records with Louis Armstrong (Roulette), Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane (both for Impulse) and participated in a session with Charles Mingus and Max Roach which produced the Money Jungle (United Artists) album. He signed to Frank Sinatra's new Reprise label, but the association with the label was short-lived.

Musicians who had previously worked with Ellington returned to the Orchestra as members: Lawrence Brown in 1960 and Cootie Williams in 1962.

The writing and playing of music is a matter of intent.... You can't just throw a paint brush against the wall and call whatever happens art. My music fits the tonal personality of the player. I think too strongly in terms of altering my music to fit the performer to be impressed by accidental music. You can't take doodling seriously.

He was now performing all over the world; a significant part of each year was spent on overseas tours. As a consequence, he formed new working relationships with artists from around the world, including the Swedish vocalist Alice Babs, and the South African musicians Dollar Brand and Sathima Bea Benjamin (A Morning in Paris, 1963/1997).

Ellington wrote an original score for director Michael Langham's production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada which opened on July 29, 1963. Langham has used it for several subsequent productions, including a much later adaptation by Stanley Silverman which expands the score with some of Ellington's best-known works.

Last years

Ellington was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1965 but no prize was ultimately awarded that year. Then 66 years old, he joked: "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young." In 1999 he was posthumously awarded a special Pulitzer Prize "commemorating the centennial year of his birth, in recognition of his musical genius, which evoked aesthetically the principles of democracy through the medium of jazz and thus made an indelible contribution to art and culture."

In September 1965, he premiered the first of his Sacred Concerts. He created a jazz Christian liturgy. Although the work received mixed reviews, Ellington was proud of the composition and performed it dozens of times. This concert was followed by two others of the same type in 1968 and 1973, known as the Second and Third Sacred Concerts. These generated controversy in what was already a tumultuous time in the United States. Many saw the Sacred Music suites as an attempt to reinforce commercial support for organized religion, though Ellington simply said it was "the most important thing I've done". The Steinway piano upon which the Sacred Concerts were composed is part of the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Like Haydn and Mozart, Ellington conducted his orchestra from the piano – he always played the keyboard parts when the Sacred Concerts were performed.

Duke turned 65 in the spring of 1964 but showed no signs of slowing down as he continued to make vital and innovative recordings, including The Far East Suite (1966), New Orleans Suite (1970), Latin American Suite (1972) and The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (1971), much of it inspired by his world tours. It was during this time that he recorded his only album with Frank Sinatra, entitled Francis A. & Edward K. (1967).

Ellington performed what is considered his final full concert in a ballroom at Northern Illinois University on March 20, 1974.

The last three shows Ellington and his orchestra performed were one on March 21, 1973 at Purdue University's Hall of Music and two on March 22, 1973 at the Sturges-Young Auditorium in Sturgis, Michigan.

Personal life

Ellington married his high school sweetheart, Edna Thompson (d. 1967), on July 2, 1918, when he was 19. The next spring, on March 11, 1919, Edna gave birth to their only son, Mercer Kennedy Ellington.

Ellington was joined in New York City by his wife and son in the late twenties, but the couple soon permanently separated. According to her obituary in Jet magazine, she was "homesick for Washington" and returned. In 1929, Ellington became the companion of Mildred Dixon, who traveled with him, managed Tempo Music, inspired songs at the peak of his career, and raised his son.

In 1938 he left his family (his son was 19) and moved in with Beatrice "Evie" Ellis, a Cotton Club employee. Their relationship, though stormy, continued after Ellington met and formed a relationship with Fernanda de Castro Monte in the early 1960s. Ellington supported both women for the rest of his life.

Ellington's sister Ruth (1915–2004) later ran Tempo Music, his music publishing company. Ruth's second husband was the bass-baritone McHenry Boatwright, whom she met when he sang at her brother's funeral. As an adult, son Mercer Ellington (d. 1996) played trumpet and piano, led his own band, and worked as his father's business manager.

Ellington was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha and was a freemason associated with Prince Hall Freemasonry.

Death

Ellington died on May 24, 1974, of complications from lung cancer and pneumonia, a few weeks after his 75th birthday. At his funeral, attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion: "It's a very sad day. A genius has passed."

He was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx, New York City.

Legacy

Memorials

Numerous memorials have been dedicated to Duke Ellington, in cities from New York and Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. Ellington is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.

In Ellington's birthplace, Washington, D.C., the Duke Ellington School of the Arts educates talented students, who are considering careers in the arts, by providing intensive arts instruction and strong academic programs that prepare students for post-secondary education and professional careers. Originally built in 1935, the Calvert Street Bridge was renamed the Duke Ellington Bridge in 1974. Another school is P.S. 004 Duke Ellington in New York.

In 1989, a bronze plaque was attached to the newly named Duke Ellington Building at 2121 Ward Place, NW. In 2012, the new owner of the building commissioned a mural by Aniekan Udofia that appears above the lettering "Duke Ellington". In 2010 the triangular park, across the street from Duke Ellington's birth site, at the intersection of New Hampshire and M Streets, NW was named the Duke Ellington Park.

Ellington's residence at 2728 Sherman Avenue, NW, during the years 1919–1922, is marked by a bronze plaque.

On February 24, 2009, the United States Mint issued a coin with Duke Ellington on it, making him the first African American to appear by himself on a circulating U.S. coin. Ellington appears on the reverse (tails) side of the District of Columbia quarter. The coin is part of the U.S. Mint's program honoring the District and the U.S. territories and celebrates Ellington's birthplace in the District of Columbia. Ellington is depicted on the quarter seated at a piano, sheet music in hand, along with the inscription "Justice for All", which is the District's motto.

In 1986 a United States commemorative stamp was issued featuring Ellington's likeness.

Ellington lived for years in a townhouse on the corner of Manhattan's Riverside Drive and West 106th Street. After his death, West 106th Street was officially renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard. A large memorial to Ellington, created by sculptor Robert Graham, was dedicated in 1997 in New York's Central Park, near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, an intersection named Duke Ellington Circle.

A statue of Ellington at a piano is featured at the entrance to UCLA's Schoenberg Hall. According to UCLA magazine:

When UCLA students were entranced by Duke Ellington's provocative tunes at a Culver City club in 1937, they asked the budding musical great to play a free concert in Royce Hall. 'I've been waiting for someone to ask us!' Ellington exclaimed.On the day of the concert, Ellington accidentally mixed up the venues and drove to USC instead. He eventually arrived at the UCLA campus and, to apologize for his tardiness, played to the packed crowd for more than four hours. And so, "Sir Duke" and his group played the first-ever jazz performance in a concert venue.

The Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival is a nationally renowned annual competition for prestigious high school bands. Started in 1996 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the festival is named after Ellington because of the large focus that the festival places on his works.

Tributes

After Duke died, his son Mercer took over leadership of the orchestra, continuing until his own death in 1996. Like the Count Basie Orchestra, this "ghost band" continued to release albums for many years. Digital Duke, credited to The Duke Ellington Orchestra, won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. Mercer Ellington had been handling all administrative aspects of his father's business for several decades. Mercer's children continue a connection with their grandfather's work.

Gunther Schuller wrote in 1989:

Ellington composed incessantly to the very last days of his life. Music was indeed his mistress; it was his total life and his commitment to it was incomparable and unalterable. In jazz he was a giant among giants. And in twentieth century music, he may yet one day be recognized as one of the half-dozen greatest masters of our time.

Martin Williams said: "Duke Ellington lived long enough to hear himself named among our best composers. And since his death in 1974, it has become not at all uncommon to see him named, along with Charles Ives, as the greatest composer we have produced, regardless of category."

In the opinion of Bob Blumenthal of The Boston Globe in 1999: "[i]n the century since his birth, there has been no greater composer, American or otherwise, than Edward Kennedy Ellington."

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Duke Ellington on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

His compositions have been revisited by artists and musicians around the world both as a source of inspiration and a bedrock of their own performing careers.

Dave Brubeck dedicated "The Duke" (1954) to Ellington and it became a standard covered by others, including by Miles Davis on Miles Ahead, 1957. The album The Real Ambassadors has a vocal version of this piece, "You Swing Baby (The Duke)", with lyrics by Iola Brubeck, Dave Brubeck's wife. It is performed as a duet between Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. It is also dedicated to Duke Ellington.

Miles Davis created his half-hour dirge "He Loved Him Madly" (on Get Up with It) as a tribute to Ellington one month after his death.

Charles Mingus, who had been fired by Ellington decades earlier, wrote the elegy "Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love" in 1974, a few months after Ellington's death.

Stevie Wonder wrote the song "Sir Duke" as a tribute to Ellington which appeared on his album Songs in the Key of Life released in 1976.

There are hundreds of albums dedicated to the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn by artists famous and obscure. Sophisticated Ladies, an award-winning 1981 musical revue, incorporated many tunes from Ellington's repertoire. A second Broadway musical interpolating Ellington's music, Play On!, debuted in 1997.

Loss of material

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Duke Ellington among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Discography

Awards and honors

1960, Hollywood Walk of Fame, contribution to recording industry

1966, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

1969, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the US

1971, an Honorary PhD from the Berklee College of Music

1973, the Legion of Honor by France, its highest civilian honors.

1999, posthumous Special Pulitzer Prize for his lifetime contributions to music and culture

Grammy Awards

Ellington earned 14 Grammy awards from 1959 to 2000, three of which were posthumous and a total of 24 nominations

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Duke Ellington were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old, and that have qualitative or historical significance.

[sarockradio]

"ROCK MOVES"

with Julie Reynolds

TUES & THURS 2PM

This Week:

Known for their successful collaboration with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in July 2005 with "Zeppelin Flies Again," marked a remarkable achievement in their career. The synergy between the Zep Boys and the orchestra resulted in an astonishing success.

Subsequently, the band extended their collaborative efforts with orchestras, gracing renowned venues such as the Sydney Opera House, Hammersmith Odeon in London, and various locations across the UK and Europe.

For the past 15 years, the Zep Boys have prioritized working with orchestras, creating memorable performances.

Now, however, the band is eager to return to their roots and revisit the pubs where they initially flourished. Vince Contarino expresses the band's sentiment, stating, "We've toured with orchestras playing to sold-out houses globally, but it's the 'true believers' who are responsible for our success in band mode, over hundreds of gigs and lineup changes, we are thrilled to return to The Gov, where we've experienced some of the most legendary Zep Boys shows. We are incredibly excited for this homecoming!"

ZEP BOYS AT THE GOV SAT 20TH APRIL 2024

Tickets:

https://thegov.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/724b4577-af8c-464d-b829-a7ebd6820023

Join us!

"ROCK MOVES"

with Julie Reynolds

TUES & THURS 2PM

LISTEN LIVE @

WWW.SAROCK.COM.AU

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