The Ellington Effect workshops take place once a month, and David picks a different Ellington composition to analyze for each one.  In about two hours, he talks through the piece note by note, line by line, analyzing the piece at both macro and micro levels.

David Berger has studied the music of Duke Ellington for over 50 years, and has transcribed over 500 Ellington and Strayhorn arrangements and compositions.  Because of this, he is able to make connections to Ellington's other pieces, talk about trends and eras in Ellington's writing, and discuss the influences of changing personnel on the music over time.

At the end of each workshop, David answers questions for a half hour or so.  These are always lively and fascinating, as workshop attendees tend to include some highly knowledgable Ellingtonians as well as plenty of intelligent musicians who ask insightful questions.

 

While on tour with the band in England in October of 1958, Duke Ellington met Queen Elizabeth at an arts festival in Yorkshire. The meeting was arranged by the queen’s cousin, who was an ardent Ellington fan. The duke flirted with the queen displaying his most aristocratic manners for a few minutes holding up the line waiting for the queen’s audience. 

 

The following year Ellington recorded a 6-movement suite dedicated to the queen. He pressed one copy, which was then delivered to Her Majesty. He left instructions not to make this recording available to the public. It wasn’t released until after his death. 

 

Rather than overtly describing the queen, as he had done in his many portraits (Florence Mills, Bert Williams, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Sidney Bechet, Jean LaFitte, Mahalia Jackson, et al), he chose to depict natural phenomena from her domain, the British Commonwealth. 

 

Although Billy Strayhorn receives co-composer credit for the entire suite (as per Ellington’s instructions), 5 of the movements were written by Ellington. Northern Lights is an Ellington/Strayhorn collaboration; Ellington witnessed the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) while traveling in Canada and called Strayhorn on the phone to describe it to him. Strayhorn deftly composed the movement to capture the awe Ellington had experienced. 

 

The opening movement, Sunset And The Mockingbird is more a study in the sensual juncture of nobility and soulfulness. Despite Ellington’s title, we might conjecture that this is really his impression of the young queen. Ellington was 59 when they met. She was 32. Ellington’s lifelong obsession with nobility and manners was always on display when meeting heads of state. Although his own title was bestowed upon him by his boyhood friends, he saw himself as nobility and conducted himself likewise in his dress, speech, and somewhat formal manners. Some of this was a put-on, but not really. 

 

Perhaps the Queen of England held a special place in his hierarchy due to his family lineage. Although his ancestors were slaves, their owners were English and Irish (most likely originally Scotch) transplants. It’s quite possible, and even probable that somewhere along the line, some English genes were mixed in with his African ancestors. Modern DNA study has shown that the great majority of African Americans with slave predecessors have a fair amount of European ancestry. This could easily be proved through testing of Ellington’s grandchildren or his nephew. 

 

Whatever the connection, Ellington was inspired to write a musical thank you note meant just for the queen’s ears. He never did this before or after for anyone else. Another anomaly is the tempos of the movements. The first five are slow. Only the final one (Apes And Peacocks) is faster and more rhythmic. If this has ever occurred in all of Western music, it surely is rare. Of all of Ellington’s suites, this is the most unusual and also one of his finest. 

Sunset And The Mockingbird has gotten some coverage by jazz musicians, and Single Petal Of A Rose has entered into the jazz repertoire not only as a solo piano piece (as per Ellington) but also as a bass clarinet/piano duet as lovingly performed by Joe Temperley. 

 

 

5 saxes: Hodges, Procope, Hamilton (doubles on clarinet), Gonsalves, Carney

2 trumpets: Clark Terry, Ray Nance

3 trombones: Britt Woodman, Quentin Jackson, John Sanders (valve)

2 pianos: Ellington, Strayhorn

Bass: Jimmy Woode

Drums and triangle: Jimmy Johnson

 

 

Basically, a standard 32-bar aaba song form, Duke elides some phrases and inserts short interludes:

 

14-bar 3-part intro consisting of 4-bar Intro, a (6 bar preview), 4-bar interlude vamp followed by the song in aaba, a, a (6 bars), Coda (interlude—vamp to fade).