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.

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Duke Ellington was castigated by a young reporter for not taking an active part. Calmly, the Maestro informed her that he wrote Black Beauty in 1928. “Yes, sir, Mr. Ellington” she responded. As always, Ellington was decades ahead of the curve—“Black is beautiful” had become a movement forty years after Duke planted the seed.

 

Black Beauty was written as a portrait of Florence Mills, a singer, dancer, and comedienne, who became a popular Broadway star beginning with her 1921 role in Shuffle Along at the age of 25. She charmed both White and Black audiences while being a staunch and outspoken supporter of equal rights for African Americans. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 31 in 1927. 

 

 Although Florence Mills’ death at such a young age was tragic and mourned by the show business world, Ellington’s piece focuses on her upbeat personality—she was known as the “Queen of Happiness”. Arthur Whetsol’s playful melody captures her spirit perfectly. In fact, everything about this piece exudes personality, especially the sax soli, the piano solo, and the exchanges with the bass. 

 

Choreographers have long been inspired by Black Beauty from the synchronized male chorus line featured in the 1928 Cotton Club show (some of which appears in the short film, Black And Tan Fantasy) to Alvin Ailey’s imaginative staging in his Ellington medley The Mooche nearly fifty years later.

 

Ellington recorded a piano solo version and then ten years later reassigned the trumpet role to trombonist Lawrence Brown, which remained one of his features for the next thirty years. Not surprisingly, Duke’s 1960 octet arrangement on the Unknown Session album also features Brown. 

 

 

Recorded March 21, 1928 for Brunswick with an alternate title of Firewater

 

3 Reeds: Otto Hardwick (alto sax), Harry Carney (alto sax), Barney Bigard (clarinet, tenor sax)

2 Trumpets: Arthur Whetsol, Louis Metcalf

Trombone: Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton

Banjo: Fred Guy

Piano: Duke Ellington

Bass: Wellman Braud

Drums: Sonny Greer

 

Re-recorded a week later  on March 28, 1928 for Victor (we will be discussing this recording) with the same personnel except Bubber Miley replaces Metcalf

 

 

A standard aaba 32-bar song, the arrangement consists of:

4-bar intro

Whetsol trumpet melody chorus with Nanton solo on the bridge

16-bar Secondary strain--sax soli on circle of 5ths changes

1 chorus piano solo with call-and-response with bass on the a sections

Recapiitulation: 1 chorus with clarinet solo aab and trumpet for the final a section with a retard and fermata on the final tonic with a flat 7th.