I have three personal Rockin’ In Rhythm stories:

One Friday in 1981 I got a phone call from Al Cohn, who was orchestrating the Broadway show Sophisticated Ladies. The show was finishing its out-of-town tryouts and was to open the following Monday night. At this late date, the director was replaced and quite a few numbers had to be altered or rewritten and new numbers added. I rushed down to Al’s office where he gave me a few lead sheets as well as verbal instructions for some tunes I knew, like Caravan and It Don’t Mean A Thing. Then he told me that he had a problem that he couldn’t solve—"Rockin’ In Rhythm, the greatest chart never written”.

When I finished laughing (you see, Rockin’ In Rhythm was a notorious head chart—no score, made up by the players over a period of 30 years), we easily came up with a solution that wasn’t too painful. Ten years later, while combing through Ellington’s newly acquired scores at the Smithsonian Institution, I came across Duke’s 1946 score of Rockin’ In Rhythm. A few figures and solos were subsequently added by the players, but it is essentially the same chart the band played from 1946 until Ellington’s death in 1974 and beyond.

The 1946 version is based on the 1930 chart which grew over the years. The 1933 recording of Dallas Doings contributed the later part of the chart that was tacked onto Rockin’ In Rhythm. As the years went on and thousands of performances later, the instrumentation of the band increased as did the tempo.

In 1951 Ellington recorded a trio album which included Kinda Dukish, a Rhythm contrafact that sometimes preceded and segued into Rockin’ In Rhythm. It’s too long and structured to be called an intro, so maybe we should call it a prelude. The performance on The Great Paris Concert has become recognized as the quintessential Rockin’ In Rhythm. Once you know it, you’ll be disappointed to not hear Kinda Dukish on other recordings.

My second story occurred around the same time. My teacher, Ray Wright was running the jazz department at the Eastman School of Music. He told me that his students didn’t know Ellington’s music or have much interest in it. He asked if there was one piece that he could play them the recording of that would give them a good idea of what Ellington’s music was about. I told him that one of the greatest things about Duke’s music is that each piece is so different from his other pieces because he gives you so little material in each one and then develops that material. Thad Jones was very popular among jazz musicians at that time. If you’ve heard one of Thad’s charts, you pretty much know his music. I suggested that Ray explain this to his students and then play them Rockin’ In Rhythm. It doesn’t include many of the kinds of things Duke invented or addressed, but it is so swinging and blues-drenched that it at least covers those two important bases.

When I taught a 2-semester Masters-level course on Duke Ellington’s music at Manhattan School of Music, in the first lecture I gave an overview (essentially the overview chapter to this book). At the end of the two hours, I played them the Great Paris Concert version of Rockin’ In Rhythm.

My third anecdote is from 1992—the first Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra tour. We played an all-Ellington program 30 cities in 31 days. We began every concert with Rockin’ In Rhythm. While we played, my back was to the audience, since I was conducting. At the end of the piece, I turned to face the audience. Because of the lighting, I could only see the first three rows, but in every single one of those concerts, whether it was in Ames, Iowa or Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, all of those faces that I saw had a look on it like it had never heard music before.

Let’s start with the title. Rockin’ refers to the exciting swing feel. Rhythm takes both the general meaning of consistent beat as well as the chord progression being based on the then new popular 1930 Gershwin hit song I Got Rhythm, to which jazz musicians have since written thousands of contrafacts and have shortened its name to Rhythm Changes or just Rhythm. Incidentally, the genre Rhythm & Blues originally referred to bands like Louis Jordan and his Tympani 5 whose repertoire consisted almost exclusively of contrafacts on the Blues or Rhythm.

Another meaning of the title addresses the programmatic nature of the piece. More than any of Ellington’s compositions, it describes the sex act from foreplay, intensification, changes of position, build to the climax and finally, smoke a cigarette. Ellington once wrote an article for Jet magazine about how sex is good for you. He was a lifelong smoker and died of lung cancer.

The 1931 recording omits the piano introduction before the break due to the 3-minute time restriction of 78 rpm records. Cootie’s trumpet solo will be quoted by Lawrence Brown upon his return to the band. Bigard’s clarinet solo was taken over and always played verbatim by Harry Carney after Bigard left the band. The basic melody, chord changes, structure and bass line never changed.