Flaming Youth [Liner Notes]

The personality of the Duke Ellington Orchestra began to develop in the ‘20s, during the years he and his “Washingtons” were at the Kentucky Club on 49th and Broadway in New York. In this small downstairs club, where there was room for only a small band, Ellington soon became adept at making his group sound, in drummer Sonny Greer’s words, “like a big band, but soft and beautiful.”

During the summer Ellington used to tour New England, where Mal Hallett and his big band were reigning champions. “We had a six piece group,” Ellington recalled, “and wе used to play him [?]-wise. He’d know wе were coming on, and he’d blow up a storm and lift the roof off. Then we’d crawl up there with our six pieces and begin softly, and develop it, so that when we did play loud it would seem as though we were playing louder than we actually were.”

The ability to make the best possible use of the available resources has always been an Ellington characteristic. At the Kentucky Club the audience almost invariable included a large proportion of show people and musicians, and the band had to accompany the floor shows. When it moved uptown, on December 4, 1927, to the larger Cotton Club, it was necessary to add more men, but again one of the band’s major duties was to back the shows - shows that in this case were relatively lavish. The early experience in theatrical presentation was undoubtedly influential in developing Ellington’s ear for subtle dynamics and dramatic [?]. It also accounted in part for the deviation from normal chorus structure encountered quite early in his recordings. His band played for dancing, but was never primarily designed to meet the requirements of the balllroom , as were others famous in jazz.

“I remember going to a dance a long time ago when Fletcher Henderson, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and Duke played,” the veteran Russell Procope said recently. “This was before amplification and Henderson and McKinney were in the habit of blowing loud and strong to fill those halls. After they got through, Duke began to play in one corner, and there was such a difference that at first you could scarcely hear his band.”

The magical intimacy of the small group, with its nightly improvisations, was something Ellington managed not to lose as his band grew in size and power to its subsequent unchallengeable prominence. Freshness and inspiration, in fact, were qualities he continued to savour in the first take of a recording, often preferring it to a later and more polished overall performance. Hearing a new arrangement for the first time was always to be a special kick, but there was always room for the modifications that his soloists’ interpretations suggested. The improvisational element and the quick, spur-of-the-moment decision have [?] been vital in a long and successful career whose foundations were surely laid in the period covered by this album.

Although he had recorded with a bigger band before going to the Cotton Club, Ellington clearly hadn’t the authority and experience in 1927 in writing for the larger ensemble and its sections that Don Redman, for example, was notably demonstrating with Fletcher Henderson. But Duke had had a great deal of experience in the devising of oral arrangements at the Kentucky club. He listened assiduously to the pit orchestras in Broadway movie houses and, while sharing a cab uptown, he often had the help of the great musician Will Marion Cook in clarifying technical problems. “He would answer my questions,” Ellington remember appreciatively, “and I’ve always felt that a man’s education doesn’t start until he discovers what he wants to learn.” By this time, of course, he knew what he wanted to learn.

In Bubber Miley he had one of his greatest collaborators, both as a trumpet player and as a source of attractive themes. More than anyone else, Miley was responsible for the “jungle” style which became a permanent part of Ellington’s music. His extraordinarily expressed use of the plunger mute was complemented by the trombone playing of, first, Charlie Irvis (always spoken of admirably by the leader) and, then, the formidable Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton. Miley’s other great contribution is indicated on this record by the important compositions on which he shares composer credit: Creole Love Call, Blues I Love to Sing, Black and Tan Fantasie, East Saint Louis Toodle-oo and Blue Bubbles. Besides the role of pianist, leader, composer and arranger, that of synthesist was obviously not the least Ellington played in the early part of his career.

Two selections offer a striking, early example of his instrumental use of the human voice, in this case that of Adelaide Hall, who skilfully affects at times the growling inflections of the “hot” trumpet player. The major soloists heard throughout the album are Miley, Nanton and the leader at the piano. The accomplished New Orleans musician Barney Birgard is the clarinetist heard on nine titles, including the graceful Black Beauty, a number dedicated to Florence Mills. His gifted predecessor, Rudy Jackson is heard as a soloist on Creole Love Call, Washington Wobble and East Saint Louis Toodle-oo. Prior to the arrival of Ellington’s most lyrical soloist, Johnny Hodges (whose first recording with the band was The Mooche) the alto saxophone solos were played by Otto Hardwick and Harry Carney. Hardwick is responsible for those on Black and Tan Fantasie, Washington Wobble, Jubilee Stomp and Got Everything but You. (He also plays the soprano solo on Blues I Love to Sing.) Carney plays alto solo on Blue Bubbles and No Papa No, Elsewhere, Carney plays the baritone saxophone solos, with the exception of that on Blue Bubbles, which is by Hardwick. Arthur Whetsel’s distinctive trumpet is featured in Black Beauty and - conversating with Miley’s on other versions - The Mooche. He dialogues with Carney on Got Everything but You, plays the bridge in the first chorus of Diga Diga Do and is responsible for the four bars of trumpet each of the last two choruses of Flaming Youth. Louis Metcalf is the trumpet soloist on Harlem River Quiver (alias Brown Berries). The author of the rousing trumpet chorus on No Papa No has never been positively identified, although he sounds uncommonly like Cootie Williams, who did not join the band officially until some moths later.

There are dated effects like the [?] of the piano solo on Bandana Babies; there are others, like the beautiful clarinet trios, that Ellington has wisely never entirely forsaken; and there are passages where the relationship between rhythm and horns is somewhat precarious. But with it all, this was a period of great charm, daring and initiative. Flaming Youth, the first number Ellington wrote for Johnny Hodges, is a title well suited to the musical activities encompassed by this set.