On Music

...On Music UNSOLD SOUL BY JOHN GOODMAN J ^ azz and show business have always maintained an uneasy, though profitable, alliance Still, some people remain faintly distressed by this affiliation and try to ignore the signal importance of Las Vegas m our culture Duke Ellington is not one of these Far from being embarrassed by show biz, he has leaned toward it from his earliest days with dance orchestras and theater bands "To this day," according to Gunther Schuller m his study, Early Jazz, "Ellington's overriding ambition is to compose a successful jazz musical or jazz 'opera ' " Ellington's commercial associations help account both for most of his extended, "occasional" tone poems and, historically, for the unique voicing and harmonics his orchestra developed Duke took the pit band and turned it into a composing instrument What he did with that has made him the most prodigious man of music in this country So it was not inappropriate to find Sammy Davis Jr acting as master of ceremonies for the much-advertised (but sparsely attended) Sold on Soul, a tribute to the Duke last February 23 at Madison Square Garden The event mvolved hundreds of performers in a great variety of musical styles, with the proceeds going to the naacp Davis was superb in filling the yawning gaps that occurred between the 14-odd different acts—singing, dancing, playing the drums, and jiving the stage crew Yet there was one recurring note ra his patter, something about "returning to the fold," coming back to the old gang at 140th St and Eighth Ave, playing the Apollo Theater m Harlem again A faint apology, perhaps, for the dues that ol' show biz exacts7 It was nice to learn that Sammy was still hip to all the hair-straight-enmg jokes, but a little discouraging to find nobody mentiomng that February 23 was the birthday of W E B DuBois A founder of the naacp and one of America's great militant intellectuals, DuBois is presumably out of favor owing to his lapse into Communism during his later years In any case, the music was generally very fine, implying much about the health and vigor of black pop musical culture But because of the interminable length of the affair, and the fact that most of the jazz stars did not appear until after the 45-minute intermission, on the surface the content of the program seemed unrelated to Duke Ellington It was sad to see jazz relegated to a somewhat inferior status in this Variety Night format Scheduled to begin at 7 30, things got under way an hour later and concluded after 2 00 a m , by which time your correspondent had retired The difficulties of setting up the Garden's revolving stage for each group separately, amid the welter of instruments, audio cables and microphone booms, prolonged the ennui Better focus and management might have truly produced a tribute rather than a marathon When the lights finally dimmed and the sponsors were secure in their $100 seats, the orchestra of Clark Terry, that distinguished Ellington alumnus, ran through some audience warm-up numbers The elaborate sound system proceeded to make acoustical hash of them, as it did of everything else fed through it that evening Because Peggy Lee, who led off the show, was the only white performer, her presence was something of an anomaly Not so her singing, however, which was flawless in representing the jazz-onented pop vein that she, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and, yes, Sammy Davis have chosen to exploit She sung as well her recent hit, "Is That All There Is7," a pleasant bit of antisentiment redolent of Kurt Weill Les McCann followed, with his lightweight soul-jazz sounds, some of which came from an imposing cat in an African robe playing conga drums Les has always seemed fond of redoing such standards as "With These Hands" and "Sunny", listening to them, I realized why most of my Les McCann records remain unplayed The heavyweight soul-gospel arrived with Roberta Flack, her smgmg trio and rhythm accompaniment performing spirited spiritual exhortations like "Lord, God Bless the Children" and "Come on Down to the Glory River" Her group is rhythmically sophisticated and more proficient than most I have heard belting out this kind of music Along with many of the performers in this extravaganza, rock 'n' soul star Stevie Wonder chose to do one or two of his Big Hits But he brought the house down with powerful renderings of two tunes?For Once in My Life" and "I've Got to Be Me"—straight out of the Smat-ra-Bennett-Davis bag A younger, wilder version of Ray Charles, Stevie intended these songs, I imagine, as an amiable acknowledgment to the nature of the show, if not directly to Davis Strangely enough, the one group most relevant to the spirit of Ellington's music was the Dance Theater of Harlem Reflecting the Duke's continued fascination with choreography and staging, they performed some difficult routmes to the recorded accompaniment of a great Ellington-Strayhorn piece, "Tym-perturbably Blue" (Columbia cs-8127) Hardly so meaningful was the disconcertmg appearance of Irene Cara, age 10, who sang pop-pish songs, bounced around, and did all the grown-up bits appropriate for a spot on the Ed Sullivan SIiow She was followed by Elame Jones, a tympamst for the American Symphony Orchestra who holds an Ell-mgton-endowed scholarship at Juil-liard and is one of a very few black women to make it m the symphonic world Although by this time people were crying for intermission, there was still more music to come Richie Havens and his confreres skillfully played their particular brand of jazz-influenced folk rock, addmg that dimension to the concert But during their last number ("Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child") the leader, seemingly manipulated by an unkown agency, was seen to rise up and stomp around the periphery of the circular stage, strumming, sweating and shouting "Freedom'"—after which he abruptly departed via the runway, leavmg the others to conclude as they might More down to earth was the East Harlem Choir, a large group of young kids in jeans who sang and danced to a rock band in a more or less disciplined street style They were marvelous, conveying emotions similar to those in Duke's "Emancipation Proclamation," from his suite Black, Brown, and Beige A X. J^.fter a recess, the Angelic Gospel Choir (of Nutley, N J ) spread joy, perhaps hoping to resuscitate the audience for the jazz performers to come the Modern Jazz Quartet, B B King, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, and the Ellington band with its leader (Leslie Uggams and Joya Shernll, Duke's great vocalist in the 1940s, were also due to appear But fully anesthetized after five and a half hours of mosdy loud music, I reluctantly gave over the privilege of hearing these ladies ) The mjq, with its subdued, intricate designs, was a welcome change of pace They played, very beautifully, "Under the Jasmin Tree" from the album of that name (Apple st-3353), and Ellington's lyrical "Warm Valley," the farmhar Johnny Hodges vehicle In an attempt to speed things up, B B King, the great blues guitarist, j'oined them for his old standby, "How Blue Can You Get7" This highly improbable combination produced, well, at least interesting results and some wide grins from bassist Percy Heath King then collaborated with Ray Charles at the organ and some of the Ellington men in another blues which Duke, on stage at last, mightily enjoyed He asked Ray to sit m at the piano with the band on "Satin Doll," one of the highpoints of the evemng After a shaky beginning, Ray soon began to swmg fiercely and was having such a grand time that he, like some other performers during the show, could hardly be induced to leave the stage Then Louis Armstrong arrived, sans horn, to banter with Duke, tell an irrelevant, obscene story about a waitress, and present Ellington with an unnamed award Armstrong sang the inevitable "Hello Dolly," a salute to show business that has become his emblem, let us hope not for posterity The spectacle of Armstrong and Ellington together evoked many good memories, some sentimental feelings, and a few sad overtones Both are showing their ages (69 and 70, respectively), and neither has the following or acclaim he once possessed Armstrong, as performer, had said it all by the early 1930s so that his musical life since that tune has been one flirtation after another with commercial interests But even when fronting bad bands, clowning in night clubs, and singing hack songs, he has at least maintained his musical integrity in the face of the most disastrous material The Duke continues, in spite of the pressure of new styles, to make relevant, vital statements as a composer, relying on commercial interests and show business, and bending them strictly to his own purposes Writing film and tv scores, stage works, "concert" suites, sacred works, besides his incredibly prolific output of shorter pieces, has been the true objective of his life as a bandleader—all 44 unbroken years of it The February 23 concert, bloated and flawed as it was, showed that Ellington and his jazz could still receive a beautiful voluntary tribute from all the diverse stylistic forces at work in today's musical marketplace That was impressive And so was the brief presence on stage of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, two great commercial bandleaders and songwriters of the '20s It was a reminder, if we needed one, that the Duke's unique vision owed part of its inception to the world they represented...