New Jersey Nightly News; A Closer Look: Duke Ellington

Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. The impact of Edward Kennedy Ellington on America's musical history is usually dated from his appearance at Harlem's Cotton Club in one thousand twenty seven. But it's spread to other cities like Newark beginning in the 1930s with theater appearances before a largely black urban audiences the theaters where these concerts took place in New York the RKO the atoms the RPM are mostly gone now but the audiences from those days can savor the memories. You know I like that you led you to the list.

This thing is a good one. One New York theater which does remain in the Big Band Era is what for years was known as the mosque. Now Symphony Hall and lingering love affair between the Duke and his audiences surface there at a special concert for senior citizens by the Ellington band last many in the audience remembered hearing the band 30 and more years before.

Yeah I remember that because he used to come over here and we did. I'm 73 and I haven't. I know. You are. Here for me.

I've to the concert. Mercer Ellington reminisced with some old friends from New York including Bill Cook a local retired disc jockey who remembered when Mercer joined the band 30 years ago. I came out of North Carolina South Carolina Virginia and we just moved a few miles this direction. I think you find that if you're black culture has been fostered and kept and really molded into a thing which is much more and much better preserved in Moore because it improves And also you know recording soldiers that have that can be done and some of the most genuine places so you've got more concerts and more richness that comes from the soul here more so than New York. Ellington nostalgia in Newark was also conjured up in another concert this year at Essex

County College. Dr. Aaron Bell head of the college music department and a former Ellington side band. Gathered together a band made up of musicians who had played in the band under the do. One was Russell Procope a reed player whose career dates back to the band Jelly Roll Morton and Fletcher Henderson the 1920s and 30s who joined the Ellington band in 1946. Yet Taylor made the right. Things that were made. And as his new man came in the band he would. Buy for him. These all fit people who stayed. Good. For. A long length of time here think that it is his pattern. Musically and they play his music to the song. Aaron Bell who is an arranger and bassist with the band near the end of Duke Ellington's career

recalled what the experience meant to him. You know for school and I know it's not so much. I was saying. That this. Duke Ellington has been called the greatest talent in history and America's

greatest composer reputation worldwide. A special affection for City theater audiences. America with that reputation was built in cities like New York. New York has changed greatly in the years since the Ellington band here in the 1930s. Today New Yorkers remember send back the most. You. Do love you man. Thank you.