Duke Ellington - 1951

from Duke Ellington: Music is my Mistress, pages 75-76:

[In 1951] Johnny Hodges, Lawrence Brown, and Sonny Greer all left the band at one time… "All you've got to do," [Juan] Tizol said, "is to say the word, and take Louis Bellson, Willie Smith, and me, and we'll leave Harry James and come with you." This was the big solution… Quite apart from having Tizol back, Willie Smith was the world's greatest first alto man, and everybody was jumping up and saying, "Louis Bellson -there's no drummer like him!" So I told Tizol, "That's crazy, man!" And we did it… It was a sensation in the whole music world, and it resulted in very positive …   more >>
cite as

Duke Ellington, Duke Ellington: Music is my Mistress (New Jersey, 1973), p. 75-76. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1429104941355 accessed: 29 March, 2024

Listeners

Duke Ellington
lyricist, performer, piantist, Composer […]
1899-1974

Listening to

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Big Band
written by Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Glen Gray, Tommy Dorsey
performed by Willie Smith, Juan Tizol, Louie Bellson

Experience Information

Date/Time 1951
Medium live
Listening Environment indoors

Originally submitted by 5011Henning on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:35:41 +0100
Approved on Tue, 01 Sep 2015 10:21:19 +0100