I first heard the Ellington band in 1927, which was the year it made its debut at the famous Cotton Club in Harlem… I can't say that I was too much impressed with the Ellington crew on that visit. It definitely didn't have the form and the polish that it acquired later, of course. I was bewildered by the elaborate floor revue at the Cotton Club, even then comparable to the top Broadway musicals, and fascinated by the dispatch and lack of commotion with which a belligerent drunken guest was subdued and evicted by the club attaches.