Duke Ellington was a lovely chap. He wasn’t a real Duke of course, the title was just an affectation. I knew the Duke of Argyll socially, he was a very proud man, he had six fingers on one hand so he was definitely a sub-par billiards player but he cut a fine figure in a worsted suit. The point is he would have been horrified to think that there were chaps just appropriating the title “Duke” without the lineage to justify its acquisition. To be honest he would have been appalled if an Oxford-educated Englishman from a fine family had done so but if he’d known that a black person from America was getting up to this sort of thing he would have had a pink fit. He wasn’t what you would call an especially enlightened individual when it came to race relations.
So were you present at the legendary Newport show, or the subsequent re-recording?
Both. The people who organised the festival felt that someone with some genuine experience was needed to keep the backstage areas as immaculate as it’s possible to be with jazz musicians utilizing the facilities. So I was behind the scenes with a cloth and some bin liners keeping everything neat and tidy. I vividly recall the extremely enthusiastic reaction of the crowd who were definitely impassioned by the goings-on. None of them seemed at all perturbed by the fact that Mr Ellington was fraudulently claiming ownership of a title, they were simply taken up in the jolly nature of the musical entertainment on offer.
And you were also there for the studio rerecordings?
I was, yes. Mr Ellington felt that there were aspects of the performance which weren’t up to standard and elements of the recording process which lacked a certain clarity, so they replicated them later in the studio. They performed the songs and then required the sounds of an enthusiastic audience applied as audio embellishment, so those working in the studio, myself included, were asked to provide an audible response when they concluded a performance. I put my broom aside and stood patiently until the song ended and then I applauded vigorously and shouted “Hooray! That was marvellous! You chaps are extremely talented and this Jazz thing is definitely top quality musical entertainment I must say” and outbursts to that effect. I know they overdubbed other audience noises but I’m sure if the volume is amplified, I’m audible to some extent. Listen for a jubilant English voice that sounds classically educated.
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