In den sechziger Jahren wurde Ellington mit seinem Portrait auf einer Briefmarke im westafrikanischen Togo geehrt. Er erwiderte seine Gunst mit einer impressionistischen siebenteiligen Suite, der „Togo Brava Suite“.
Die Suite wurde am 28.06.1971 im National Recording Studio New York aufgenommen:
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra: Mercer Ellington, Money Johnson, Richard Williams, Cootie Williams, t; Malcolm Taylor, Booty Wood, tb;
Chuck Connors, btb; Russell Procope, as, cl; Buddy Pearson, Norris Turney, as; Harold Ashby, Paul Gonsalves, ts; Harry Carney, bs; Duke
Ellington, p; Joe Benjamin, b; Rufus Jones, d.
Die vollständige Togo Brava Suite mit 7 Sätzen hat Storyville Anfang der 2000er Jahre auf CD veröffentlicht. Diese findet sich auch auf CD 7 der Duke Box 2 von Storyville. Zusätzlich sind 10 weitere bisher unveröffentlichte Titel von 1971 enthalten, die nicht ganz so bedeutend sind, darunter einige Blues-Jams, z.B. ‚Hick‘ und weniger beeindruckende Gesangsdarbietungen von Nell Brookshire und Tony Watkins. Sehr schönes Tribute von Norris Turney an seinen Vorgänger Johnny Hodges in ‚Checkered Hat‘.
Liner Notes CD 7
The music that lends its title to this final CD is a celebration of West Africa, and a West African celebration of Duke Ellington. He of course had been interested in the history and the very concept of Africa for much of his lifetime; as far back as 1947 he was asked to write something specifically about it, and he came up with his „Liberian Suite“ in honour of the centenary of that country’s independence. Many verbal and musical references later, he composed La Plus Belle Africaine in 1966 when Senegal’s first Festival of Negro Arts invited the band to be among its guests – „after writing Negro music for 35 years“, as he commented at the time. In 1971 it was another former French colony, Togo, which had put his image in a series of four postage stamps honouring the great composers – Bach, Beethoven, Debussy and Ellington.
These seven movements were all recorded at the end of June but, when Duke presented the suite at the Newport Jazz Festival the next week, he probably only played movements #1, #3, #4 and #5 – as indeed he did on that autumn’s European tour, captured on a live album for United Artists. But there is a lot of captivating music here, beginning with the languorous theme Mkis (which in live performance was called Soul Soothing Beach), initially outlined by two altos before featuring the flute of Turney. Tego is more reminiscent of a calypso, and benefits from the contributions of Procope, Carney and Money Johnson, whereas the more dynamic Togo/Yo-Yo, or Naturellement, has a long blues interval by Ashby (it’s fascinating that both Gonsalves and Ashby derived their distinctive styles from the same model, Ben Webster).
There’s more ensemble writing in Too-Kee (or Amour, Amour), where Ellington’s piano eventually takes over for the closing diminuendo, and in Buss (or Right On, Togo) which, in the live versions, became the suite’s finale. Like the previous track, Soso eschews the African/Latin rhythms of the early movements and, at the tempo of Diminuendo In Blue and its derivatives, it features the three saxophones of Ashby, Turney and Gonsalves (who had already been pitted against each other in concerts from the 1969 European tour under the title of In Triplicate). The closing Toto shares the same feel and the same key as the previously recorded Afrique (see CD6) but not, however, the brief ensemble contribution which is capped by the ride-out of the rhythm-section and Turney’s flute.
Wild Bill Davis, who was to leave before the above recordings, was still colouring the sound of the band back in February and, as well as taking a solo, he adds considerably to the bounce of a blues called Peke which also features Ashby, Malcolm Taylor and Cootie Williams. This was only nine months after the death of Hodges, to whom Turney pays tribute in his composition named after Johnny’s iconic headgear, Checkered Hat (another piece which went into the performing repertoire and the United Artists album). The number recorded immediately after sees Ellington getting into „soul-music“ in a big way, having Nell Brookshire and Tony Watkins start out with wordless „backing vocals“ for the tenor of Ashby, whereas the Blues that follows has just the rhythm-section, as in the tracks at the end of CD4.
The next group of recordings, done the day before Duke’s 72nd birthday, share the fact of their similarity to other items from the stockpile. For instance, Hick is an ensemble blues beginning with the riff, outlined here by Ellington and then Malcolm Taylor, which formed the basis of New York, New York as recorded the following year (see CD6); the improvisation is shared between Turney’s flute and the piccolo of Minerve. Grap (The Giggling Rapids) is a tighter performance of the piece previously taped as a piano solo (CD 4) and in the band version done for use in the ballet, while Something is a further recording of the third movement of „The Goutelas Suite“ as issued on Pablo.
Finally, we have renewed reminders of the pressing need for Duke to remain at the forefront of popular appeal, not merely to gratify his personal desires but also to keep paying his expensive band. The Ellington song Making That Love Scene, probably created specifically for Tony Bennett, had been performed by Bennett with the band on both the „Tonight Show“ (1968) and the „Ed Sullivan Show“ (1969), so Duke in later live performances (and apparently in this studio session) announced that „Tony Watkins will now do his conception of Tony Bennett, doing Tony Bennett’s conception of Tony Watkins“. A non-Ellington standard which he first featured with his then-vocalists Marian Cox and Kay Davis, back in the 1940s after Billie Holiday made it a hit, Lover Man was suddenly revived in 1971 as a vehicle for Brookshire in a new arrangement that might be the work of the recently departed Wild Bill Davis.
The last track of all wraps up several threads of this compilation, especially those of constant renewal and respect for Ellingtonian tradition. Perdido, here featuring Money Johnson, makes use of the original 1942 arrangement, as also heard on CD1 from 1952. I miss the closing ensemble, though, but one might just as well be regretful for the absence of Rex Stewart and Ray Nance, or indeed of Clark Terry. Whether updated or recreated, and whether original or adapted from more popular sources, this is all Ellington music. All to be cherished and never to be repeated, except by recorded reproduction.
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