Remembering Duke
The music of Duke Ellington (and his long-time composing partner, Billy Strayhorn) has been an ever-present touchstone for the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra since its inception.
Among the SNJO’s earliest concerts were celebrations of Duke. There have also been the 2012 recording In the Spirit of Duke, which earned praise internationally from many of jazz’s most experienced and erudite commentators, and further concerts devoted to work that spanned Ellington’s fifty-year career and provides an unstoppable current in jazz’s carrying stream.
“Duke Ellington has been an inspiration to musicians and composers across the musical spectrum for almost 100 years,” says SNJO founder and musical director, saxophonist Tommy Smith. “The breadth of his writing encompasses songs that were the pop music of the day and hugely descriptive suites that compare with works in the classical canon in terms of ambition.”
It’s not just the SNJO that Ellington’s music has permeated. This concert will form one of the biggest - if not the biggest – Ellington celebrations ever undertaken in Scotland, thanks in no small measure to the SNJO’s youth wing, the Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra opening the evening.
Duke is in the TSYJO’s DNA, too. The first recording the TSYJO released, Exploration (2007), featured Duke’s Cottontail. This was followed on Emergence (2011) by In a Mellow Tone, Mood Indigo and Strayhorn’s theme tune for the Ellington orchestra, Take the A Train.
“It’s wonderful to witness young players from the TikTok era finding their way into playing jazz through Ellington as generations before have done,” says Tommy Smith. “The musicians from these recordings may have moved on but the ones who have picked up the baton are fully aware of the high standards required to play this music. When you consider the developments that have arrived since we formed both the SNJO and the TSYJO, things that we now take for granted such as social media, the lasting qualities of Ellington’s music becomes even more admirable.”
The quality of these two orchestras that Smith has nurtured should also be acknowledged. Just recently, radio presenters in America’s musical heartlands, in Georgia and Louisiana, have broadcast recordings by both bands enthusiastically alongside jazz’s indigenous masters and in one case TSYJO has provided the programme’s theme music.
For Remembering Duke, the Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra will reinvigorate Ellington classics and rarities, adding to the SNJO’s command of highlights from throughout the master's repertoire and songs from our special guest, Lucy-Anne Daniels.
“We’re looking forward to playing this great music, which has so much depth and character, and to giving the audience an experience that will be authentic in every way in terms of staging, attire and equipment as well as the music,” says Smith. “We don’t flatter ourselves that we become the Duke Ellington Orchestra but in paying attention to these details and getting into character as far as is possible, we strive to deliver performances that measure up to a unique and timeless repertoire.”
