A Woman in a Black Cocktail Dress.

To me there’s nothing more fascinating than the stories behind the music. No matter how miniscule or trivial, I really enjoy reading accounts from those who were there how this certain event was a turning point. Or specifically, how a concert stood out because of an event that took place during the show.

Sometimes though, the story grows to mythical proportions and is in no way trivial. Case in point the story of Duke Ellington’s performance at The Newport Jazz Festival, 1956.
The Duke had fallen on hard times. Traditional jazz was at a low point in it’s popularity, replaced by Be-bop and the jazz improvisational giants such as Parker, Monk and Gillespie. Combine that with the dawning of Rock n’ Roll, and it’s easy to see why many big band outfits had simply closed up shop by the mid 1950’s

The Duke however soldiered on, playing gigs at roller skating rinks and other venues that were clearly beneath his status. Money was so tight that he was paying musicians out of his own pocket, drawing off of his backlog of song royalties to do so.

Jazz festivals were in their infancy at this time, so it bears mentioning that this was not a “festival” in today’s sense of the word. It was pretty much a buttoned-down crowd for the most part, which makes what was to take place during Ellington’s set all the more surreal.

After about six or seven numbers, Duke pulled out two compositions from 1938 called “Dimenuendo In Blue” and “Crescendo In Blue”. The two tunes were joined together by an improvised tenor saxophone solo by Massachusetts native Paul Gonsalves. The band were experimenting with the repertoire during the shows leading up to Newport, and the solo had evolved to the point where Duke had told Gonsalves to just “blow as long and as hard as he wanted to”. This passage, 27 choruses in length, would be arguably responsible for the rebirth of Ellington’s career.

The performance was simple enough. Gonsalves on sax, joined by only bassist Jimmy Woode, Sam Woodyard on drums, and Duke on piano. You can audibly hear band members urging Gonsalves to “dig in” and keep playing. Between Ellington’s propulsive piano pounding and all of the hollering onstage, the musical onslaught taking place proved to be too much for a woman sitting in a box seat wearing a black cocktail dress.

As legend has it, she sprang up out of her seat and began dancing. Her actions were the catalyst for other audience members to ignore their sedate surroundings and before you knew it, a large percentage of the crowd went crazy, dancing like there was no tomorrow.

It all seems unbelievable and too embellished over time. Until you hear the recording. The audience response at the end of this was nothing short of pandemonium, with Gonsalves collapsed in exhaustion.
In fact, the ovation was so extended that it actually exists as a separate track on the album, titled “Announcements-Pandemonium”.

Columbia Records recorded the show and released it on LP. It became one of the top selling albums of that year. Ellington would ride a resurgent wave of popularity that would last until the end of his life.

The story though, does not end there. It was not uncommon for “live” albums to be tweaked in the studio prior to being released. “Live At Newport” was no exception. Overdubs would be placed on top of the live music so the record would sound better.
So Duke and his band set out to do precisely that immediately after the festival.

Other than the usual cosmetic fixes, the most glaring error apparent on the tapes was that Paul Gonsalves had delivered his legendary sax solo into the wrong microphone! The Voice Of America radio network was taping the show for broadcast, and Gonsalves used that mic instead of the Columbia one. As a result, the sound was not as good as it could have been. It was in fact inaudible for the most part, so the performance was recreated in the studio.

So with the actual solo thought to be gone forever, the “pandemonium” that ensued at Newport was replaced on the LP with a fabrication that was close to the real thing but not quite. A discovery in 1996 though,would soon change all that.

The original Voice Of America tapes had been located. Using digital technology, the two source recordings were painstakingly synched up to each other. The result was not only a truer reproduction of the events of that day, but because there were now two sources, it could also be remastered for stereo.

Released in 1999, the concert that revived Duke Ellington’s career was finally made available with no embellishments or overdubs. Even more astonishing is it’s presence in stereo, considering that the performance was recorded in 1956 and stereo as a format would not even be invented until 1957.