All That Jazz
. . . on DVD
www.allthatjazz-ondvd.co.uk
Looking at me,looking at them !
Duke Ellington
Ellington Family home when
Duke was a teenager
Ellington cartoon
EDWARD KENNEDY “DUKE ELLINGTON
…Talking……from “Hear Me Talking To Ya
The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.I remember I once wrote a sixty-four bar piece about a memory
Of when I was a little boy in bed and heard a man whistling on the street outside,his footsteps echoing away.
And take my Harlem Air Shaft. So much goes on in a Harlem air shaft.You get the full essence of Harlem in an air shaft.
You hear fights,you smell dinner,you hear people making love.You hear intimate gossip floating down.You hear the radio.An
Air shaft is one great big loudspeaker.You see your neighbours’ laundry.You hear the janitor’s dogs.The man upstaira’ aerial falls
and breaks your windon.You smell coffee.A wonderful thing,that smell.An air shaft has got every contrast.One guy is cooking
dried fish and rice and another guy’s got a great big turkey.Guy-with-fish’s wife is a terrific cooker but the guy’s wife with the
turkey is doing a sad job.You hear people praying,fighting,snoring.Jitterbugs are junping up and down always over you never
below you.That’s a funny thing about jitterbugs.They’re always above you.I tried to put all that in Harlem Air Shaft…….
Ellingtons Home
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DUKE ELLINGTON A DRUM IS A WOMAN
ALAN BARNES - Harlem Airshaft
Leeds 12th November, 2009
Tony Faulkner @ the Duke Ellington Conference
