“Something” for Duke Ellington’s birthday

“Something” is the fourth section of The Goutleas Suite, recorded April 27, 1971. The suite memorializes Ellington’s 1966 visit to the restored thirteenth-century Château de Goutelas. From his spoken remarks on the occasion, as given in his Music Is My Mistress (1973):

“To be here to help celebrate the rebuilding of this beautiful château by men who came together from the greatest extremes of religious, political, and intellectual beliefs is an experience, and a majestic manifestation of humanism, that I shall never forget. They did not merely make a donation that others might roll up their sleeves to work; they rolled up their own sleeves and worked. To be accepted as a brother by these heroic human beings leaves me breathless.”

I chose “Something,” of all things, for two reasons: it captures the luminous serenity that I hear in a number of late Ellington recordings, and it brings to mind a well-known comment from André Previn:

“You know, Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, Oh, yes, that’s done like this. But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound, and I don’t know what it is!”

I think the three horns at the beginning of “Something” are flute, tenor saxophone, and trumpet. That’s my guess.

Related reading
All OCA Ellington posts (Pinboard) : Ellington at Goutelas (A Life photograph)

[Personnel: Cootie Williams, Mercer Ellington, Money Johnson, Eddie Preston, trumpets; Booty Wood, Malcolm Taylor, Chuck Connors, trombones; Harold Minerve, Norris Turney, Paul Gonsalves, Harold Ashby, Harry Carney, reeds; Duke Ellington, composer and piano; Joe Benjamin, bass; Rufus Jones, drums. The recording was first available on The Ellington Suites (Pablo, 1976), and is now available on CD (OJC, 2013).]

On Duke Ellington’s birthday

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, 125 years ago today. “There never was another,” as Ellington himself said of James P. Johnson.

Here, from 1988, is a PBS documentary in two parts: A Duke Named Ellington. Great archival footage, great interviews with Ellington and other musicians.

Related reading
All OCA Duke Ellington posts (Pinboard)

Parallel Nancy

In Olivia Jaimes’s Nancy, our heroine takes on the challenge of parallel parking.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Fred’s Ping Pong

[203 West 38th Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

The Garment District had BILLI RDS. It also had television, with spectator sports: baseball, basketball, boxing, hockey, and wrestling. And ping-pong, or ping pong. And dig the straw hat and white shoes. Is that man dressed appropriately, or is it well past Labor Day?

These buildings, modified, stand today. As of August 2022, an amusing piece of wall art graced the side of the tall building on the left. Mister Softee FTW!

*

April 29: A reader’s comment prompted me to look in Google Books. By 1944, Fred’s Ping Pong Centre was Hy’s Ping Pong Parlor, and — sakes alive — someone was taking bets on baseball games.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Stella Zawistowski, begins: 1-A, eleven letters, “It takes willpower.” Uh, like this puzzle? The willpower to keep going even when it seems that one has nothing? It’s a hard, hard Stumper.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

3-D, five letters, “Massenet opera wirh Castilian soldiers.” Me, after solving: “That is fiendish.” Elaine, after I told her the answer: “That is totally fiendish.”

10-D, six letters, “Postcard paper.” I haven’t thought of the answer in years. Must look up.

15-A, eleven letters, “Not a broad way” and 16-A, three letters, “B’way, by definition.” An irresistible row.

21-D, seven letters, “Splendid display.” My first thought was PAGEANT.

30-A, nine letters, “Impatient utterance.” I don’t think so. I think of the answer as expressing dread, not impatience.

30-D, nine letters, “Not meant to spread around.” Good one.

44-D, six letters, “Bar from ’50s TV.” I have no idea what this clue is about. oh, wait: I think I do.

46-A, seven letters, “1990s depictors of Cortes and Pizarro.” Wait, there was a movie about Cortés and Pizarro?

49-A, three letters, “180 intro.” Had to be.

49-D, five letters, “Disinfect, in a way.” Ick.

55-A, six letters, “Steel production.” Tricky. I was thinking of every kind of BEAM imaginable.

59-D, three letters, “Relatively recent story starter.” Got it.

60-A, three letters, “It can mean ‘imitation.’” And sometimes does.

61-A, eleven letters, “Simon says it’s about Beatty.” A giveaway, I think. If not, a moment of instruction.

My favorite in this puzzle: 4-D, four letters, “Angels fear it.” Partly because the answer broke open a big chunk of puzzle, partly because it’s such a clever clue.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Mr. ZIP’s Windy Day

[Click for a larger book.]

“Young readers will love the interactive lift-the-flap element as they join Mr. ZIP for one windy adventure! Mr. ZIP and his trusty sidekick B. Franklin start their day in the mail room. Then it’s time to begin the mail route”: it’s Mr. Zip’s Windy Day, written by Annie Auerbach, illustrated by Laura Catrinella, available from the United States Postal Service. I’ve secured a copy with which to introduce the very young to the magic of the mail.

Imagine: a super-secret code that makes things get to your house faster.

Thanks, Diane.

Related posts
Messrs. Zip : Mr. ZIP : Snail Mail : A ZIP Code promotional film

Domestic comedy

“If we had a dog, and if we put our mailbox down by the front step, then the dog could get the mail for us.”

“Those are two pretty big if s.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Neologism of the day

It’s alread :

alread \ˈȯl-ˌred\ or \ȯl-ˈred\ adverb
1 : prior to a specified or implied past, present, or future time : by this time : previously

2 → used as an intensive

I heard what sounded like a newish word in a fragment of conversation: “Mom, twice alread?!” Aha: yet another shortened form? No, the speaker had said “all red.” Her mom had exercised strenuously and, for a second time, was red in the face. But I would still like to make alread happen.

Pronunciation may vary, with stress falling sometimes on the first syllable, sometimes on the second. In the conversation I heard, stress fell on the second syllable: “Mom, twice all-RED?!” Or, for instance:

“The race has ALL-red started!”

“All right all-RED!”

I like alread way more than totes and adorbs put together.

Pronunciations, definitions, and that last exclamation from Merriam-Webster.

More made-up words
Alecry : Fequid : Humormeter : Lane duck : Lane-locked : Misinflame and misinflammation : Oveness : Power-sit : Plutonic : ’Sation : Skeptiphobia

Helen Vendler (1933–2024)

The New York Times obituary begins: “In the poetry marketplace, her praise had reputation-making power, while her disapproval could be withering.” I find it hard to imagine that anyone who spent a lifetime reading and writing about poetry would appreciate such a summary of her work.

[Learning from this obituary about Vendler’s early life lets me understand why she turned down a speaking invitation from what she called a “non-secular” institution.]

Pretty Proustian

Vladimir Nabokov, Glory, trans. Dmitri Nabokov and Vladimir Nabokov (New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1971).

Not just the moment of involuntary memory but also the shifting mountains, reminiscent of the church steeple in Combray.

Venn reading
All OCA Nabokov posts : Nabokov and Proust posts : Proust posts (Pinboard)