“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).]