The Essence and Duke Ellington

By Vince Prudente

I worked, toured, and recorded with Duke Ellington for the last two years of his life – a period that was the highlight of my career. In my memoirs, The Essence and Duke Ellington, I aim to convey the spirit within the heart of the jazz musician, particularly Duke Ellington. I want to show what drove him and other musicians, past and present, to play and compose this wonderful music. I also depict Duke Ellington’s greatness as a human being, not as some super-human being, which he may well have been. I recount stories and reflect on my own experiences, expounding on what working with and learning from him and so many other jazz greats has meant to me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035814275

Vince Prudente

Vince was born in Connellsville, Pa. on November 18, 1937. When he was 3, he heard Tommy Dorsey play the trombone, and was thrilled. He earned a BS in music at Duquesne University, and became a professional jazz musician. He joined Lionel Hampton in 1959 and toured and recorded with him. He moved to New York and worked, toured and recorded with Woody Herman. He also worked with Kenny Dorham, Joe Henderson, and Frank Foster. At 34, he joined Duke Ellington and toured and recorded with him until Duke’s death. He continued with the orchestra led by Duke’s son, Mercer; until 1976, then on and off until 1986, including on Broadway in ‘Sophisticated Ladies’. He also played with Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, and Illinois Jacquet. Moving to California, he worked with Bill Berry, Buddy Collette, Joe Henderson, and at CSU, Chico, where he earned a MA and started a trio/quartet playing trombone and piano. From 1994 through 2007, he taught Jazz workshops at NYU while continuing to play and record his CD, ‘The Treatment’, with his group. He and his wife moved to France in 2012 and he began to write.

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Introduction

I started to see a therapist, Lorna Linnane Boyd, about three months ago to sort out a few things that were getting in the way of my life. She told me to start a journal. She said, Get a notebook and write in it every day. You can write whatever you want, but write something every day.

I asked, Every day?

She said, Yes.

I thought wow that’s going to be a pain in the ass. I’ve never been one to write much, although twenty some years ago when I was getting my Master’s Degree I did write some good papers, at least I got good grades. But like the good patient I’ve always been, ahem, with all doctors and people working on my health, I started doing it. I wrote a little, like maybe a paragraph, mainly about the things that were bothering me. After a while, the length started to be two paragraphs, then three, a whole page, and then close to two pages. I started to feel better about the things that were bothering me as I was getting them off my chest. Now I wanted to stop writing about them and write about the nice things in my life and I did, but of course from time to time I had to write about the not so fun stuff. The next step was I began to read my journal entries to my wife every day.

She, my wife, Jean Graybeal, who is a writer and a good one, liked my writing even to the point of saying that I was a good writer. That, without me realizing it, made me feel good and gave me some confidence in whatever writing ability I have and also made me realize that I was enjoying it. She, along with some other people, after I tell them a story or two about my experiences as a musician keep telling me that I should write about them, but I always tell her and everyone else that maybe I will someday but I still have a few chapters of experience as a musician to live first. Her Mother and Father love to hear my stories. We rode with them, or should I say drove them from upstate New York to Maine and back to see their other daughter and their son and his wife. On the way back, they couldn’t get enough of my stories, especially the ones from the time I played with Duke Ellington. And just last month when Jean’s mother Marge sent me birthday wishes she said she missed hearing my stories.

I think I was also concerned that writing down some of these experiences might get in the way of the other chapters of experience as a musician I still want. Now I’m beginning to understand that they won’t. I can’t at seventy-six play my trombone seven days a week like I used to or even the piano now that I’m also a piano player. Therefore maybe writing this book will even help me accomplish those final chapters because when I’m not playing my instruments whether practicing or performing, writing tunes, learning tunes, or planning new CD’s, etc., I can still be creative and not just sit around or do some numb, numb stuff waiting till my chops recuperate.

So, here goes. The memories of my musical career, especially those with the Maestro, Duke Ellington, and some of the things I learned from and about him including ‘The Essence’.

Qualifications

Some will undoubtable say about me, what qualifications does he have to be writing about Duke Ellington? He’s not an ‘Ellington Scholar’, ‘historian’, or ‘expert’. He doesn’t know all of Cootie Williams, Harry Carney’s, or even Lawrence Brown’s, solos. In fact, he hardly knows any of them. Where did he get his information for this book? And as far as the background stated above is concerned, they would be right.

But I do have one qualification and the information that I do have I learned, as the saying goes, from the horses’ mouths. My stories are not what someone told me or something that has been passed down from time to time over the years, but are from what I witnessed directly from what I saw and what I heard straight from the mouths of those who said them.

I played the number six book in the Duke Ellington Orchestra for almost four years. The last almost two years were with ‘Mercer Ellington and the Duke Ellington Orchestra’, but the first over two years were with ‘Duke Ellington and his Orchestra’. The number six book was played by Lawrence Brown for roughly thirty years sandwiched around nine or ten years by Britt Woodman. Somewhere in 1970 until I joined Duke on April 7, 1972, the book was played by Julian Priester, Malcolm Taylor, and a little by Booty Wood.

The last five months that I played with Duke, January 1, 1974, until his death on May 24 were rough. We only worked in February and March and Duke missed a few dates even in those two months all because his cancer was really getting bad. But the first twenty-one month’s I was with him we worked constantly, in many weeks seven dates and sometimes eight. When we didn’t have a gig we were in the studio recording.

So these years that I spent with Duke are what I feel qualifies me a little bit at least to write about this great man, my mentor, my encourager, my boss, my accompanist, my confidant, my friend.

The Essence and Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington and Edward R. Murrow

Duke Ellington told Edward R. Murrow, when asked how his band had kept on working so steadily when just about all the big bands were through working, said, Well, 80% of it is luck, which I think comes about by being in the right place at the right time, and doing the right thing in front of the right people.

The saying that so many people say which is, you have to be in the right place at the right time, with the extension that he added on is something I’ve heard him say quite a few times and something that I definitely took note of, especially since I’ve never heard anyone else add that extension to it, but I use it always, especially when I’m telling myself what I need to do.

But how do you get to be in the right place at the right time? Once you’re there, the rest is up to you. Do you just get to be in that right place by yourself? Is it pure luck? Did someone tell you to go there? Or do you try too hard looking for that place and therefore miss it? Etc. Sometimes if you’re in the right place at the right time in order for you to witness something or experience something, what you have to do is over, so you just watch or go through it. I know one thing for sure, I was in the right place at the right time when Mercer Ellington, Duke’s son called me up on the 6th of April 1972 and asked me if I would work the next two days with his dad. And sometime doing that first night I must have done something right in front of the right person because the next day that right person had Mercer ask me if I wanted to become a permanent member of his orchestra.

****

When we lived in Highland, NY I used to sit by our big picture window, which was also where our dining table was, and look outside. It was a beautiful view with only a country road that had almost no traffic going by for a lot of the time except when people were going to or coming from work. Many times, after I was done eating, I would just sit there for a while and I saw some amazing sights across the street in the woods, but mainly right in our front yard.

There was an old tree stump there that had been decaying for a number of years. A beautiful big Pileated Woodpecker learned that the stump was full of grubs and every morning he came over to that stump and had his full of those tasty grubs and basically annihilated that old tree stump. You see Pileated Woodpeckers don’t peck real fast like the smaller ones that sound like jack hammers, but I didn’t know that before I witnessed him at work for the first time. This fellow took his time and was pecking off large chunks of wood that were flying all over the place out of that stump. Thank you, Mr Woodpecker, you saved me some money and or work.

I also saw deer out of that window and several Red-Tailed Hawks catch a bird, one catching a Grackle and sitting out there for over an hour eating that boy with great aplomb and patience. We had a bird feeder hanging from our tree and at one time 9 or 10 huge wild turkeys use to feed on the feed we left on the ground every day. You see we used to get a lot of snow there so a lot of people in the neighbourhood would leave food around for the wild animals to help them get through the winter. We saw everything there including a big Black Bear just before we moved away. No, that’s not why we moved. We already had our house up for sale. So how did I happen to be in the right place at the right time to see all of these great sights?

Did I do something special? Was it because when I’ve been fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time, I’ve done the right thing in front of the right people a number of times and I’m getting some sort of reward for it? Is it because I’m some sort of special person that just attracts good stuff because I’m so special? I’m positive that’s not the case. Maybe it’s because I’m putting trust in the powers that be that bring good things to you, or as some say, to those who wait?

Rather than working on their craft to try to improve themselves or to come up with some different things to add on to what they already do or know, many people in the music business go chasing after little gigs or money so hard that they don’t leave any space for the really nice things to come their way, which a lot of times are accompanied by some pretty decent money that is much better than what those little gigs pay.

Lao Tzu, Jesus, the Dalai Lama, the Cure D’ars, and I’m sure many, many great religious leaders, and practitioners of all faiths say to put your trust in the Holy Spirit, The Tao, God, or whomever you’re praying to. Maybe that helps to get in the right place at the right time also.

Once again, one thing for sure, I was in the right place at the right time when I got that call from Mercer.

Chuck, Johnny, Mercer, Cootie, Russell,

Norris, Harry, and Paul

I met Mercer Ellington at the Philadelphia airport on April 7th, 1972, after he called me a day or two before to come and work with his father for two days. With him was Chuck Connors and Johnny Coles. I’m pretty sure I remember seeing Chuck at one of the first gigs I ever played with Lionel Hampton which was in Massachusetts, but I never met him. Johnny was at one of the rehearsals I made with Frank Foster but I met him briefly during the summer of 1967 when I was in the house band of the Wonder Gardens night club in Atlantic City and on our day off, I subbed for Fred Joyner at the Club Harlem when Johnny was in the band.

When I said hello to Mercer, he introduced me to Chuck and asked him if he had a part for me. I was hoping that there was going to be something like an eighty fourth trombone part that I could play without being too scared to death as I looked over and saw Duke Ellington playing the piano. But Chuck, being Chuck bellowed out, Lead, which of course was followed by his boisterous laugh. Chuck was one of the all-time greatest laughers. As I was standing there quaking in my shoes, Johnny Coles said, He can handle it.

I’m still thanking you, Johnny.

****

After we got to the gig, I saw where I was supposed to sit and low and behold it was right next to Cootie Williams who happened to be sitting next to the trombone section that day. Cootie as usual didn’t have the most congenial look on his face and I over the years had heard the stories about him and right now it didn’t matter if they were true or not. The only good thing I saw about it at the time was that he was between me and Duke Ellington. I keep saying Duke’s whole name so that whoever is reading this just might feel some of the magnitude of who that person really was and how it might feel if you were about to play with him for the first time in your life.

Duke Ellington at an airport somewhere in Europe or Africa during our tour in 1973. Photographer unknown.

I got through the first set with some help during the first tune by listening to Mercer playing trumpet behind me. The reason for that was stated by Mercer himself several months later when we were at the University of Wisconsin for a week playing a concert every night and doing some clinic work in the day time. For the clinics, except for Duke who did his solo, the band was broken up into smaller groups. The group I was in consisted of Mercer, Johnny Coles, and me. When we met downstairs to go to the class room and while Mercer and I were waiting for Johnny to arrive, Mercer asked me if I was going to get my horn. I said something like should I, and are you going to take yours? Mercer, God Bless him said, You should get yours but I’m not going to take mine because I don’t want to dissolution anybody.

As I got up to stretch my legs during our first break that first night, Cootie said to me in that powerful voice of his that was reminiscent of the sound he got out of his trumpet, Hey. Go ahead, but give me your book.

I didn’t know what to think. Fortunately, as I was getting up Russell Procope told me that I had a beautiful tone and Norris Turney told me that I give the trombone section a sound. Thank you, fellows. When I returned to play the next set, Cootie gave me my book back and told me where all the concert music was, the dance music, and the vocals, etc. Wow!

****

For the first night and even some into the second, even though Chuck was the bass trombonist I had to follow him to get the interpretation of the music into my being. Except for the first night when Al Hayes was in the band, besides me, Chuck was the only other trombonist there. After that second night, for sure I became the lead player that I had to be and the transition from me following Chuck to him following me without one word being said was beautiful. Without a doubt Chuck Connors was the best bass trombonist I ever played with. He not only blended perfectly, had a big, beautiful sound, but never stuck out like some bass trombonists do.

****

Several weeks into my time with Duke we played something that had a little section that had a little soli part for the trombones and Mister Baritone Saxophone himself, Harry Carney on the bottom. The lead trombone, my part played the lead of that little section. I’ve played a lot of lead and sometimes you have to pull some teeth to get one of the other players to follow you. When we played that section, the great Harry Carney, the corner stone of the Duke Ellington orchestra for forty-five or however many years followed me like he was the glove on my hand. You ask what’s the most important thing when you’re playing music with other people, well it has nothing to do with who’s the best, who’s the senior member, who’s got the biggest ego, or who’s this or that, it’s one simple thing and the reason you’re playing together, it’s the music. And you wonder why Mister Carney was such a great musician. It ain’t brain surgery folks. God, I was so blessed to play with him and to know him.

I got on the bus one night and although I usually ask the bus driver how far we had to go I didn’t because even though it was rare for the Duke Ellington orchestra to travel so far on the bus when I was with the Maestro, I knew it was over four hundred miles. I was really tired and the thought of that long of a trip took me back to some of the long trips I made with Lionel Hampton and especially Woody Herman. I was feeling a little grumpy to say the least and had grumped a bit to a few of my bus neighbours and I just wanted to try and get some sleep and forget about it.

It was quiet on the bus because most everybody on it, except for the driver of course had fallen off to la-la land or was just about to. Then just as I was a couple of heart beats away from joining them, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Was I dreaming? Then I felt it again only this time it was accompanied by my name. Now I realized it was the gentleman that rode in the seat behind me on the bus, the great Paul Gonsalves. After a few more taps and my name being called a few more times, I answered back in not the most congenial manner. What do you want Paul? I’m trying to go to sleep.

Paul Gonsalves, this unbelievably fantastic musician that has been making these bus, train, you name it trips for twenty-five or so years said, Vince; do you realize how lucky we are to be playing this music with the Maestro? And then accompanied by this quiet little laugh of pure joy that you hear little kids make when they’re happy, I’m mean you talk about being lucky, man. This is it.

I hear what you’re saying Paul, and to myself I said and he’s oh so right. I got more comfortable in my seat and happily went to sleep.

Maestro

Everyone in the orchestra called Duke, Maestro, except Chuck Connors of course. Chuck was a ‘beautiful cat’ and my very dear friend; more about him later. He called Duke, Red, and Duke called him Charles in the most elaborately formal way imaginable. Their exchanges started out something like, Hey Red, Yes Charles. But the rest of the musicians called him Maestro. They didn’t call him that in some sort of reverence to God or some sort of super human person. The name, Maestro, said it all as to how the musicians felt about him, but I think deep down, most of the time on the bandstand, he just wanted to be one of the guys in the band and it was obvious he loved hearing his musicians interpret his music. Really great people, leaders, don’t go after respect. They don’t have to show who the boss is, everybody knows it. Just being their self gets all the respect anyone could ever hope for.

Never Ordinary

Probably the first thing I noticed playing the music the first night I worked with Duke Ellington and his orchestra was that the rhythmic hits the brass section and many times the whole band did where different from anything I’d ever read before. My trombone teacher, Matty Shiner was a stickler for teaching rhythmic patterns to his students. You had to clap your hands to the beat and read the names of the notes rhythmically before you played them and he used a book specifically for that purpose that was maddening to read. But because of that I became a pretty dam good rhythmic reader which of course helped with all of my music reading. If you don’t know where the note is supposed to go, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re playing the right note or not.

But when I began to read the music in Duke’s book which was mostly by him and Billy Strayhorn I immediately recognized I couldn’t let my mind wander for any miniscule part of a second. Those hits were in places that I had never seen before, and even more so during the endings. The difficulty was mainly because of the fact that they didn’t necessarily stand out and were actually even in the same ball park of the usual ones. However, that’s where the final stinger was. Because while they were in the same ballpark they were in different parts of the field. But after all was said I done, I loved them.

Another thing I learned about Duke and his orchestra very early on while working with him was that besides those rhythmic patterns I just told you about, nothing was ever ordinary. I’d played in many big bands before playing with Duke and I would also say there was a myriad of differences between them. Here are some of them; Lionel Hampton, Larry Elgart, Woody Herman, Ray McKinley, Frank Foster, Vaughan Monroe, the Kenny Dorham/Joe Henderson big band, Buddy Morrow, Clark Terry, and Bob Crosby. Now while there were a lot of differences between them, as you can probably tell just by whose bands they were, none of them were as different to each other as Duke’s was to all of them.

First of all, Duke Ellington’s orchestra was set up differently on the band stand than any of them. All of those other bands, and in this one way Duke’s as well, ordinarily set up the horn sections with the saxophones in front, the trombones behind them, and the trumpets behind the trombones. But that’s where the similarity stopped.

In those other bands and every other one I ever played with the lead players of each section sat in the middle of their sections. Naturally the idea behind that is so the rest of the players in each section can hear the lead player well and he them. In Duke’s band, at least when I was in it and when I saw it in Las Vegas for a week three years before I joined it, Johnny Hodges the lead alto saxophonist sat in the middle of his section, but Lawrence Brown, the lead trombonist looking out from the band stand sat on the far right of his section. The trumpet section was fairly normal except for one thing. Willie Cook and Cat Anderson were sitting side by side like most bands that might have two players sharing a little of the lead, which I think they were, but they were both on the left side of the section rather than being in the middle of it.

When I joined the band, Norris Turney who was playing lead in the saxophone section sat in the middle like Johnny did, and I who was playing lead sat where Lawrence did on the right end of the section. But Money Johnson who was playing lead in the trumpet section was sitting at the far left of his section. So much for the lead players being behind one another. This was saxophone lead player in the middle, trombone lead player on the far right, and trumpet lead player on the far left.

Several more quirky things about the setup were in the saxophone section. Harold Ashby and Paul Gonsalves the two tenors were sitting next to each other on the right end of the section and the two altos Norris and Russell Procope were next to each other to the left of the tenors and to the right of the baritone player, Harry Carney of course. All of those other bands, except for Woody Herman who didn’t have any altos in his band except for his alto that he played on occasion, have their saxophone sections set up with one tenor on the far right, then the two altos, and then the other tenor between the two altos and the baritone.

Also, in Duke’s orchestra trumpeter Cootie Williams sometimes sat next to the trombone section in their row and last but definitely not least, Chuck Connors, the bass trombonist sat in the middle of the trombone section. Are you dizzy yet. I don’t know how all of that evolved but I wouldn’t be surprised if over time it just happened for whatever reason the musicians had at the time and Duke just let it be like he did while I was with him when an older trombone player changed all of the trombone books, stands, etc. on the bandstand just before the gig started so he would be closer to Duke and unsuccessfully, to his dismay, suck up to Duke in order to get more solos.

And here’s just one more thing about Duke Ellington and his orchestra that was never ordinary, the audience participation. You know by now that I worked with Lionel Hampton and if you ever saw his band play you know that he had a whole bunch of things that he had his band do to get the audience involved. He had us rock back and forth, clap our hands, answer some of his vocals, and on and on. A number of bands had their band members do the hand clapping and do some kind of call and response thing with the band leader. Stan Kenton had his whole horn section sing ballads with the rhythm section which would sometimes get some of the patrons to join in.

So, what did Duke do. Duke played a piece, the name of which I can’t recall, with just him and the rhythm section. You must remember all of this happened for me over forty years ago. Anyway, at the end of it in the spaces between a little repetitive pattern they played, the rest of the band, and with encouragement from Duke, the audience, would snap their fingers once and the last thing that was heard from that tune was one final finger snap which we all held until the audience started their applause. He also did I little lecture/demonstration, as it would be listed in a university curriculum page, on the proper way to snap your fingers while the band played something behind him. You can check it out on You tube.

Yes folks, Duke Ellington was never ordinary, and this is just the very smallest particle of the tip of the iceberg. But wait, before I close this article here’s just one more thing that exemplifies the un-ordinariness of this man.

Most bands and actually all types of entertainers as well, when coaxed by the audience to play an encore, perform something that’s exciting and has a lot of fanfare. If they’re asked to do another one or two, they are like the first one but progressively with more fanfare and flash. When I was with Duke his last piece of the night was as he said possibly his favourite Billy Strayhorn composition, ‘Lotus Blossom’.

It is a beautiful soft ballad in 3/4 time, and while his orchestra sat and listened along with the audience, he played it by himself on the piano.

Carnegie Hall

When I was teaching my class at NYU called, ‘Understanding Jazz’, for want of a better name, my students wanted to think that technology started with electricity. I would tell them the building of the great Roman amphitheatres were built so that what was happening on stage could be heard everywhere in the theatre.

The first time I played in Carnegie Hall, I was blessed because it was with Duke Ellington. I got there early. While I was warming up for the concert in the dressing room, I decided to go out to the centre of the stage to check out the magnificent hall, to take it and me being there all in. No one was there. I put my trombone up to my lips and played a note. It was just a note in the middle register of the horn and I played it at a medium volume. I could tell and even hear that the sound of that note went to every corner of the hall because that hall had been constructed so acoustically perfect. Later when the concert started and I took my solo on our first tune, ‘C Jam Blues’, I felt great because I knew that everyone in the packed concert hall could hear it and hopefully appreciate it.

All of that my students and anyone else who’s listening is also a result of technology. The builders of those agent amphitheatres and Carnegie Hall used the technology of their eras to enable those sounds to be heard wonderfully as well. The builders of today using electronic technology have the same goal in mind. Building on the ideas of the past they to want the sounds to be heard by everyone in the area where the music is being played and some even want those sounds to actually sound like the instruments that are playing them. Sorry I just had to add that. You see some of the sound people I’ve worked with unfortunately make it difficult for me not to be at the very least facetious at times.

However, the point is, new is good, but even new plants need fertilizer to make them grow which most of the time comes from the old.

The Trombone

The trombone is a beautiful instrument. It has a sound if played properly that is gorgeous but also has many other qualities. It can be played powerfully. It can be percussive. It can dominate. It can blend with all of the other instruments, whether supporting, leading, or just being a part of the overall sound. It is the oldest brass instrument in its present form. It was one of the main instruments in early jazz like Dixieland and is still a staple in that music and of course big bands. In big bands, it’s what the trumpet players lean on to play their high notes and blends beautifully with the saxophones in many ways. It was still prevalent in small swing bands, then Be Bop came along and as far as small band playing was concerned, it started to lose its grip. Be Bop is a music that includes a lot of fast and intricate playing and until J.J. Johnson figured it out the trombone was left on the wayside.

Why? The trombone, though difficult, can be played fast and can play some intricate passages. By the way, I’m talking about the slide trombone, not the valve trombone. For me, while people have played the valve trombone great, the valves cost the trombone some of its sound, that incredibly wonderful open sound that can be attained on the slide trombone, the instruments greatest attribute. When you play fast on the trombone, in most cases its main attribute the sound, gets covered up. There are a few exceptions. Slide Hampton while playing fast articulates all the notes distinctly but also produces a solid sound on those fast notes. There are others. Carl Fontana is one. But for most everybody else the notes are there but the sound suffers and more importantly you’re not showing off the trombone’s best qualities, sound, beauty, warmth, etc.

The reasons the trombone isn’t used much in small band playing from bebop through to the present, in my opinion, are many.