Memories sought of Duke Ellington's Eastbourne concert

SussexWorld

Duke Ellington, jazz legend and one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, made his final recording in Eastbourne – a fact which will be celebrated in the town this October with a special concert to mark the 50th anniversary of the album it produced.

Transcript

00:00good afternoon my name is phil hewitt group arts editor at sussex newspapers lovely to speak to

00:06arnie somergy now this is super exciting big anniversary coming up in the autumn in eastbourne

00:1350th anniversary of duke kellington's last recorded album which he happened to record in

00:18eastbourne and arnie you're doing something very special to celebrate this aren't you 50 years

00:23since that yeah we're hoping well we are we're putting on a performance at the congress theater

00:29where the original concert happened uh on the 12th of october and we're planning to make it a whole

00:36day celebrating eastbourne's connection with one of the greats of 20th century music

00:43ellington himself i've got the uh the album here oh it's just blurred at the moment

00:48blurred a bit but uh it's called eastbourne performance and it was his last official

00:53officially recorded release uh marking the sort of end of a fantastic career which spanned the

01:00whole of the 20th century so what we're hoping to do is we're putting on a big gala concert

01:05headlining the event will be echoes of ellington who are the uk's premier ellington repertoire big band

01:12and they'll be performing a set of uh ella fitzgerald and duke ellington songs with uh under the direction

01:19of pete long who who's musical director of the veronnie scott's jazz orchestra and featuring sarah

01:25oslag um so that's the headline act yeah so why did that recording become the album what was special

01:31about that recording well i think well i know it was released posthumously so um i think it was the

01:41probably the last quality uh live recording of quality that ellington made so in that case you

01:49know in that sense it was a historically important recording um and when you listen to that album

01:57what does it tell you how significant is it does it feel well you know what's lovely about this record

02:03is that the i mean when you look when you research the the sort of critical reception of the album

02:09it's a bit patchy but i think universally uh the critics were very keen on ellington's uh performance

02:18on the actual record his piano playing so so what's really nice about this record is his his actual

02:24playing the band wasn't the greatest band by that point a lot of the stars in that band had died so

02:31it was not as strong as it had been but his playing in particular and hearing him

02:38playing live in front of an audience i mean it's a it's a very special thing i think so so we're doing

02:45this event to commemorate that um there's going to be a lot of community contacts there's some uh

02:51youth music ensembles the brighton and hove youth big band are going to be turning on and playing

02:55and uh um the uh new generation jazz youth ensembles will also be playing so there's this sort of

03:05community link to the the event and i think uh i think it's important that for eastbourne in as

03:12much as it's sort of a historical legacy yeah you know and it's a really important thing to heighten

03:18that you are looking for memorabilia if anyone's got anything from the concert yeah part of the part of

03:25the of the of the celebration day will be an exhibition which is we're hoping to mount in the

03:31weeks running up to the concert uh and we're looking for any memorabilia people might have

03:38about the concert in 73 so that could be i've got a program but we're looking for posters ticket stubs

03:46uh memories so if people were there and what we can do is interview them and transcribe

03:52those interviews and and include them as part of the exhibition they should get in touch via facebook

03:57page you have your own page for this we have a dedicated facebook page which is ellington in

04:03eastbourne so if you go to facebook and search ellington in eastbourne you'll find it and they can

04:08also get in touch through the congress theater um who are who are co-partners in producing the whole

04:16thing uh obviously because the original concert was staged there and it's something they're very proud of i

04:21i think um fantastic well it sounds such such an important moment to mark good luck with everything

04:27it sounds super exciting and look forward to speaking to you nearer the time thanks bill yeah

04:32i hope you get that response thank you thank you very much thanks

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