Skip to main content

The Queen's Suite




Queen Elizabeth is coming ever closer to Queen Victoria's 63 years on the throne.  She was crowned back in June, 1953, and among many of the tributes to her in the years that followed was this suite composed by Duke Ellington, which first premiered in 1958 and he recorded in 1959 and sent her a copy.  He meant it as a gift to her and never released it in his lifetime.  Some wonder if the Queen herself ever listened to it.  But, the suite was revived in honor of her Diamond Jubilee.  My favorite piece is "The Single Petal of a Rose," the fifth part of the suite.

Duke Ellington had long been known for his masterful arrangements.  Black, Brown and Beige was his signature suite, with Mahalia Jackson lending her voice to this truly magisterial jazz symphony, released in 1958.  It had first premiered in 1943, and he had reshaped it with the help of Billy Strayhorn in the time between.  He had also given perhaps his most memorable performance at Newport in 1956, and followed it up with another rousing performance in 1958.  Here was Ellington at the pinnacle of his career being presented to the Queen at a private reception for the Leeds Festival that year.

It's a shame the suite doesn't get more attention, if for no other reason than the social importance of this historic meeting.  It would be three years later that John F. Kennedy named Ellington to lead a delegation to Ceylon as part of a goodwill tour.  This experience would serve as his inspiration for the beautiful Far East Suite, released in 1967.  Here is Mount Harissa.   Ellington was eventually honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, by Richard Nixon.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!