Clare Teale: Duke’s jazz symphony shows the moving power of music

Putting together two hours of music on a weekly basis for my radio show, trying to find the right blend of tunes drawn from over 90 years of big band and swing, to satisfy an audience ranging in age from 15 to 100-plus, is a tricky business.

It’s time consuming, but the huge bonus is being able to spend hours listening to music without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else. When my schedule gets really busy, the performing of and listening to music feels like hard toil. I’m ashamed to say I become immune to its beauty. I hate it when this happens but now, by having to make time to listen to some of the greatest records with a clear head, I’m hoping it won’t happen again.

I’d like to say I listen objectively but, as we listen with our ears and hearts, music appreciation becomes entirely personal. That’s not to say we don’t share it, most couples have “our song” football teams have their individual anthems etc.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Trumpeter and bandleader Jay Phelps was a guest on the show and chose a Duke Ellington tune. It was from the first movement of Duke’s 1943 jazz symphony, Black, Brown and Beige, “a tone parallel to the history of the Negro in America”, written for his first Carnegie Hall Concert.

Although B,B & B had only been performed live by Duke Ellington in its entirety on a handful of occasions, in 1958 he recorded the whole thing for Columbia. The centerpiece of which is Come Sunday, originally written for seminal sax man Johnny Hodges. Mahalia Jackson does the honors on the record and I thought it was high time I listened start to finish. As Mahalia’s last notes die out I’m already in bits, then from the ashes a reprise starts.

Trumpeter Ray Nance has been gently noodling behind Ms Jackson on violin but now comes to the fore again on fiddle and along with the force of the band proceeds to totally destroy me there in the kitchen peeling carrots, tears streaming down my face. This was an unexpected reaction, but we’ve all been touched or shed an unexpected tear to a song or even a piece of music we’ve never heard before.

Powerful stuff, it holds our memories and emotions and brings them to the surface when least expected, but then I’m grateful for that.