Willie Smith plays "Sophisticated Lady" with Duke Ellington 1952

This soundie was recorded right after Duke Ellington committed the "Great James Robbery" in 1952. Willie Smith, Louis Bellson and Juan Tizol left Harry James and joined Duke Ellington. Willie shows how much different the Duke's sax section sounded with Willie instead of Johnny Hodges in the lead chair. However, Ellington's band, as great as the musicians were, was very undisciplined musically. Willie soon missed the comfort and musical discipline of the Harrry James band and within 18 months was back with Harry.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Willie Smith
• Duke Ellington
• Chuck Par-Due

[olbrneyes]

In 1939, when Harry asked Frank Sinatra to get him a job on Tommy Dorsey's band, he was serious. By 1952, those comments were a joke. Harry was far too immersed in horse breeding/racing to work for anyone else. For guys like Willie and Louis, working on Ellington's band looked good on a resume, not something they wanted to do for a long period of time.

Now Basie might have been a different story.

My wife was on Harry's band for 11 years. Harry paid much more than Ellington or even Basie.

[olbrneyes]

Listen to Willie Smith and you'll hear where Charlie Parker came from...

[olbrneyes]

What I meant was that Willie was a serious section player and a great reader. Many of Ellington's musicians could barely read music. Will Friedwald wrote in his book "Sinatra, the Singers Art" that when Billy May wrote charts for Ellington's album with Sinatra in 1967, the band read Billy's charts SO poorly, that Billy had to hire "ringers" such as Al Porcino to pull off the recording. Plus, James's band paid a WHOLE lot more than Ellington.

[TheFifingIrish]

Great story, maybe apocryphal, about the Great James Robbery.  'Tis said that when the three gave their notice and said they were joining Duke, James replied, "Can I come, too?"

[MrJimmienoone]

Carney was among the first to use the bass clarinet in jazz; the very first, to my knowledge, was B. Goodman, on a small band record with Red Norvo and Harry James. -

Others like Rex Stewart told stories about the lack of discipline in the Ellington band, too.

[2300skiddo]

Thanks for the further explanation. :-) That's Carney on bass clarinet, right? Did he play it often?

This really is a particularly nice version, love the piano player in the band here, too.

[2300skiddo]

"Undisciplined?" Not sure what that means but accept that Willie felt that way, Imagine preferring James's band!

Anyway, thanks for this great clip!