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From the present notes:
In 1956, Duke Ellington gave a collection of concert events at Ontario, Canada’s Stratford Pageant. Afterward, competition workers requested the legendary composer—at that time, certainly one of jazz’s elder statesmen—if he’d contemplate writing a bit about Shakespeare. A yr later, Duke Ellington premiered and recorded Such Candy Thunder, a set of twelve tunes impressed by the Bard and his characters. We talked with College of New Hampshire Professor of English Douglas Lanier in regards to the suite, the second chapter of Ellington’s profession, and the way they replicate shifting cultural perceptions of jazz. Lanier, who can also be a musician, has written extensively about Shakespeare and fashionable well-liked tradition (in truth, that’s the title of his 2002 e book: Shakespeare and Fashionable Standard Tradition), and is an skilled on pop diversifications of Shakespeare’s works. He wrote about Ellington’s Such Candy Thunder for our 2007 exhibition, Shakespeare in American Life. Lanier is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.
In his e book “Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Creativeness,” Brent Hayes Edwards, professor of English and comparative literature, echoed the Duke as he wrote:
Within the remaining evaluation, whether or not it’s Shakespeare or jazz, the one factor that counts is the emotional impact on the listener. In some way, I believe that if Shakespeare had been alive at the moment, he may be a jazz fan himself — he’d recognize the mixture of workforce spirit and informality, of educational information and humor, of all the weather that go into an ideal jazz efficiency. And I’m certain he would agree with the straightforward and axiomatic assertion that’s so essential to all of us — when it sounds good, it’s good.
Right here, Ellington slyly pulls the rug out from below the critics who applaud the “Shakespearean” qualities in his music. If something, on this description of boundary crossing, Shakespeare is revealed to be an Ellingtonian earlier than his time. What unites jazz and Elizabethan drama, for Ellington, is above all a standard concern with capturing the colourful complexity of a specific social milieu. As Billy Strayhorn added in an interview, “Duke additionally stated that the one approach Shakespeare may have often known as a lot about individuals as he did was by hanging out on the nook or within the pool room. He says that if William Shakespeare had been alive at the moment, you’d absolutely discover him down at Birdland listening to jazz.”
“Jazzing Up Shakespeare,” Douglas M. Lanier’s 2017 essay for the Folger Library, goes into depth about Ellington’s suite.
In his program notes for the primary efficiency of Such Candy Thunder, Ellington worries that, as classics, he and Shakespeare labor below the misperception that their arts are for the cultural elite, making some reluctant “to reveal themselves and be part of the viewers.” Within the Thirties and Forties, swing had been seen because the very voice of popularization, reaching (problematically) throughout racial divides and rendering no matter it touched fashionable, American, and instantly interesting, however in 1957 the “classicizing” of Ellington’s music by linking it to Shakespeare risked making jazz a coterie kind, the property of connoisseurs. In his program notes Ellington seeks to navigate these issues.
On the one hand, he stresses that “whether or not it’s Shakespeare or jazz, the one factor that counts is the emotional impact on the listener”—no particular information is required. The ability of the efficiency’s “instant affect on the human ear” aligns each Ellington and Shakespeare with well-liked tradition and probably democratizes their respective audiences. Alternatively, Ellington claims that his artwork and Shakespeare’s are sufficiently refined to reward repeated encounters, an assertion which differentiates their arts from mere pop ephemera. Right here Ellington articulates the musical ambitions of his later profession—to create a music with the status and virtuosity of different classics and the inclusive immediacy of well-liked tradition.
Ellington’s Such Candy Thunder consists of 11 numbers, every of which is linked to Shakespearean characters:
“Such Candy Thunder” [Othello]
“Sonnet for Caesar” [Julius Caesar]
“Sonnet to Hank Cinq” [Henry V]
“Girl Mac” [Lady Macbeth]
“Sonnet in Search of a Moor” [Othello]
“The Telecasters” [The Three Witches and Iago]
“Up and Down, Up and Down, I Will Lead Them (Up and Down)” [Puck]
“Sonnet for Sister Kate” [Katherine]
“The Star-Crossed Lovers” [Romeo and Juliet]
“Insanity in Nice Ones” [Hamlet]
“Half the Enjoyable” [Cleopatra]A remaining quantity, “Circle of Fourths,” added later, presents a musical tribute to Shakespeare himself.
Right here is the total album, together with “Circle of Fourths.”
Tracklist:
A1 Such Candy Thunder 0:00 A2 Sonnet For Caesar 3:22 A3 Sonnet To Hank Cinq 6:22 A4 Girl Mac 7:45 A5 Sonnet In Search Of A Moor 11:26 A6 The Telecasters 13:51B1 Up And Down, Up And Down (I Will Lead Them Up And Down) 16:55 B2 Sonnet For Sister Kate 20:01 B3 The Star-Crossed Lovers 22:24 B4 Insanity In Nice Ones 26:27B5 Half The Enjoyable 29:53 B6 Circle Of Fourths 34:08
Ellington was not the one jazz musician fascinated by the Bard. Black British jazz vocalist Dame Cleo Laine and her husband, the composer and saxophonist John Dankworth, recorded “Shakespeare and All That Jazz” in 1964. It was ”retro reviewed” in 2019 by Thomas Cunniffe, the founder, editor, and principal author for Jazz Historical past On-line.
The texts cowl Shakespeare’s sonnets, comedies (“Midsummer Night time’s Dream”, “As You Like It”, “Twelfth Night time”, “Love’s Labors Misplaced” and “A lot Ado About Nothing”) and tragedies (“Macbeth” and “Cymbeline”). 4 of the musical settings are the identical Arthur Younger preparations Laine recorded in 1959, two others are diversifications of actions from the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn suite, “Such Candy Thunder,” and the rest are Dankworth originals. Apart from the facet closers, “Dunsinane Blues” (an adaptation from “Macbeth” probably impressed by a Leonard Bernstein instance in his lecture “What’s Jazz?”) and “The Compleat Works” (a breezy catalogue of Shakespeare’s play titles), the entire works embrace Shakespeare’s texts as he wrote them.
These texts aren’t essentially straightforward to sing, however you’d by no means inform from Laine’s easy performances. She takes these tongue-twisting lyrics and phrases them in ways in which make them match proper into their fashionable jazz settings. The Ellington/Strayhorn items had been set to sonnet kinds, and “Take All My Loves” (initially titled “Sonnet for Hank Cinq”) has an especially wide-ranging melody that Laine sings as if it had been a easy ditty. Dankworth creates an atmospheric background with clarinets and harp for the opposite Ellington/Strayhorn piece, “My Love is as a Fever” (“Sonnet for Caesar”), and Laine’s legato efficiency is very efficient. On “Duet of Sonnets” (sonnets 23 and 24), and “Witches Truthful and Foul” (combining Titania from “Midsummer” and the three witches from “Macbeth”), Laine and Dankworth use the stereo soundscape and artistic overdubbing to have Laine singing two and three totally different melodic traces without delay. She makes a dramatic change to her vocal timbre in portraying the “Macbeth” witches, a lot so that you just won’t acknowledge her at first listening to.
This Twitter consumer shares cowl artwork and different snapshots from jazz historical past. “Shakespeare and All That Jazz” hit their feed in 2021.
Because of YouTube, we are able to take pleasure in this dwell 2007 efficiency of songs from the album.
Half I:
Half II:
The jazz custom of jammin’ to Shakespeare continues with pianist, composer, and humanities educator Daniel Kelly, that includes vocal phenom Frederick Johnson in his program, “Shakespeare in Jazz: All of the World’s a Tune.”
Shakespeare in Jazz: All of the World’s a Tune is a fascinating, participatory celebration of Shakespeare’s work, providing an thrilling new approach to expertise the his genius. Nice for these discovering his performs for the primary time and for Shakespeare aficionados alike!
All through the live performance, viewers members will be part of Daniel’s jazz group, that includes a tremendous jazz vocalist, as they sing alongside to catchy, authentic songs primarily based on Midsummer Night time’s Dream, Twelfth Night time, Macbeth, Hamlet and plenty of extra!
Shakespeare in Jazz options the super abilities of jazz vocalist Frederick Johnson and Nicole Zuraitis. Johnson has carried out on stage with such musical greats as Chick Corea & Christian McBride and has carried out as a gap act for Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, B.B. King and plenty of others. Rising star and GRAMMY-nominee Nicole Zuraitis has toured all over the world, launched 4 award-winning albums and is the vocalist world-famous Birdland Huge Band in New York Metropolis.)
This efficiency is from 2018.
Hope you’ve loved at the moment’s Shakespeare celebration. Be part of me for extra within the feedback!
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