Duke Ellington in Isfahan

A shot from Duke Ellington in Isfahan

 
Duke Ellington in Isfahan is a short film that the author of this blog (Ehsan Khoshbakht) made in 2018 and slightly reworked in 2021 for festival release. Featuring jazz historian and musician Alyn Shipton, it's an archive-based documentary.

This short documentary by the Iranian filmmaker, writer and archivist Ehsan Khoshbakht tells the story of Duke Ellington's concert tour of the Middle East in 1963 and the development of one of the most beautiful jazz standards.  

The legendary composer and bandleader was seen as the ideal cultural ambassador for the United States at the height of the Cold War, when President Eisenhower's desired perception of the US as a moral force for good in the world was being undermined by an awareness of its treatment of African-Americans. 

Arriving in Iran with his band, Ellington was inspired by the historical city of Isfahan and especially its architectural riches. It would give its name to one of the pianist's most enduring compositions, and the tour as a whole helped to shape a Grammy Award-winning album, Far East Suite, which showed how much Ellington had absorbed from the sounds of his travels. 

Using archival images and video footage, and with added insight from broadcaster and jazz historian Alyn Shipton, Duke Ellington in Isfahan shines a light on a largely forgotten episode in jazz history and political history, and provides a clearer sense of the ways in which Ellington's music was affected by, and reflects, his vision of the East.   

EHSAN KHOSHBAKHT is a curator and filmmaker. He co-directs Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna. His first feature film for big screen, Filmfarsi, was released in 2019. Architect by training, he has authored various books on cinema.

ALYN SHIPTON is a broadcaster, musician and author based in Oxford, UK. He has published numerous monographs on jazz giants (Fats Waller, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Cab Calloway), as well as the New History of Jazz (2001). Since 1989 he has broadcast on BBC Radio 3, winning the 2003 Marian McPartland/Willis Conover Award for Lifetime Achievement in jazz broadcasting and Jazz Broadcaster of the Year in the 2010 UK Parliamentary Jazz Awards. Alyn is an active double bassist, and currently co-leads the Buck Clayton Legacy Band.

Director's statement: 

"This film was made in a very short time, reflecting the nature of the TV programme for which it was produced. Although it was a quickie, my association with the subject began seven years earlier when I did some research on Duke Ellington's famous tour of 1963, which led to a post on my jazz blog, Take the "A" Train. With the help of the BBC archive, I was able to illustrate that incredible journey. The original idea, however, was to approach people in every country where Ellington had performed during the tour (some of them now deadly zones of conflict) to shoot a scene for me, as a collective meditation on the Near East that the Duke recorded in his Far East Suite. That didn't happen but I still managed to document this fascinating episode in the best way I could."

Statement by Alyn Shipton:

"I have had a fascination about US State Department jazz tours for many years after my research for my biography of Dizzy Gillespie. The 1963 Ellington tour is doubly fascinating, not just for the venues played, but for its curtailment owing to President Kennedy’s assassination and the curtailment of Ellington’s concerts. But what survives is a treasure." 

Credits:

Writer, director, producer: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Editor: Babak Salek

Animation: Niyaz Saghari

Featuring: Alyn Shipton