Duke Ellington's Solo Piano at WWDC, 1946

Duke Ellington and Willis Conover

In the wee hours of April 21, 1946, Duke Ellington who was visiting Washington DC for a series of concerts at the Howard Theater, dropped in at WWDC station. 

The Duke's presence in his hometown was an auspicious event for Conover who recorded some shows and interviews with him for his radio station, celebrating Duke's homecoming. That day, at about two in the morning, Duke started tossing down some notes on the keys. Billy Strayhorn, Oscar Pettiford and some other members of his entourage were standing in the background. It was midnight music: heavy, messy, mysterious, rambling. Upon finishing the first piece, Willis Conover informed him that the whole thing was recorded on disc. Ellington sounded surprised but he kept playing while Conover and others chatted in the background. The chat died down, the music continued. When Ellington finished it was 2:35 AM. "Can I have a copy of that?," Ellington asked Conover.

Whether or not Ellington got a copy, we don't know. But we have a copy here to listen to:

Willis Conover Interviews Gil Evans

Possibly taped in February 1968 but broadcast on May 16, 1968, this is a short, informal chat between the DJ Willis Conover and jazz composer/arranger Gil Evans." Here, Evans mentions working on a new recording with Miles Davis which is most likely the one known as The Falling Water sessions (released only decades later in the Evans/Davis Columbia set.) Evans sounds laid-back but not very candid. There's an interesting reminiscing by Conover about a meeting between Harold Arlen, Evans and Friedrich Gulda (at 5') but even more interesting is Conover's mentioning of a screening of The Sound of Jazz (feat. Miles Davis/Gil Evans) in Russia which he had personally attended a year before.

The source is here.

Willis Conover's Eulogy for Duke Ellington

This is mainly a detailed (and moving) description of Ellington's funeral. From a 1974 VOA's jazz hour broadcast.


This was the source.

Willis Conover's House of Sounds

A search under Willis Conover's name to find any official recording with his presence (as a presenter, or with his voice), probably will guide us to this obscure recording from 1953. Actually it has nothing to do with Willis, at least musically. He has just introduced a band that was playing in Washington in the years he was doing his famous radio show. There is only a tune, from total 12 tracks, recorded for this session that is named after Willis Conover, and it is composed/arranged by Bill Potts, another Washingtonian whom later accompanied Lester Young in his legendary Washington sessions.

"Nobody did more for jazz on the radio than Conover," says Richard Cook in his Jazz Encyclopedia. That could be true, not only because in the 1950s he took jazz to the other side of iron curtain, but also because of the musicality and intonation of his voice that was inseparable from the music he was playing. What was the first words I heard about Thelonious Monk? They were Willis Conover's, when he introduces the pianist in the legendary 1958 Jazz on a Summer's Day documentary: "...one of the complete originals of music. A man who lives his music. A man who thinks his music, and it is possible to say that he lives and thinks of little else. We can't describe him exactly as daring because I think he is unconcerned with any opposition to his music. He concerns himself with such elements as quarter tone which he doesn't find in our western scale, so he strikes to adjoining notes, two adjoining keys, on the piano, to imply those missing notes in between. Ladies and gentlemen, Thelonious Monk!" And those words stayed with me.

Like many other recordings that I heard in my teenager years, this House of Sound came from my uncle's collection. This was his note, attached to the record:

"...[This] orchestra was named 'THE Orchestra' and enjoyed limited local reputation, though there were many marvelous instrumentalists like Ed Leddy or Walp or Swope brothers, and great reed players like Nimitz and James Parker in it’s ranks. Most of its members had a long period of play with famous white big bands of those days like those of Gene Krupa, Boyd Raeburn, Woody Herman, Elliot Lawrence and Charlie Barnet amongst others. Here again we have the pleasure of listening to some beautiful trumpets and trombones and a very fine tuned drum work of Joe Timer, who died two years later at the age of 32. Timer was a fine composer and arranger. He was very much in Klook’s tradition. In the present session he leads the orchestra. I enjoyed mostly the trumpet section and especially the lead trumpet of Ed Leddy. There is also the very fine arrangement of The Song Is You by then very young arranger John Mandel, who later enjoyed the fame of being one of the most sought for score writers for movie industry. Markowitz has a beautiful solo on Moonlight..."

I must add one more thing to the history of this interesting, and sadly forgotten orchestra that when Charlie Parker was in Washington, DC, they accompanied him in "Club Kavakos" in February 22, 1953. I hope in one of the last Sundays of the summer, you enjoy listening to this record:

 

Willis Conover's House of Sounds Presents THE Orchestra

Joe Timer & THE Orchestra (AKA Joe Theimer - see available Charlie Parker discographies from 1953)

Recording date: 1953, (probably Washington D. C.)
Release Date: Aug 21, 1953

Total Time: 46:00

Reissue on Vinyl by Jasmine, JASM 1016 (Jasmine was a London-based label, established in 1982, and apparently still working on the reissue of jazz classics.)

Line-up:

Bob Carey, Ed Leddy, Marky Markowitz, Charlie Walp (tp) Dan Spiker, Earl Swope, Rob Swope (tb) Jim Riley (as) Ben Lary, Jim Parker, Angelo Tompros (ts) Jack Nimitz (bars) Jack Holliday (p) Merton Oliver (b) Joe Theimer (d, cond)

Side A:

1 I've Got You Under My Skin (Composed by Cole Porter; Arranged by Ralph Mutchler)

order of soli: Markowitz; Riley; Holliday.

        

2 One For Kenny [Clark] (Composed & arr. by Joe Timer)

order of soli: Markowitz; Carey; Leddy; Walp; Holliday.

   
3 The Song Is You (Composed by J. Kern, O. Hammerstein II; arr. by Johnny Mandel)

order of soli: Earl Swope; Walp.

    
4 Pill Box (Composed and arr. by Bill Potts)

order of soli: Holliday; Robbie Swope; Earl Swope; Nimitz; Walp.

 
5 Light Green (Composed and arr. by Bill Potts)

order of soli: Holliday; Oliver; Earl Swope; Walp; Tompros

6 Flamingo (Composed by Ted Grouya, Edmund Anderson; arr. by Joe Timer)

Solo: Walp

    

   

      
Side B:
1 Something to Remember You by/Taking a Change on Love/Blue Room (Composers Schwartz, Dietz/Duke, Fetter, Latouche/Rodgers, Hart; arr. by Joe Timer)

       
2 Sheriff Crane [AKA Jack Pot County] (Composed & arr. by Jack Holliday)

order of soli: Tompros; Holliday; Walp; Earl Swope; Timer.

      
3 Playground (Composed and arr. by Bill Potts)

order of soli: Tompros; Robbie Swope; Riley; Walp; Markowitz; Leddy; Holliday

  
4 Tiger (Composed & arr. by Harvey Leonard)

order of soli: Markowitz; Earl Swope; Tompros; Lary.

5 Moonlight in Vermont (Composed by John Blackburn and Karl Suessdorf; arr. by Jack Holliday)

Solo: Markowitz.

      
6 Willis [Conover] (Composed and arr. by Bill Potts)

order of soli: Holliday; Earl Swope; Tompros; Markowitz; Nimitz.

 

Willis "The Voice" Conover

 

Here you can hear one of my heroes, Willis Conovor, the broadcaster of VOA radio's jazz programme. He talks about how he got into jazz, his first records, his first radio shows, with that magical voice that for me is nothing but the voice of jazz. That voice was spreading the message of jazz to every part of the world, including Iran, as I heard it from people before me that how they learned about this music from Mr. Conover.

And to see the decadence of the culture that we used to admire, now VOA is playing to most ridiculous type of sonic distortion known as "today's music" for the countries that are fighting for freedom and democracy, again, countries like Iran. Do they think they're helping democracy by playing music about "asses shakin', and limos waitin'", the type that we can see and hear almost everywhere? Isn't it a robbery? An intellectual robbery!

I think they are betraying people of those countries, and betraying their own culture, but not giving the minimum room to what some not very clever people like me consider "the real voice of America." Where is the voice of Duke Ellington? Where is Sam Hopkins, Hank Williams, and Woody Guthrie? And the list can goes on forever.

Update [same day, 5:24 PM]

Check out the Connover archive from University of Northern Texas, including many scanned pages of his playlists, like this one from November, 1971: