Ellington—a memoir

There was a moment of pure perfection at the memorial service for Duke Ellington. That was when Adelaide Hall sang the wordless countermelody to Creole Love Call, exactly as she sang it on the record with Duke in 1927. It was something to liquefy your bones.

There were other good moments, notably the address by Derek Jewell, who organised the service. He had the good sense plus the wit to make his talk really funny. Ellington wasn't "the man who," he was the Duke, a sharp cat, just about the greatest figure in jazz and that's how Jewell read him. After his address, I began to play Mood Indigo. I played the melody entirely without accompaniment. At one moment I looked down at Adelaide Hall who was sitting in the front. She smiled up at me and tears were streaming down her face so I gather I was playing all right. When I finished, Cleo Laine took over the same melody but, of course, putting words to it, while Johnny Dankworth and his band gave her backing and I, by request (my request), played an obligato behind her. Humphrey Lyttelton, in Creole Love Call managed to sound exactly like the great Cootie Williams and that, buster, is a compliment.

Years ago, in 1933, I was signed for a film called Many Happy Returns, at Paramount, starring Burns and Allen. and Guy Lombardo and his Orchestra. My fee for the film was $300. Not three hundred a week, or even three hundred a year, just $300. I was not a very brainy kid. They called me to the studio and told me I was to play a number, in a radio studio setting, with Guy Lombardo's band. I told them I didn't like his band.

"We haven't asked you what you like. This is what you are going to do."

So I walked off the set.

The next morning they summoned me back, gave me a chance to change my mind. I didn't. I kept getting re-hired and fired, with a more important executive being involved each time and it finally got all the way up to William LeBaron, head of the studio, who talked to me in a fatherly way — I was nineteen — and told me that to renege on a signed contract was serious, that it could get me blackballed from every major studio in Hollywood. He pointed out that I was nearly an unknown, but that to appear in a number with Lombardo would bring me to the attention of millions.

"Yes, I know," I said, "but I just don't want them to hear me with Lombardo."

"Well, what do you like?"

"I like Duke Ellington."

"So do I. Larry — I guess we all like Duke Ellington. But we can't go hiring Ellington just to accompany your solo, now, can we?"

"No, I guess not." And I walked out again.

That night the phone rang in my room at the Hollywood-Roosevelt Hotel. It was LeBaron.

"Well, you little schmuck," said the great man, "we got Ellington for you."

And they actually had! We hardly needed a rehearsal, since we were going to play Sophisticated Lady and I knew his recording of it note for note. In those days one did direct recording: right on the set, so Duke and the band sat out of camera range — Lombardo mustn't know — and we did it. One take was enough. I think that was one of the happiest days and events of my life.

Curiously, no one recognised the Duke's sound until the film came to England in 1934, and by then I was here too. In the Melody Maher the young jazz critic, Leonard Feather wrote that Lombardo might have the billing but he would bet his life that the accompaniment behind Larry Adler's solo was played by Duke.

A week after the memorial service I was at a party at the home Of Arthur Schwartz, composer of Danc ing In The Dark, Shine On Your Shoes, Alone Together, A Girl In

Calico, I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan etc, etc, etc. I started to play Mood Indigo and then played

Sophisticated Lady, accompanying myself on the piano with my left hand. Arthur, an old friend (I was in his show, Flying Colours, in 1931), said he'd never heard me play as well as that.

"Well, I do seem to be in good fora) — I'm not going to deny it — but

why, suddenly? I've played those numbers dozens of times. There was something special about tonight but damned if I know what it was."

Herbert Kretzmer, drama critic or the Daily Express, overheard me. "I know what it was," he said. "You're still under the influence of the Duke's memorial service, it hasn't begun to wear off yet." Herb was right. It was like a strong stimulating drug, that memorial. It hasn't worn off yet. And what a lucky musician I'd be if it never did.

Larry Adler