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Jazz Articles about Cootie Williams
Concerto for Cootie. The Life and Times of Cootie Williams
by Richard J Salvucci
Cootie. The Life and Times of Cootie Williams Steven C. Bowie 443 Pages ISBN: #9781496859440 University Press of Mississippi 2025 Benny Goodman, who had employed Harry James and Ziggy Elman in his nonpareil 1937 trumpet section, preferred trumpeter Cootie Williams to them, admiring his “unlimited power." Williams had come up with Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson. When he left Duke Ellington to join Goodman, it was big news, both for Ellington and for ...
Continue ReadingDuke Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music
by Chuck Lenatti
In 1964, Dean D.J. Bartlett and the Reverend John S. Yaryan invited Duke Ellington and his orchestra to present a concert to consecrate the renovated Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill in San Francisco during a year-long festival of Grace. At first, Duke demurred. In his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress (Da Capo, 1976), Ellington explained why he changed his mind: It has been said once that a man who could not play the organ or any ...
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