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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

CD

March 3, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Duke Ellington, At the Crystal Gardens, Salem, Oregon, 1952 (Hep, two CDs). This album captures the Ellington band in public performance at an awkward juncture in its long life: Clark Terry had recently come aboard, and Johnny Hodges and Sonny Greer had been replaced by Willie Smith and Louis Bellson. It was a tough time for the Duke, but he made the most of it, and this set, privately recorded in excellent sound at a West Coast dance date, reveals the band to have been in colossally fine form. The fare includes The Tattooed Bride, one of Ellington’s most effective large-scale pieces. Outstanding liner notes by Andrew Homzy (TT).

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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