TDWAW - Swing Music from America - the April 29 1938 shortwave overseas broadcast

This webpage is only about Duke Ellington's April 29, 1938 shortwave broadcast to Britain from the Cotton Club.
Ellington made two more shortwave broadcasts to BBC, from the Apollo Theatre October 6, 1938 and from Columbia Studios, March 15, 1939.

British Broadcasting Corporation did not broadcast swing music until 1937. That year, BBC and Columbia Broadcasting System began relaying live swing broadcasts in their "America Dances" shortwave transmissions from the United States. The series continued until the first year of Britain's war on Germany (Baade) or during 1937 and 1938 (Dibbs).

The series seems to have begun with Benny Goodman and Chick Webb in January and February 1937, respectively, although Evening Despatch, London, 1937-01-06 p.7 suggests these were studio sessions transmitted by undersea telephone cable.

Enzo Archetti, Swing Music Notes, The American Music Lover May 1939, p.34:

'To take the place of the Saturday Night Swing Club, C. B. S. has inaugurated a new swing broadcast called America Dances on Sunday nights at 8:00 P. M. The first broadcast took place on March 26th. America Dances follows the same general plan as the S.N.S.C. in that it invites prominent orchestras or musicians to sit in at each broadcast. The New Friends of Rhythm appeared on their April 9th program.'

Stratemann:
Ellington's birthday was celebrated at the Cotton Club with a matinee party and a special thirty-minute shortwave broadcast in the "America Dances" series, at 4:30 p.m., to England via the B.B.C. The program could not be heard in the U.S.
There is some discussion in DEMS about the name of this programme. It may have been part of a series called America Dances, but in the U.K. and Denmark, the Ellington episode title appears to have been variations of Swing Music from America:
- The Observer 1939-04-22 announced "Duke Ellington's Swing Music from America on Friday"
- The Guardian's 1939-04-29 radio log lists the programme on B.B.C. North and B.B.C. Regional services from 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. as "Swing Music from America: Duke Ellington's Orchestra, New York"
- B.B.C.'s house organ, Radio Times, lists the programme as
  9.30 SWING MUSIC FROM
  AMERICA
  Duke Ellington
  and his famous Orchestra
  from the Cotton Club, New York
  City
  (By courtesy of the Columbia
  Broadcasting System)
- Although The American Music Lover said America Dances began March 26, 1939, the programme title appears in American and British radio logs as early as January 1937, for instance:
  - Salinas Morning Post,
    Salinas, Cal.1937-01-01
  - Evening Post,
    Nottingham, U.K.1937-01-06
  - The News,
    Paterson, N.J. 1937-01-31
  - Reno Gazette-Journal,
    Reno, Nev. 1937-12-31
  - The Courier-Journal,
    Louisville, Ky. 1937-12-31
  - Wilmington Daily Press Journal,
    Wilmington, Cal. 1938-01-01
  - The Boston Globe,
    Boston, Mass. 1938-04-23
  - The Daily Item,
    Lynn, Mass. 1938-04-27
  - The Boston Globe,
    Boston, Mass. 1938-04-29
  - The Daily Item,
    Lynn, Mass. 1938-04-29
  - The Eugene Guard,
    Eugene, Ore. 1938-12-02
  - Edmonton Journal,
    Edmonton, Alta., Canada 1938-12-02
Carl Hällström DEMS 1997/3:
That the BBC is responsible for the short acetates so far known seems hardly believable. We know however of an English collector at that time owning an acetate recording outfit and we know that this person had already recorded the Goodman "America Dances" in 1937, also in short portions and with bad fidelity. And why shouldn't he have recorded the rest of the programs in the series too?
A tape combining these and the recordings from the other BBC broadcasts noted above was provided to the late Benny Aasland by the late Jerry Valburn and/or the late Jack Towers, for distribution as Duke Ellington Music Society's Azure Cassette 4 (DEMS 1985-3/2). The three shortwave broadcasts were included in the "The British Connexion" Ellington '97 Conference Souvenir CD distributed to attendees in Leeds in 1997, and in the Jazz Unlimited CD JUCD 2069 "Duke Ellington The British Connexion 1933-1940." While the contents appear to be the same, track 7 is listed as Chatterbox on the conference CD and Jazz Pot-Pourri on the commercial release. DEMS 97/2 pp.14 and 15 provide details of the conference release and says the correct name for track 7 is Jazz Pot-Pourri.
Pittsburgh Courier 1938-04-16:
NEW YORK, April 14–The desire of the British music public to hear Duke Ellington and his famous orchestra again...will be realized April 29 when Ellington and his men will be short-waved across the Atlantic.
The pending engagement ... for this program will mark the first time that the composer-maestro has been thusly starred, notwithstanding the fact that the British Broadcasting Corporation has been negotiating for his talent since the beginning of the "America Dance" series on which famous orchestras were shot across the waves, radio and water.
Though at present playing...at the Cotton Club, and broadcasting from there three times a week over a nationwide hookup as a sustainer and advertiser for the nitery, the band will be paid for this shot in accordance with the regular union scale covering such a performance.
New York Age 1938-04-30:
Duke Ellington's birthday was marked by a half-hour broadcast to London at 4:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. London time, direct from the Cotton Club on Friday.
Ted Yates, I've Been Around, New York Age 1938-05-07:
Swelegant was Duke Ellington's birthday party at the Cotton Club last Friday night. Along with the invited members of the press, our eyes met up with W.C.Handy, Lucille Handy, Fredi Washington, Billy Rowe and wife, Isadora; Ned Williams, director of publicity at Mills Artist Bureau; Red Noval [sic], seated with Helen Oakley, the publicist; Al Brackman, "Hot Lips" Paige, Allan MacMillan, Jerome Ray, Will Hudson, Marie Neal, Richard Mills (son of Irving Mills), Mercer Ellington, Ruth Ellington and Bill Wiggins...That spectacular shortwave broadcast to London by Duke Ellington on Thursday (4 to 4:30 p.m.) was terminated with the Ellington hit tune "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart."
Only four titles (listed in New Desor and Timner) are known to have been recorded from this live BBC broadcast, even though the show was half an hour long. There is considerable discussion in the DEMS Bulletins about what was recorded, possibly because recordings from the other British broadcasts noted above were compiled in a cassette tape and an CD, apparently out of order.
New Desor Correction Sheet lists the orchestra as:
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
W. Jones, C.Williams, Stewart, Brown, Nanton, Tizol, Bigard, Hodges, Hardwick, Carney, Ellington, Guy, Taylor, Greer.
This agrees with The Melody Maker (see below).
New Desor lists the recorded titles as:
- Chatterbox
- Diminuendo In Blue
- Caravan
- Black And Tan Fantasy
Vail I reports the broadcast was
- Rockin' in Rhythm
- Clarinet Lament
- Diminuendo in Blue
- Crescendo in Blue
- Medley: Black and Tan Fantasy; Black Beauty; Mood Indigo
- Scrounch
- Chatterbox
- I Let A Song Go Out of My Heart
without identifying its source. It seems likely author Ken Vail drew upon Hällström's analysis of the DEMS cassette in DEMS 97,3-8. This list omits Ellington's theme song
The Melody Maker, 1938-05-07 (courtesy S.Lasker 2024-02-15)
(this report seems to have two song title errors):

ELLINGTON'S GRAND BROADCAST REASSURES HIS RECORD-STARVED ADMIRERS

Duke Ellington–Friday, April 29, 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. Reg. Relayed from the Cotton Club, New York via CBS's short-wave station W2XE on 19.64m.

   Duke Ellington (pno.) directing Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Barney Bigard, Otto Hardwick (reeds); Wallace Jones, "Cooty" Williams, Rex Stewart, (tpts.); Juan Tizol, Lawrence Brown, Joe Nanton (tmbs.); Fred Guy (gtar.); Bill Taylor (bass); Sonny Greer (ds.). Vocalist: Ivie Anderson.

   Programme: East St. Louis (sig.); Rockin' in Rhythm; Clarinet Lament; Diminuendo in Blue; Crescendo in Blue; Caravan; Black and Tan Fantasy; Black Beauty; Mood Indigo; The Squat [The Skrontch?]; Chatterbox; I Let a Song Grow [sic] Out Of My Heart.

   With W2XE working at its full power and the beam centered dead on London, Duke Ellington spent the afternoon (it was, of course, afternoon over there) of his thirty-ninth birthday broadcasting for the exclusive benefit of his countless European worshippers.
   It was a pretty gesture. Reception was well-nigh perfect. Even the gods had smiled their approval this time.
   The curious mixture of the barbaric and the ultra-modern, which has always been the hall-mark of the Duke's music and the playing of his band, has increased in its potency during the all too long period we have been denied the band owing to the failure of those possessing its recording rights to make arrangements for the release of its discs over here.
   One notices this particularly in Ellington's new compositions Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue. Opportunities to hear these works often enough might not only simplify them, but reveal that basically they are our old friend the twelve-bar blues in new guise. But if the framework is fundamentally that, the structure built around it is so ambitious, such a matter of weaving and elaborating the various themes, that at first hearing the writing must have seemed to many no more than blotches of vivid colour in an almost new jazz idiom.
   One could really do little more than appreciate the music bar for bar. The works as a whole could have left little more than a vague impression, so difficult was it to digest them as composition wholes. At any rate, this is, I remember, how I felt the first time I heard the compositions, though having the records they have since becomes clearer to me and among the outstanding treasures of my library.
   Except for The Squat, the rest of the programme was, however, all tunes which we have come to know, either from Ellington's own records of them or because they have become popular hits, and these will therefore be the media on which more listeners will have formed their conclusions of the band to-day. Any variation from the recordings we know so well seemed to be less a matter of new arrangements, and more the results of new effects which have grown up out of continual performance. True, the opening of Black and Tan Fantasy seemed to have been re-scored. But actually it was almost note for note as per the Parlophone record released about 1930, the only difference being that it was even more entrancingly played.
   But if the arrangements were virtually the same, the character of the band is different. Not so much because it has changed as that, impossible as it may seem, it has advanced. To-day, Ellington's band is still Ellington's band only more so. Its individuality is even more marked. Its methods, both as an ensemble and as regards its individualists, run on the same road, but they have travelled further along it. Other bands have progressed, too, but Ellington and his orchestra remain to-day, as they have always have been, the leaders in jazz enterprise and the most skillfully individualistic exponents of it. They are still the creators in every sphere that is covered by jazz in the real sense of the word.
   That is the only conclusion to which one can possibly come after having heard the superlative performance on what can only be described as a memorable occasion.

Jazz & Film (Denmark)Duke Ellington Society of Sweden Bulletin

Jazz & Film (1938-05-00)translation courtesy of Rasmus H. Henriksen 2024-02-18
Swing-music from abroad.
Immediately before deadline, while the machines were waiting to run, Duke Ellington had the impudence to play a swing concert in the series "Swing music from abroad". With the revolver in front of our noses, we were forced to print this article, and we give the floor to Anker Johannesen:
One were undeniably excited to hear, how Duke Ellington's orchestra had turned out, after one had been prevented from getting records of this wonderful orchestra for a long time. The American announcer mentioned the members of the orchestra, while Duke played his magnificent signature tune "East Saint Louis Toddle", and it appeared that Duke had got his old orchestra back. Barney Bigard played tenor sax and clarinet like never before. "Tricky" Sam Nanton was swinging in such a way, that anyone who had not been freed of his appendix at an early age, must feel somewhat uneasy about the situation. As it was Duke's birthday, it hardly needs to be said that he was in an unusually high spirit. The program was exceptionally fine, and perhaps the most typical representative of the series that the English radio has produced. One got to hear everything from "Mood Indigo" and "Black and Tan Fantasie" to his latest "Caravan" and "Crescendo in blue". It was great, but unfortunately far too short. Let's hope that Duke, when he comes to Europe shortly with the whole Cotton Club show, will also be allowed by the foreign exchange office for just one evening to give us the unusual experience, that it must be for every true jazz fan to listen to his immortal music.'
Jazz & Film (1938-06-00)translation courtesy of Rasmus H. Henriksen 2024-02-18
Party for Duke. On April 29, a big birthday party was given for Duke Ellington at the "Cotton Club". In addition to a mighty birthday cake, the program included a special broadcast, which attentive Danish listeners must have been delighted by, as it was broadcast on British Broadcasting. The program consisted of old, familiar stuff, together with Duke's latest compositions.

References:
New Desor DE3812 DEMS 04,3-13 04,1-6 97,3-8 97,2-14 & 15 90,3-8 89,3-2 85,4-4 85,3-2 Jazz Unlimited CD details "Duke Ellington The British Connexion 1933-1940" Martin Dibbs: Radio Fun and the BBC Variety Department, 1922—67: Comedy and Popular Music on Air Springer, 2018, p.77 Christina L. Baade: Victory through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II Oxford University Press, 2011 p.31	Stratemann, p.152 citing Variety 1938-04-22 Hollywood Reporter 1938-04-14 p.4 Melody Maker 1938-05-07 Down Beat 1938-06 DESB Evening Despatch, Birmingham, England 1937-01-06 p.7 Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh, Penn. 1938-04-16, p.20 The New York Age, New York, N.Y. 1938-04-30, p.7 1938-05-07, p.7 Variety 1938-04-06 p.27 Radio Times 1938-04-22 p.70 The Observer, London, U.K. 1938-04-24 p.28 The Manchester Guardian, Manchester, U.K. 1938-04-29 p.2

References:

Martin Dibbs:
Radio Fun and the BBC Variety Department, 1922—67: Comedy and Popular Music on Air
Springer, 2018, p.77

Christina L. Baade:
Victory through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II
Oxford University Press, 2011 p.31

Stratemann, p.152 citing
- Variety 1938-04-22
- Hollywood Reporter 1938-04-14 p.4
- Melody Maker 1938-05-07
- Down Beat 1938-06
- DESB
Evening Despatch, Birmingham, England
- 1937-01-06 p.7
Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh, Penn.
- 1938-04-16, p.20
The New York Age, New York, N.Y.
- 1938-04-30, p.7
- 1938-05-07, p.7
Variety
- 1938-04-06 p.27
Radio Times
- 1938-04-22 p.70
The Observer, London, U.K.
- 1938-04-24 p.28
The Manchester Guardian, Manchester, U.K.
- 1938-04-29 p.2

Swing Music from America the April 29 1938 CBS–BBC shortwave America Dances series overseas broadcast from the Cotton Club supplement to The Duke – Where and When A Chronicle of Duke Ellington's Working Life and Travels	This webpage was created and is maintained by David Palmquist Added 2012-09-22 and updated 2014-03-03, 2020-03-25 and 2024-02-16 Moved to this supplementary page, 2024-02-16 Last updated 2024-11-01

Swing Music from America the April 29 1938 CBS–BBC shortwave America Dances series overseas broadcast from the Cotton Club supplement to The Duke – Where and When A Chronicle of Duke Ellington's Working Life and Travels

ELLINGTON'S GRAND BROADCAST REASSURES HIS RECORD-STARVED ADMIRERS

References:

Swing Music from America
the April 29 1938 CBS–BBC shortwave
America Dances series overseas broadcast
from the Cotton Club

supplement to
The Duke – Where and When
A Chronicle of Duke Ellington's Working Life and Travels