Duke Ellington: The Treasury Shows, July 1945

This edition of our ongoing Duke Ellington Treasury series features mid-summer performances from an Ellington appearance at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, including "Day Dream," "Carnegie Blues," and a medley of Billy Strayhorn tunes with Strayhorn at the piano, while Marie Ellington (no relation, but Nat King Cole's future wife) and Al Hibbler take turns at the microphone. We'll also hear music from a Boston concert that includes the rarely-recorded "Bugle Breaks" from Ellington's musical Jump for Joy, the contemporary Burke-van Heusen pop hit "A Friend of Yours," "West Indian Dance" (from The Black, Brown and Beige Suite) and The Magazine Suite. The music and bond pitches for this program were drawn from the CDs Treasury Shows V. 7 and Treasury Shows V. 8.