#Duke ellington sacred music series#
#Duke ellington sacred music tv#

Thrills thatвЂ™ll break the Ten Commandments with a wham!Д®llington himself was not unfamiliar with many of those thrills. Horns thatвЂ™ll blow-blow-blow-blow the blues apart. He rose to fame as bandleader at HarlemвЂ™s Cotton Club, run by gangster Owney Madden, where well-heeled white patrons would go вЂњslummingвЂќ and enjoy (in the words of a Harold Arlen song that made its debut at the club): drums thatвЂ™ll start thump-thump-thumpinвЂ™ in my heart. Then we arrive at the greatest jazz composer of them all, Duke Ellington-a man who seemed, to his fans, as secular as they come. His burial marker excludes all musical imagery, instead featuring an elaborate rosary with all fifty-nine beads clearly demarcated. The other founding father of jazz, Jelly Roll Morton, is famous for inventing the whole mythos of jazz and prostitution, but was also a вЂњvery devout Catholic,вЂќ according to his longtime companion Anita Gonzales. He single-handedly transformed вЂњWhen the Saints Go Marching InвЂќ from Christian hymn to the very emblem of the jazz life. According to one friend, вЂњThatвЂ™s where he got his idea of jazz music.вЂќ Louis Armstrong, baptized a Catholic but ecumenical in religious matters, also turned to spirituals for inspiration. Buddy Bolden, credited (by legend) as the originator of jazz, was a regular churchgoer.

#Duke ellington sacred music tv#

This lineage is just as valid as the TV show version, and certainly deserves to be better known. I prefer a different view of jazz history-one that emphasizes its origins in spirituals and religious services. Many Catholics even saw Pope Pius XвЂ™s attack on instruments вЂњthat may give reasonable cause for disgust or scandalвЂќ as a specific warning against the evils of the saxophone. Religious authorities have often given credence to this interpretation, condemning jazz as a gateway to a dissolute life. According to this account, the music was born in the brothels of New Orleans, came of age in the illegal speakeasies of Chicago in the 1920s, and reached maturity nurtured by organized crime in Harlem, Kansas City, and other corrupt communities in the 1930s. Some will even tell you that jazz is inseparable from transgressions, both moral and legal. Put the two together and you have the makings of a hit show. After all, sex sells, and jazz is the obvious soundtrack for the sinful lifestyle. That kind of combination is irresistible to the entertainment industry.

#Duke ellington sacred music series#

IвЂ™m told that two different TV series are in development about jazz and prostitution in New Orleans.