“Happy-Go-Lucky Local”
Composed and arranged by Duke Ellington.
Recorded by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra for Musicraft on November 25, 1946 in New York.
Edward K. “Duke” Ellington, piano, directing: Shelton “Scad” Hemphill and Francis Williams, first trumpets; Taft Jordan, Harold “Shorty” Baker, William “Cat” Anderson and Ray Nance, trumpets; Lawrence Brown, Wilbur DeParis, tenor trombones; Claude Jones, valve trombone; Russell Procope, first alto saxophone; Johnny Hodges, alto saxophone; Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Al Sears, tenor saxophone; Harry Carney, baritone saxophone; Fred Guy, guitar; Oscar Pettiford, bass; William “Sonny” Greer, drums. Soloists: Duke Ellington, piano; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Russell Procope, alto saxophone; Ray Nance, trumpet; Harry Carney, baritone saxophone; Al Sears, tenor saxophone; Jimmy Hamilton, clarinet; Cat Anderson, high trumpet.
With this post, we inaugurate another category here at swingandbeyond.com, One More Time! These words were immortalized when intoned by Count Basie at the climax of his great recording of “April in Paris,” which can be accessed by clicking on the link at endnote (1). In the music of the swing era, there are compositions that musicians and audiences seemingly can’t get enough of. Consequently, many different bands have made recordings of them to express their particular musical attitudes regarding them, and in so doing, to celebrate them. Celebration of music in the swing idiom is what we do here, so let the celebration of “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” continue!
The story:
The story of how Duke Ellington composed “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” is told in detail in another post here at swingandbeyond, which can be accessed by clicking on the link at endnote (2). For purposes of this post, I will reiterate the musical lineage of “Happy-Go-Lucky Local.”
Another of Duke’s early 1940s blues successes was “Time’s-a-Wastin’,” which is presented elsewhere on this blog. (To find it, click on endnote (3).)The definitive story of how “Time’s-a-Wastin'” came into existence has not been told. At least if it has been, I am unaware of it. What I am aware of however, is that a recording was made on July 3, 1941 by Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra (really a small group of musicians drawn from the Ellington big band, featuring the alto sax playing of Johnny Hodges, an incandescent blues player,) that was called “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” that is essentially the same tune as “Time’s-a-Wastin’.” Mercer Ellington, Duke’s son, who in the late 1930s and early 1940s was learning about music (at Juilliard) and about Ellington music (from Duke), later reported: “My father called me at about three in the morning and said ‘give me a blues for the last tune'” (to be recorded the following afternoon at the Hodges recording session.) Mercer showed up at the recording session “…with a little piece of paper with a few notes scratched on it for Johnny Hodges. I guess Duke was pleased with it. He didn’t say anything, and when he says nothing that means it’s OK.”(1)
The dynamic between Duke and the musicians in his band was complicated. Suffice it to say that when he and they performed together for 50 or more weeks a year, year after year, a good bit of musical cross-pollination usually occurred. Duke, like many great composers before him (including J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart), was a master musical recycler. Snippets of composition A (or of an improvisation by an Ellington sideman) often reappeared in a different context in Ellington compositions B, C, or D. By the mid-1940s, Duke had made an arrangement of “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” for his big band, which he called “Time’s-a-Wastin’.” To make this even more confusing, when Duke finally recorded his big band arrangement of this tune (for Victor on July 30 1945), he called it…”Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.” Whatever it was called, it sounded very much like that small group recording made by Johnny Hodges in 1941.
Time passed. The Ellington band had a hit with “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.” They played it constantly. Audiences loved it. Knowing that he had a crowd-pleasing piece of music on his hands, and being a master musical recycler, Duke created a new piece of music out of an old one. By moving pieces of “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” around, and adding new opportunities for the jazz soloists in his band, he came up with a segment (or movement) of music within his Deep South Suite, presented at Carnegie Hall on November 23,1946, which he called “Happy-Go-Lucky Local.”(2) (This was the latest in Duke’s series of pieces evoking the joys of train travel, something he dearly loved.) In a sense, “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” is program music, with the chugging shuffle rhythm and screaming brass suggesting the music made by railroad steam engines of the first half of twentieth century.
By late fall 1946, Ellington now contracted with a new recording company, the upstart and short-lived Musicraft label, was looking for a new twist on the blues to record. He lifted “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” out of the score for his Deep South Suite, and recorded it as a free-standing composition (on two sides of a ten-inch 78 rpm record) for Musicraft on November 26, 1946. Unfortunately, due to various problems with the manufacture and distribution of Musicraft records, Ellington’s “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” did not sell that well.
In addition, it seems that despite the rather extravagant promises made by Musicraft to Ellington to induce him to sign with that label, including a $100,000.00 yearly guarantee for three years, Duke discovered rather quickly that Musicraft was grossly undercapitalized. Within a couple of months of beginning to record for that label, Ellington cancelled the contract because he was not getting paid.(3)
Time passed. Ellington found that audiences continued to love “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” but were less enthusiastic about “Happy-Go-Lucky Local.” Duke continued to play “Things Ain’t” for the rest of his life. He quietly retired “Happy-Go-Lucky Local.” Then in the early 1950s, Duke was shocked to hear his “Happy-Go-Lucky Local,” slightly revised, being played everywhere as a juke box hit called “Night Train.” The composer credit for “Night Train” was not listed as Duke Ellington. Duke being Duke, did nothing about this theft until the statute of limitations for copyright infringement passed. Then he got mad once and for all, got over it, and went on composing new music and leading his band around the world.
The music:
We have discussed in some detail Ellington’s various forays into program music in the post here at swingandbeyond on Duke’s “Harlem Air Shaft.” (That discussion and music can be accessed by clicking on the link at endnote (4). For our purposes here, I think it fair to say that Ellington was inspired by visual, literary, historical and aural stimuli throughout his long career. Duke was particularly inspired by the steam locomotives that moved trains throughout the swing era. His most masterful evocations of steam locomotives were “Daybreak Express” (1933) and “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” (1946).
In this performance, Ellington uses the various instruments in his band to conjure images of a train being pulled slowly from a stop by a steam locomotive into chugging motion. The introduction to this performance is a clever and arresting sequence with Duke’s piano and Oscar Pettiford’s bass that suggests the driving wheels of the steam engine spinning slowly before gaining enough traction to begin moving the train. Movement begins as Pettiford plays a descending double-stop figure, and Ellington adds heavy rocking chords. As momentum is gained, we hear rhythmic trumpets in dialog with wah-wah trombones, this atop strong rhythm provided by the bass and piano. This configuration of instruments continues as a background as the next chorus begins. Duke’s imaginary train is now under way.
The first soloist to emerge from the ensemble is alto saxophonist Russell Procope. Procope’s role in the Ellington band was essentially to lead the saxophones, as Duke’s main alto saxophone soloist was the great Johnny Hodges. But here, Procope plays a couple of shouting blues choruses. When the massed saxophones and brass chime in, they tell the listener that Duke’s train is chugging along at speed.
The next soloist is Ray Nance, who plays using a plunger to add a bit of spice to his open trumpet sound. He is joined in the next twelve-bar sequence by baritone saxophonist Harry Carney, who bends his notes into a moan. The Mr. Procope returns, in a preaching mode. Duke now has the trumpets also doing their wah-wah, and drummer Sonny Greer laying down a back-beat to keep the rhythmic foundation solid and swinging.
Bassist Oscar Pettiford then plays a solo, abetted in places by Maestro Ellington, who adds handfuls of his unique piano chords and runs to the sonic mix.
A darkly dissonant orchestral sequence brings the first half of “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” to a close. That same sequence starts part two.
The next soloist is tenor saxophonist Al Sears, who bends his notes into moans in response to Duke’s jaunty piano prelude. After this, the robust saxophone quintet, led by Procope’s alto and anchored by Carney’s baritone, comes to the fore with the soon to be famous “Night Train” melody, abetted by open brass emphases. As the trumpet-led brass take the melody, the reeds add zesty backgrounds. The solo open trumpet soloist that appears adding colorful asides is once again Ray Nance.
A picture of Ellington’s five man trumpet section at about the time he recorded “Happy-Go-Lucky Local”: L-R: Taft Jordan, Shelton Hemphill, Francis Williams, Ray Nance and Cat Anderson.
Then Ellington has the brass play a fanfare as an introduction for Jimmy Hamilton to play a bit of cool-sounding clarinet, supported by the ongoing strong Ellington-Pettiford rhythm. Pettiford’s up and down bass figure springs trumpeter Cat Anderson into one of his stratospheric, screeching solos, intended by Duke to suggest the sound of the whistle that was such a haunting feature of steam locomotives hurtling through the night. Notice how Duke balances Anderson’s screeches with low brass growls and snatches of the “Night Train” melody played by the saxophones, plus his pianistics and Pettiford’s bass.
The final chorus is a marvelously descending series of instrumental bursts, from full band shouts to a tenor saxophone murmur, and a soft exclamation added by drummer Sonny Greer, all strung together with scampering bursts of bass notes courtesy of Oscar Pettiford.
Among the other difficulties Ellington had to contend with in his short relationship with Musicraft Records was that the technical quality of the recordings he made for them left a lot to be desired. That basic problem was compounded by the fact that the only extant source recordings for Duke’s Musicraft output are the 78 rpm shellac records that were issued by the label in the 1940s. All masters and metal parts are gone, sold as scrap to satisfy Musicraft’s creditors pro rata in a 1949 bankruptcy. Various LP issues were made using Musicraft 78s as source material. Consequently, the shortcomings of those 78s were simply transferred to the LPs.(3)
In order to hear all of the nuances of Duke’s “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” in superb sound, performed by a band of virtuoso swing era musicians, I am also presenting Billy May’s 1971 recording of it made by the Swing Era Orchestra.
“Happy-Go-Lucky Local”
Composed and arranged by Duke Ellington. Ellington arrangement reconstructed by Billy May.
Recorded by Billy May and the Swing Era Orchestra for Capitol on January 27, 1971 in Hollywood.
Billy May, directing: John Audino, first trumpet; Uan Rasey, Joe Graves, Chuck Findley and Austin “Bud” Brisbois, trumpets; Dick Nash, first trombone; Francis “Joe” Howard and Lew McCreary, trombones; Les Robinson, first alto saxophone; Abe Most, alto saxophone and clarinet; Don Lodice and Justin Gordon, tenor saxophones; Chuck Gentry, baritone saxophone; Ray Sherman, piano; Jack Marshall, guitar; Rolly Bundock, bass; Nick Fatool, drums. Soloists: Ray Sherman, piano; Rolly Bundock, bass; Justin Gordon, alto saxophone; Chuck Findley, trumpet; Chuck Gentry, baritone saxophone; Don Lodice, tenor saxophone; Abe Most, clarinet; Bud Brisbois, high trumpet.
The recordings presented with this post were digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) Here is a link to both Artie Shaw’s and Count Basie’s recordings of “April in Paris”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2023/05/12/april-in-paris-1940-artie-shaw-and-1955-count-basie/
(2) Here is the link to the post here at swingandbeyond that discusses in detail how “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” came to be. It also provided tenor saxophonist Ricky Ford with an opportunity to play a bracing solo on the blues: https://swingandbeyond.com/2017/08/23/happy-go-lucky-local-1975-mercer-ellington/
(3) Ellington’s first recording date for Musicraft was on October 26, 1946, and his last one was on December 18, 1946. In between were recording dates on November 25, December 5 and December 11. It appears that only 15 Ellington-Musicraft sides were ever issued. Musicraft limped along until 1949, when it went bankrupt. In order to satisfy its creditors to even a minimal degree, Musicraft melted down the metal masters it had created for its recordings, and their trustee in bankruptcy sold the resulting scrap metal to raise money to pay creditors pro rata. Consequently, the only recorded evidence that remains for all Musicraft recordings are the 78 rpm shellac disks that were sold in the retail record market in the 1940s.
(4) Here is the link to the post here at swingandbeyond on Duke Ellington’s “Harlem Air Shaft”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2018/04/11/harlem-air-shaft-1940-duke-ellington-live-version/
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