The Kodacolor snapshot above, bleached now by the passing years, was taken on 29 May 1970.
The occasion was to commemorate the dedication of the new Alvar Aalto Library at Mount Angel Abbey, a Benedictine community, some forty miles south of Portland in Oregon.
The photograph was the property of the young woman standing to the right of Duke Ellington. Her name is Ann Henry.
According to the website Second Hand Songs, Ann Henry was a singer, dancer, choreographer, impressionist and comedienne from Chicago who was billed as “the female Sammy Davis Jr.”
A decade before the commemoration of the Abbey library, Ann Henry’s career was in full swing. Her big break came in 1952 when she replaced Eartha Kitt in the musical revue New Faces. Her most successful recording would seem to be a single of Like Young, the André Previn composition to which Paul Francis Webster (lyricist for Ellington’s Jump For Joy) set words. In 1958, at the age of twenty-five, she travelled to London to appear in a musical presentation for Granada Television entitled On The Air. Whilst readying a concert tour for which she had been composing her own music in 1963, she was stricken by spinal meningitis which effectively ended her professional career as an entertainer.
While she almost lost her life to the illness, Ann Henry did make something of a remarkable recovery, regaining her mobility to an extent and moving about using a pair of cane walking sticks (and, indeed, managing to continue something of her recording career, at least: in November 1964, she was on backing vocals for Dizzy Gillespie’s album Jambo Caribe).
Having already begun to write music herself, as she recovered, Miss Henry took up the post of composer-in-residence at Mount Angel Abbey. She had exchanged the bright lights of Las Vegas for a narrow, soundproof converted storeroom in a small guesthouse at the monastery. It was from there that she composed the work Pockets: It’s Amazing When Love Goes On Paradewhich was created to celebrate the commemoration of Mount Angel Abbey library and was given its première by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, arranged by Ron Collier and featuring Ann Henry for that occasion.
It was said that Ann Henry had worked with Duke Ellington previously. The following intriguing lines were written by staff writer Beth Fagan for The Oregonian newspaper, Friday 29 May 1970:
To her friend, Duke Ellington, she had been “the world’s greatest dancer”.
She toured with Ellington, he had composed music for her choreography, presented her innovative Co-op Modern Dance Co. (the first to combine Negro idiom and contemporary dance) at the Metropolitan.
It is certainly the case that almost twenty years earlier, Miss Henry had appeared on the same bill as Duke Ellington and his Orchestra at The Apollo Theatre in Harlem. With choreographer and dancer Julian Marvin Swain, Ann had formed The Three Co-Ops Dance team and it was this outfit that appeared with Ellington on 14 September 1950. Also on the bill were vocalist Chubby Kemp (who was to cut some records with Ellington for Mercer Records a week later), Barbara Windfield, a new singer with the Orchestra, Bobby ‘Tables’ Davis whose act consisted of him picking up items of furniture with his teeth and comedian Dusty Fletcher whose vaudeville routine was the basis of the hit record Open The Door, Richard, recorded amongst other artists by Count Basie.
An extensive article by Louie Robinson about Ann Henry and the dedication of the new library at Mount Angel Abbey appeared in the magazine Ebonyin February 1971. The caption to one of the photographs in the piece stirred a little controversy in terms of the extent to which Ann Henry notated her own compositions. Her musical collaborator, pianist Daryl Kaufmann felt obliged to correct the assertion made in the caption which read:
Close friend and co-worker, Daryl Kaufmann, accompanies Ann to library presentation of Pockets. Kaufmann, a pianist, transfers Ann’s work to paper (she does not formally read or write music). Along with his parents, he helped her to recover at Washington ranch.
Kaufmann wrote:
Ebony’s story on composer Ann Henry in the February issue was beautiful. However, I would like to make one correction on a photo caption (and be as factual as I possibly can to clear a misconception).
Contrary to what many people preferred to believe for a long time, I do not write Miss Henry’s music down on paper. She does. I don not assist her in composing – nor does anyone else. Concept, melody, tone, rhythm, chords, arrangements, etc. are her own.
Because I’m usually the first to play her music, I have learned to read her inventive system of music notation as I learned to read the well-known system. The delicate task of transcribing from system to system is a credit shared by other musicians especially chosen by Ann according to their backgrounds.
It is reasonable to assume that one of the musicians to whom Ann entrusted her musical system was Ron Collier who worked extensively with Ellington during this period and who orchestrated Pockets. As Beth Fagan wrote in her piece:
Canadian Broadcasting Company conductor Ron Collier did its notation at the Abbey.
Ann will sing her lyrics which are based on the work’s subtitle, the article continues, with a seminary choir, since Ellington and the abbey wanted that dimension included. But she claims she no longer sings well; and considers Duke Ellington and each of his musicians so special that no singer should stand up in front of them EVER. “Ivy (sic) Anderson was the only singer I ever heard who fit with that orchestra.”
The first movement of Pockets is based on a waltz; its second a march; it’s third, Ann calls “meditative”.
“She’s begun that movement with prayer and built it up to a great closing hymn and cadenza which I’ve really always figured was Ann giving God total praise and thanks,” said Kaufmann.
“It takes you charmingly back, goes forward into the very ‘now’ and future,” another reported. “Some will consider it in the tradition of very serious music, some Pop – and both will be right.”
In this, the description might be equally apt for Ellington’s Sacred music of this period. Indeed, this performance of Pockets acts almost like an interlude of sorts between the Second and Third Sacred Concerts.
And yet, the performance of Pockets: It’s Amazing When Love Goes On Parade was unknown until a poor video copy of the concert suddenly materialised on the website Vimeo a few years ago.
The impression of Pockets relation to Ellington’s late music is confirmed further by the way Ann Henry spoke about her impulse to create music:
I like to think of art as the pure essence of anything. If you can capture that – the most penetrating, telling part – the truth without flak – you get the response.
The only thing that changes in the world of art is the medium through which you try to capture and express the truth. You can sing what you write, write what you’ve danced, play what you’ve painted because God’s truth doesn’t change. The arts are all the same. The time consuming element in each media is the discipline.
And after something tragic happens to you, you go the route where you think you can accomplish the most. As long as the mind is still going, there’s a chance.
If you are a creative person, you’re going to continue doing that. And the avenue I selected was to continue composing music.
The sentiments expressed here are very close to some of the pronouncements Ellington made about his Sacred concerts and we can believe the artistic impulse that lay behind this aspect of Ellington’s œuvresprang from this same source. Ann Henry’s voice in this performance, to my ears, is reminiscent of Nina Simone although he music on this occasion does not have the social or political dimension Simone’s work embodied. Equally, however, the social and political aspects of Ellington’s Sacred music were only ever implicit: Saying it without saying it. That is a discussion for another occasion, however.
About forty minutes of Pockets survives on the tape posted to the video sharing site. The ending is unfortunately incomplete. We do receive a good idea of the scope of the work however from what remains. It is a rich musical tapestry that seems to draw on several strains - Soul, Gospel and Broadway with the sort of fiery testimony characteristic of a Revival meeting. The whole performance is a tour de force, embracing a kaleidoscope of emotions and moods.
Because Pockets is such a unique entry in the Ellington canon and because audio of the rest of the concert exists in much higher fidelity (as we shall see), I had the audio of the Pocketssequence from the videotape restored professionally by Richard Moore of Mint Audio Restoration UK. Whilst there are one or two unavoidable drops out in sound, Richard did a superb job in cleaning up the audio, giving it much greater depth and presence.
In an email sent to me on 10 June, 2021, Richard said:
I've been through and done the best I can - It's certainly not perfect, or ever likely to be, but you can at least hear the whole piece at roughly the same level. There is only one complete drop out of volume... And of course the tape ends before the end of the piece. I've levelled out the hiss where I can but only where it became intrusive. I've also re-eq(ualize)d it to add some bass and added a small amount of tape compression (the effect that analogue tape has on audio which is much subtler than dynamic compression) to bring the band in the background forward into the mix a little more.
I’d like to share a little of the restoration with you. This extract is at the beginning of the second half of the piece and gives a flavour of Ron Collier’s orchestration for the orchestra. The writing of the introductory bars reminds me, if anything, of Ase’s Deathfrom Strayhorn’s arrangement of the Peer Gynt Suite. Prior to the performance, Ellington introduces Ron Collier by saying “And now I’d like to have you meet the great Canadian composer and internationally celebrated orchestrator and an incomparable conductor, Mr Ron Collier. He orchestrated and will conduct the new work which is to be presented by Ann Henry, the new work Pockets. This is Ron Collier.”
The full personnel for the Orchestra on this occasion was:
Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Mercer Ellington, Fred Stone(t); Booty Wood, Julian Priester(tb); Chuck Connors(btb); Russell Procope(cl,as); Norris Turney (fl,cl,as,ts); Harold Ashby(ts,cl); Paul Gonsalves(ts); Harry Carney(cl,bcl,as,bar);
Duke Ellington(p); Joe Benjamin(sb); Rufus Jones(d)
The extract presented is a luminous piece of writing for orchestra, including some lovely obligato from Norris Turney on flute and some singularly uncharacteristic clarinet work from Russell Procope (I imagine this would ordinarily have gone to Jimmy Hamilton who left the band some months prior) at the end of the piece…
In September 2019, a reel-to-reel tape was put up for auction on eBay. The original listing read:
Duke Ellington and is Orchestra Live Recording to Reel to Reel , Mount Angel Abbey Library Mount Angel Oregon May 29th 1970.
I tested the Reel on a Sony-O-Matic and it was in VERY good condition, maybe very little or any play(please see photos). The box includes a Polaroid, newspaper clippings about the show, show flyer, notes on songs played. and other notes.It's played at 7 1/2.
The ‘Polaroid’ is the photograph which heads this present article, the programme for the concert and the quotations I have used came from newspaper clippings in the tape box. The following letter, which appears to be written in Ann Henry’s own hand, was also included in the auction lot…
The lines Please leave the space open for Pockets on the tape… are intriguing and highlight something of a mystery about the tape. The tape contains what I am assuming is the complete set list the Ellington Orchestra played before and after the première of Pockets. There is, sadly, no recording of Pocketsitself on this tape. This is a shame because the audio of the Ellington performance is generally very good and of much higher fidelity than the video soundtrack. It seems to be in a fairly primitive sort of stereo also.
The video confirms those selections on the tape which Ellington played before Pocketswas aired. The following selections, however, are not present on any of the video extracts on Vimeo but are included on the tape: Don’t Get Down On Your Knees To Pray, Sophisticated Lady which leads (incomplete) into Caravan, Satin Doll and encore Things Ain’t What They Used To Be.
With the restored audio from the videotape and the stereo Ellington selections on the tape, it is possible, then, to compile a fairly complete recording of the entire performance, a unique and transcendent occasion in the Ellington itinerary. Or at least as complete as it is likely to be. Unless…
The following ‘rehearsal reel’ video in superior video and sound is currently available on the website of Mount Angel Abbey. Do the stacks of Aalto’s Library at the Abbey contain a complete, pristine recording of the evening’s performance?
For now, here is an extract from that reel-to-reel recording. The balance of the recording is off, unfortunately, with the result that voices were recorded far less effectively than the Orchestra. Nevertheless, in order to emphasise further the links between Pocketsand Ellington’s own Sacred music, prior to the performance of Ann Henry’s work, Ellington had played Meditationfrom the Second Sacred Concert, now incorporated into the medley, he includes from the same album Don't Get Down On Your Knees To Pray Until You Have Forgiven Everyone. Toney Watkins’ vocal is audible but lost somewhat in the mix.
There is nothing on line about Ann Henry’s career following the première of Pockets: It’s Amazing When Love Goes On Parade. There is much to follow up, perhaps by writing to the Abbey. From the resolution and joy in her music, however, she was undoubtedly on the side of the Angels…