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Copyright © 2009, Dutch Jazz Orchestra. All rights reserved.
JazzImprov.com review 'Portrait of a Silk Thread'
During his 27-year association with Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn wrote incessantly -much more than the Ellington Orchestra could perform. Except for several hundred manuscripts found after his death, his compositions ended up in the Duke Ellington Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1989, Dutch musicologist Walter van de Leur received a Smithsonian Fellowship to examine the 1,500 manuscripts in the Ellington Collection. The more van de Leur examined this material, the more he developed a profound respect for Strayhorn's underappreciated genius.
In 1994, he approached Jerry van Roojien and the Dutch Jazz Orchestra in an attempt to get the Strayhorn pieces performed.
The difficulties involved in realizing this project were formidable. Van de Leur labored to prepare intelligible performance charts, often working from the barest of raw materials - scraps of paper, mimeograph stencils, partial scores. Decisions had to be made on tempos and chord changes. Finally, each member of the Orchestra had to learn his part as well as the nuances of phrasing and style. Each step of the process had to remain faithful to Strayhorn.
It all came together in January 1995, when Portrait of a Silk Thread was recorded. The results speak beautifully for themselves.
The release of Portrait of a Silk Thread is an historic event in jazz, for it demonstrates that Billy Strayhorn deserves his own place in the ranks of the great jazz composers.
The Ellington Orchestra - its leader and his musicians- could never be duplicated. Still, the Dutch Jazz Orchestra is a fitting aggregation to carry on the legacy of performing Strayhorn's music.
