Duke Ellington plays Grace Cathedral

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1965, this notice appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle: “Opening Today: Sacred Concert — Duke Ellington with a company of 75, including musicians, singers and dancers, at 8 p.m., Grace Cathedral, Nob Hill.”

Duke Ellington’s First “Sacred Concert” raised some eyebrows at the time. The Chronicle’s review the following day was titled “Duke Swings at Grace Cathedral,” and reported the performance (quote): “appeared to leave many of the audiences discomfited, nervous, or edgy, not completely willing to accept the idea that the wild sound of a sax should pierce the austere heights of the Episcopal cathedral’s nave. ‘It’s all very strange’a high churchman commented during intermission, ‘but oh, lordy, it’s fascinating!’ The point of the performance, according to Grace Cathedral’s dean, the very Reverend C. Julian Bartlett, was that any offering to God is sacred, whatever its form.”

Ellington himself commented as follows: “It has been said once that a man who could not play the organ or any of the instruments of the symphony accompanied his worship by juggling. He was not the world’s best juggler, but it was the one he thing he did best, and so it was accepted by God. For my part, I regard this concert as the most important thing I have ever done.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Edward "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) Come Sunday Duke Ellington and his orchestra RCA/Bluebird 6641

On This Day

Births

• 1887 - French composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, in Paris; Her pupils included a number of famous American composers from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass;

• 1844 - French flutist and composer Paul Taffanel, in Bordeaux;

Premieres

• 1925 - Broadway premiere of Vincent Youmans' musical, "No, No Nanette," which had opened in Detroit on April 21, 1924, and had successful productions in Chicago and London before reaching New York City;

• 1965 - Duke Ellington: First Sacred Concert, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco;

• 1966 - Barber: opera, "Anthony and Cleopatra" at the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center;

• 1995 - Harrison Birtwistle: "Panic" for alto sax, drummer, and orchestra, at the "Last Night" of the Centenary Proms at Royal Albert Hall in London, with the BBC Symphony conducted by Andrew Davis, with John Harle (sax) and Oauk Clarvis (dummer);

• 1999 - Libby Larsen: "Solo Symphony," by the Colorado Symphony, Marin Alsop conducting;

Others

• 1920 - Italian tenor Enrico Caruso makes his last records (selections by Meyerbeer, Lully, Bartlett, and Rossini) for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey; He would make his last operatic appearance at the old Metropolitan Opera House on Christmas Eve in 1920 (an evening performance of Halevy's "La Juive"), and die the following summer in Naples;

• 1977 - Opera diva Maria Callas dies of a heart attack, age 53, in Paris.