By 1956, Duke Ellington's career had hit bottom. He was still on the road and still
composing, but he was increasingly regarded as a holdover from a bygone era. Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival that year caused concern. Jazz was spiraling off in new and modern directions. Festival organizers were afraid that Duke might come off as hopelessly old fashioned. The opposite happened. Ellington wowed the festival when he turned Paul Gonsalves loose for twenty-odd choruses of "Dimenuendo and Crescendo in Blue." That exciting tenor rampage put Ellington back on jazz landscape, where he remained a dominant figure until his death. Ellington later joked that he was "born" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. |