AUDIO: Lady Mac

HIPPOLYTA:
I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.


A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, sc. i

Nearly everyone, at some point, has had to read Shakespeare in school, and some of us were less than inspired by him. Ellington and Strayhorn's imaginations, however, were greatly stimulated by all that they saw and heard of Shakespearean performances and scholarship when they went with their orchestra to perform at the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival in July of 1956. Ellington had long been a fan of Shakespeare -- supposedly Anne Hathaway's cottage was the first historic site he visited on his first trip to England in 1933 -- and Strayhorn was so fond of the Bard that he was able to quote long passages and speeches from the plays. When the Festival commissioned a suite from Ellington, then, he and Strayhorn went on to write one of their greatest works out of the five suites they wrote together. Each of the twelve pieces depicts a character from one of the plays (mostly the dramas, but the ever-popular Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream and Kate from The Taming of the Shrew are included here). If you want to prove to yourself how great a job the composers and the performers have done in Such Sweet Thunder, close your eyes and listen to the pieces before looking at the track titles, and try to guess who they're bringing to life. If you have even a modest awareness of Shakespeare's most famous characters, it's almost certain you'll get most of them...

"Lady Mac" incorporates ragtime as well as Ellington's trademark blues, because Ellington said he heard ragtime in Lady Macbeth's character. The right-hand piano chord played at a Joplinesque pace at the piece's opening evokes a sashaying, saucy rump-shaking woman of high confidence, great beauty and a smidge of arrogance. This is the Lady Macbeth who urges Macbeth on in his ambitions to Duncan's throne, not the sleep-walking woman who cries that all the perfumes of Arabia couldn't sweeten her little hand (It wouldn't be really sexy to portray that Lady Mac). The deep-thunking standing bass in "Sonnet in Search of a Moor" evokes a slinking, Mephistophelian Iago plotting Othello's revenge. Tenor sax Paul Gonsalves and alto sax Johnny Hodges' sweet solos project the yearning of Romeo and Juliet as they call and respond in "The Star-Crossed Lovers". Johnny Hodge's beautifully mellow, sinuous sax solo nearly smokes as he delineates the seduction of Antony and Cleopatra; he draws a far hotter picture than anything Liz and Richard ever pulled off. Indeed, Ellington and Strayhorn wrote for their soloists, showcasing their talents while utilizing them to the greatest effect for their compositions. It's a happy marriage of convenience and musical artistry, and it is best appreciated in this new Columbia edition, brought out for Ellington's 100th anniversary. Although I don't want to be a whore for Columbia, the original recording was supposed to have been offered in stereo as well as mono, but due to technical difficulties was issued in mono only. This new edition restores the stereo, includes the old mono and adds bonus tracks and a fantastic liner note insert by Phil Schaap.

The Folger, the Stratford Festival, the RSC and Shakespeare in the Park are the best sources of Shakespearean theatre, but they're only available to a lucky few in certain locales. The Duke Ellington Orchestra, via Ellington and Strayhorn, brings Shakespeare back to the masses. In the case of Such Sweet Thunder, the groundlings listening to jazz may be luckier than the theatregoers in their boxes.

-- Jenn Sikes