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Paul Gonsalves

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Paul Gonsalves (1920-1974), a American jazz tenor saxophonist, was considered one of the best and most tasteful players on his instrument. But no review of his musicianship is ever left untouched by the performance that made his name in the first place---the near-riot he caused at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, with an arresting, 27-chorus solo, in the middle of Duke Ellington's performance of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue".

Linking two of Ellington's late-1930s blues compositions ("Diminuendo in Blue," "Crescendo in Blue"), the Gonsalves performance had been seeded a few years earlier, after Ellington had shelved his first idea for conjoining the two songs, a wordless-vocal interlude called "Transblucency." He now toyed with Gonsalves bridging the two with a brief blues solo, and in time the bridge became just a little bit longer, until Gonsalves asked the leader come Newport '56 if he could just blow when that portion came around.

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Paul Gonsalves, 1967

Ellington gave his man the green light and it ended up making headlines. Staying tightly on the beat, repeating certain theme lines he improvised along the way without overdoing them, and accompanied only by Ellington at the piano, bassist Jimmy Woode, and drummer Sam Woodyard, Gonsalves by the seventh chorus had kicked the audience into a slowly swelling round of noisy applause and cheering that didn't let up for the remainder of the piece.

So loud and excited had the crowd become that Ellington---against the wishes of festival organisers, but knowing that stopping then might have caused a genuine riot---shifted to some less rhythmically vigorous material to bring them back down. The performance became the centerpiece of a live Ellington album from the festival; it resurrected Ellington as a major attraction and gave him (and, for time enough, Columbia Records's jazz catalog) the best-selling recording (Ellington at Newport) of his long and distinguished career.

It also made certain Ellington's forthcoming Time magazine feature, spearheading a profile on the apparent resurrection of jazz, would get almost as much attention as the band's acclaimed performance at Newport did. It guaranteed Ellington's longevity as a working bandleader and composer. (Years later, whenever he was asked about his earlier career, Ellington puckishly liked to reply, "Why, that was before my time. You know I was born at Newport.")

And, finally, it guaranteed that Gonsalves would be a major Ellington attraction for as long as he remained with the band, which was for the rest of Ellington's life. Gonsalves was a featured soloist in numerous Ellingtonian settings, but the memory of "Diminuendo" usually helped assure he'd be handed the job for any piece calling for an extended tenor saxophone solo. Gonsalves was also much liked as a personality; his friendliness with audiences, including an occasional habit of stepping down from the stage to play his horn directly to fans (and especially to young children), earned him the nickname "The Strolling Violins" within the Ellington organisation.

Gonsalves's career had also taken him to places other than the Ellington group. He played with the big bands of Count Basie (1947-1949) and Dizzy Gillespie (1949-1950) as well as with the Ellington band (1950-1974).

Paul Gonsalves died of an overdose in London a few days before Duke Ellington - Mercer Ellington refused to tell Duke of his death, fearing the shock may furthur accelerate his father's decline. Both Ellington and Gonsalves, along with the trombonist Tyree Glenn, lay side by side in the same New York funeral home.

The 1999 remaster/reissue of Ellington at Newport-- restored and expanded to include the entire, original concert (the original album was doctored with post-production studio overdubbing, including audience noise extracted from other portions of the evening dubbed onto "D & C"---reintroduced the performance that made Gonsalves a household name in the first place.

Discography as leader


References

  • Stanley Dance, The World Of Duke Ellington, ISBN 0306801361
  • Duke Ellington, Music Is My Mistress, ISBN 0704330903
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