FARGO – It was 75 years ago Saturday that Duke Ellington taught Fargo how to swing. Four decades later, an amateur recording from that cold night shared Fargo's lesson with the world. Stashed away in a basement for years before being officially released, the recording is now considered an important look of Ellington and his band at a pivotal period and one of the most significant live jazz recordings of all time. "It was essential Ellington for the era," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington enthusiast, who says the recordings were called "The Holy Grail of jazz." "This was the pinnacle of his brand of jazz. This album says it all," the Fargo man says. A first time for everything On Nov. 7, 1940, Jack Towers was a week shy of his 26th birthday. He got to celebrate early when he and his friend Dick Burris got permission to record Ellington's show that night at the Crystal Ballroom, on the northwest corner of Broadway and First Avenue South. "We had no thoughts other than just the thrill of being there, recording, and having something we could play for our own amazement," Towers told Martin C. Fredricks in a story that ran in The Forum in 1999. "We had no thoughts whatsoever of recording anything that anybody would be listening to 40 or 50 or 60 years down the line."
The two men were as excited to be recording their idol that night as they were nervous about not necessarily knowing what they were doing. Burris worked with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, in the radio station, and Towers was his counterpart at South Dakota State University. They dragged in a portable turntable that cut the recording into a 33 1/3-rpm acetate-covered aluminum disc measuring 16 inches in diameter. The discs held 15 minutes of music per side, so the amateur engineers would sometimes be forced to swap out the full discs for new ones mid-song. They walked away with nearly three hours of music and over 40 songs played in front of about 700 fans. They used just three microphones but only had about 30 feet of cable, so they had to set up the recording turntable by Ellington's piano. Ellington and his band pulled into the Great Northern Depot (now the Great Northern Bicycle Co.) earlier that day in their own Pullman car, coming down from a show in Winnipeg the night before. Charles Lillibridge of Fargo recalls that the weather that day wasn't exactly welcoming. "There was a heavy snowfall and there was no traffic," he told The Forum in a Neighbors column in June. "They carried all the instruments, music and sound equipment from the Great Northern depot to the Crystal Ballroom behind Wimmer's Jewelry store so they could play that night." In the liner notes for a bootleg version of the concert, "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D.," Eddie Lambert writes that the band "seemed a little tired after the long journey." [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116707","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"985","title":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]] 'A hot night' in November Towers and Burris already had permission to record from Ellington's management and the Crystal Ballroom's owner, Ralph E. "Doc" Chinn, but when they asked the bandleader, he was reluctant. "Duke said, 'Gee, I don't see why you'd want to do that. Our trumpets are in really bad shape,' " Towers told National Public Radio in 1980. Trumpeter Cootie Williams had just left the group after 11 years to play with Benny Goodman. When Towers and Burris learned this, they were disappointed, but that feeling didn't last. Williams' replacement, Ray Nance, was making his debut with Ellington that night in Fargo and would be a suitable replacement for the next 23 years. "When you listen to the recordings, you can tell the trumpets aren't up to scratch, but they're pretty good," Towers said in the 1980 NPR interview. That night's lineup also featured Ellington's main sideman, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and bassist Jimmy Blanton. The latter two were so significant to the sound that the lineup was referred to as the Blanton-Webster band. "The band he had gave him all the big hits through the '30s. He still had the magic with all of these people," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington fan living in Fargo. "After this concert, they took a long break and never really got back together as that band." The setlist included the group's premiere of "Star Dust" as well as standards like "Caravan," and "Sepia Panorama," the outfit's theme song until "Take the 'A' Train" came along two months later. "We weren't really used to recording music. We were used to recording voices, speeches, interviews," Towers told NPR. "When the band hit, we adjusted our levels and hoped for the best." And they got it. During breaks Towers and Burris played the tunes back for the band, which seemed impressed. "One of the stories is that the band listened to these records long into the night," Tschida says. "This was really cool and this was really good music. The quality of music was top shelf. These guys were really right on. It was a hot night." Over the years, Webster would ask for copies of that night, "a sure sign of his own regard for this particular recording," Lambert wrote in the liner notes. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116708","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","class":"media-image","height":"893","title":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","width":"1200"}}]] One for the ages While even the band appreciated the recordings, the amateur engineers had promised they would never release what they captured in the Crystal Ballroom that night. The raw material would stay with them, with copies occasionally going to the musicians or to a friend. Through the years, word started to spread and so did bootleg recordings. In the late 1960s, bootlegs started appearing in Sweden. Even the Fargo Public Library acquired copies in 1976. One copy of "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D." remains in the library's North Dakota collection, but does not circulate. A few years after Ellington died in 1974, his family decided to officially release "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940, Live." In 1980, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band. "I couldn't believe it. I couldn't see this 40-year-old recording competing with the top bands in the land right now," Towers told NPR shortly after the win. "It just took the wind out of my sails." Critics praise the album as a riveting document of one of the best big bands of all time. In 2013, New Yorker critic at large Adam Gopnik called the Ellington recording "his finest." Ellington's friend and scholar - he delivered the eulogy at the bandleader's funeral - noted, "There are few live recordings (of Ellington) any better than this." "Although it must have been pretty routine for this band, this sounds (sic) a really outstanding evening's music making by another standard," Lambert wrote in the album notes. "Dick Burris and Jack Towers certainly did the world a favour when they took their recording machine into the Crystal Ballroom, Fargo North Dakota. For even the Duke Ellington band never sounded like this in the recording studios-not even in 1940!" Burris died in 1971 and never got to see the fruits of his labor be fully appreciated. Towers died in 2010 and in his obituary in the New York Times, Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, called the recording "a milestone in the Ellington recorded literature." The acetate discs are now part of the Smithsonian Institution. "We weren't thinking of anything beyond getting something we'd have a good time with, something to play for our own amazement and enjoyment," Towers told the Washington City Paper in 2001. "But I'll always remember that when we were driving home, ol' Dick said, 'Boy, we probably don't even realize what we've got here.' "FARGO – It was 75 years ago Saturday that Duke Ellington taught Fargo how to swing. Four decades later, an amateur recording from that cold night shared Fargo's lesson with the world. Stashed away in a basement for years before being officially released, the recording is now considered an important look of Ellington and his band at a pivotal period and one of the most significant live jazz recordings of all time. "It was essential Ellington for the era," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington enthusiast, who says the recordings were called "The Holy Grail of jazz." "This was the pinnacle of his brand of jazz. This album says it all," the Fargo man says. A first time for everything On Nov. 7, 1940, Jack Towers was a week shy of his 26th birthday. He got to celebrate early when he and his friend Dick Burris got permission to record Ellington's show that night at the Crystal Ballroom, on the northwest corner of Broadway and First Avenue South. "We had no thoughts other than just the thrill of being there, recording, and having something we could play for our own amazement," Towers told Martin C. Fredricks in a story that ran in The Forum in 1999. "We had no thoughts whatsoever of recording anything that anybody would be listening to 40 or 50 or 60 years down the line." [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116704","attributes":{"alt":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"810","title":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]] The two men were as excited to be recording their idol that night as they were nervous about not necessarily knowing what they were doing. Burris worked with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, in the radio station, and Towers was his counterpart at South Dakota State University. They dragged in a portable turntable that cut the recording into a 33 1/3-rpm acetate-covered aluminum disc measuring 16 inches in diameter. The discs held 15 minutes of music per side, so the amateur engineers would sometimes be forced to swap out the full discs for new ones mid-song. They walked away with nearly three hours of music and over 40 songs played in front of about 700 fans. They used just three microphones but only had about 30 feet of cable, so they had to set up the recording turntable by Ellington's piano. Ellington and his band pulled into the Great Northern Depot (now the Great Northern Bicycle Co.) earlier that day in their own Pullman car, coming down from a show in Winnipeg the night before. Charles Lillibridge of Fargo recalls that the weather that day wasn't exactly welcoming. "There was a heavy snowfall and there was no traffic," he told The Forum in a Neighbors column in June. "They carried all the instruments, music and sound equipment from the Great Northern depot to the Crystal Ballroom behind Wimmer's Jewelry store so they could play that night." In the liner notes for a bootleg version of the concert, "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D.," Eddie Lambert writes that the band "seemed a little tired after the long journey."
'A hot night' in November Towers and Burris already had permission to record from Ellington's management and the Crystal Ballroom's owner, Ralph E. "Doc" Chinn, but when they asked the bandleader, he was reluctant. "Duke said, 'Gee, I don't see why you'd want to do that. Our trumpets are in really bad shape,' " Towers told National Public Radio in 1980. Trumpeter Cootie Williams had just left the group after 11 years to play with Benny Goodman. When Towers and Burris learned this, they were disappointed, but that feeling didn't last. Williams' replacement, Ray Nance, was making his debut with Ellington that night in Fargo and would be a suitable replacement for the next 23 years. "When you listen to the recordings, you can tell the trumpets aren't up to scratch, but they're pretty good," Towers said in the 1980 NPR interview. That night's lineup also featured Ellington's main sideman, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and bassist Jimmy Blanton. The latter two were so significant to the sound that the lineup was referred to as the Blanton-Webster band. "The band he had gave him all the big hits through the '30s. He still had the magic with all of these people," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington fan living in Fargo. "After this concert, they took a long break and never really got back together as that band." The setlist included the group's premiere of "Star Dust" as well as standards like "Caravan," and "Sepia Panorama," the outfit's theme song until "Take the 'A' Train" came along two months later. "We weren't really used to recording music. We were used to recording voices, speeches, interviews," Towers told NPR. "When the band hit, we adjusted our levels and hoped for the best." And they got it. During breaks Towers and Burris played the tunes back for the band, which seemed impressed. "One of the stories is that the band listened to these records long into the night," Tschida says. "This was really cool and this was really good music. The quality of music was top shelf. These guys were really right on. It was a hot night." Over the years, Webster would ask for copies of that night, "a sure sign of his own regard for this particular recording," Lambert wrote in the liner notes. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116708","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","class":"media-image","height":"893","title":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","width":"1200"}}]] One for the ages While even the band appreciated the recordings, the amateur engineers had promised they would never release what they captured in the Crystal Ballroom that night. The raw material would stay with them, with copies occasionally going to the musicians or to a friend. Through the years, word started to spread and so did bootleg recordings. In the late 1960s, bootlegs started appearing in Sweden. Even the Fargo Public Library acquired copies in 1976. One copy of "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D." remains in the library's North Dakota collection, but does not circulate. A few years after Ellington died in 1974, his family decided to officially release "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940, Live." In 1980, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band. "I couldn't believe it. I couldn't see this 40-year-old recording competing with the top bands in the land right now," Towers told NPR shortly after the win. "It just took the wind out of my sails." Critics praise the album as a riveting document of one of the best big bands of all time. In 2013, New Yorker critic at large Adam Gopnik called the Ellington recording "his finest." Ellington's friend and scholar - he delivered the eulogy at the bandleader's funeral - noted, "There are few live recordings (of Ellington) any better than this." "Although it must have been pretty routine for this band, this sounds (sic) a really outstanding evening's music making by another standard," Lambert wrote in the album notes. "Dick Burris and Jack Towers certainly did the world a favour when they took their recording machine into the Crystal Ballroom, Fargo North Dakota. For even the Duke Ellington band never sounded like this in the recording studios-not even in 1940!" Burris died in 1971 and never got to see the fruits of his labor be fully appreciated. Towers died in 2010 and in his obituary in the New York Times, Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, called the recording "a milestone in the Ellington recorded literature." The acetate discs are now part of the Smithsonian Institution. "We weren't thinking of anything beyond getting something we'd have a good time with, something to play for our own amazement and enjoyment," Towers told the Washington City Paper in 2001. "But I'll always remember that when we were driving home, ol' Dick said, 'Boy, we probably don't even realize what we've got here.' "FARGO – It was 75 years ago Saturday that Duke Ellington taught Fargo how to swing. Four decades later, an amateur recording from that cold night shared Fargo's lesson with the world. Stashed away in a basement for years before being officially released, the recording is now considered an important look of Ellington and his band at a pivotal period and one of the most significant live jazz recordings of all time. "It was essential Ellington for the era," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington enthusiast, who says the recordings were called "The Holy Grail of jazz." "This was the pinnacle of his brand of jazz. This album says it all," the Fargo man says. A first time for everything On Nov. 7, 1940, Jack Towers was a week shy of his 26th birthday. He got to celebrate early when he and his friend Dick Burris got permission to record Ellington's show that night at the Crystal Ballroom, on the northwest corner of Broadway and First Avenue South. "We had no thoughts other than just the thrill of being there, recording, and having something we could play for our own amazement," Towers told Martin C. Fredricks in a story that ran in The Forum in 1999. "We had no thoughts whatsoever of recording anything that anybody would be listening to 40 or 50 or 60 years down the line." [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116704","attributes":{"alt":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"810","title":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]] The two men were as excited to be recording their idol that night as they were nervous about not necessarily knowing what they were doing. Burris worked with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, in the radio station, and Towers was his counterpart at South Dakota State University. They dragged in a portable turntable that cut the recording into a 33 1/3-rpm acetate-covered aluminum disc measuring 16 inches in diameter. The discs held 15 minutes of music per side, so the amateur engineers would sometimes be forced to swap out the full discs for new ones mid-song. They walked away with nearly three hours of music and over 40 songs played in front of about 700 fans. They used just three microphones but only had about 30 feet of cable, so they had to set up the recording turntable by Ellington's piano. Ellington and his band pulled into the Great Northern Depot (now the Great Northern Bicycle Co.) earlier that day in their own Pullman car, coming down from a show in Winnipeg the night before. Charles Lillibridge of Fargo recalls that the weather that day wasn't exactly welcoming. "There was a heavy snowfall and there was no traffic," he told The Forum in a Neighbors column in June. "They carried all the instruments, music and sound equipment from the Great Northern depot to the Crystal Ballroom behind Wimmer's Jewelry store so they could play that night." In the liner notes for a bootleg version of the concert, "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D.," Eddie Lambert writes that the band "seemed a little tired after the long journey." [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116707","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"985","title":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]] 'A hot night' in November Towers and Burris already had permission to record from Ellington's management and the Crystal Ballroom's owner, Ralph E. "Doc" Chinn, but when they asked the bandleader, he was reluctant. "Duke said, 'Gee, I don't see why you'd want to do that. Our trumpets are in really bad shape,' " Towers told National Public Radio in 1980. Trumpeter Cootie Williams had just left the group after 11 years to play with Benny Goodman. When Towers and Burris learned this, they were disappointed, but that feeling didn't last. Williams' replacement, Ray Nance, was making his debut with Ellington that night in Fargo and would be a suitable replacement for the next 23 years. "When you listen to the recordings, you can tell the trumpets aren't up to scratch, but they're pretty good," Towers said in the 1980 NPR interview. That night's lineup also featured Ellington's main sideman, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and bassist Jimmy Blanton. The latter two were so significant to the sound that the lineup was referred to as the Blanton-Webster band. "The band he had gave him all the big hits through the '30s. He still had the magic with all of these people," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington fan living in Fargo. "After this concert, they took a long break and never really got back together as that band." The setlist included the group's premiere of "Star Dust" as well as standards like "Caravan," and "Sepia Panorama," the outfit's theme song until "Take the 'A' Train" came along two months later. "We weren't really used to recording music. We were used to recording voices, speeches, interviews," Towers told NPR. "When the band hit, we adjusted our levels and hoped for the best." And they got it. During breaks Towers and Burris played the tunes back for the band, which seemed impressed. "One of the stories is that the band listened to these records long into the night," Tschida says. "This was really cool and this was really good music. The quality of music was top shelf. These guys were really right on. It was a hot night." Over the years, Webster would ask for copies of that night, "a sure sign of his own regard for this particular recording," Lambert wrote in the liner notes.
One for the ages While even the band appreciated the recordings, the amateur engineers had promised they would never release what they captured in the Crystal Ballroom that night. The raw material would stay with them, with copies occasionally going to the musicians or to a friend. Through the years, word started to spread and so did bootleg recordings. In the late 1960s, bootlegs started appearing in Sweden. Even the Fargo Public Library acquired copies in 1976. One copy of "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D." remains in the library's North Dakota collection, but does not circulate. A few years after Ellington died in 1974, his family decided to officially release "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940, Live." In 1980, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band. "I couldn't believe it. I couldn't see this 40-year-old recording competing with the top bands in the land right now," Towers told NPR shortly after the win. "It just took the wind out of my sails." Critics praise the album as a riveting document of one of the best big bands of all time. In 2013, New Yorker critic at large Adam Gopnik called the Ellington recording "his finest." Ellington's friend and scholar - he delivered the eulogy at the bandleader's funeral - noted, "There are few live recordings (of Ellington) any better than this." "Although it must have been pretty routine for this band, this sounds (sic) a really outstanding evening's music making by another standard," Lambert wrote in the album notes. "Dick Burris and Jack Towers certainly did the world a favour when they took their recording machine into the Crystal Ballroom, Fargo North Dakota. For even the Duke Ellington band never sounded like this in the recording studios-not even in 1940!" Burris died in 1971 and never got to see the fruits of his labor be fully appreciated. Towers died in 2010 and in his obituary in the New York Times, Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, called the recording "a milestone in the Ellington recorded literature." The acetate discs are now part of the Smithsonian Institution. "We weren't thinking of anything beyond getting something we'd have a good time with, something to play for our own amazement and enjoyment," Towers told the Washington City Paper in 2001. "But I'll always remember that when we were driving home, ol' Dick said, 'Boy, we probably don't even realize what we've got here.' "FARGO – It was 75 years ago Saturday that Duke Ellington taught Fargo how to swing. Four decades later, an amateur recording from that cold night shared Fargo's lesson with the world.Stashed away in a basement for years before being officially released, the recording is now considered an important look of Ellington and his band at a pivotal period and one of the most significant live jazz recordings of all time."It was essential Ellington for the era," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington enthusiast, who says the recordings were called "The Holy Grail of jazz.""This was the pinnacle of his brand of jazz. This album says it all," the Fargo man says.A first time for everythingOn Nov. 7, 1940, Jack Towers was a week shy of his 26th birthday. He got to celebrate early when he and his friend Dick Burris got permission to record Ellington's show that night at the Crystal Ballroom, on the northwest corner of Broadway and First Avenue South."We had no thoughts other than just the thrill of being there, recording, and having something we could play for our own amazement," Towers told Martin C. Fredricks in a story that ran in The Forum in 1999. "We had no thoughts whatsoever of recording anything that anybody would be listening to 40 or 50 or 60 years down the line."
The two men were as excited to be recording their idol that night as they were nervous about not necessarily knowing what they were doing. Burris worked with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, in the radio station, and Towers was his counterpart at South Dakota State University.They dragged in a portable turntable that cut the recording into a 33 1/3-rpm acetate-covered aluminum disc measuring 16 inches in diameter. The discs held 15 minutes of music per side, so the amateur engineers would sometimes be forced to swap out the full discs for new ones mid-song. They walked away with nearly three hours of music and over 40 songs played in front of about 700 fans.They used just three microphones but only had about 30 feet of cable, so they had to set up the recording turntable by Ellington's piano.Ellington and his band pulled into the Great Northern Depot (now the Great Northern Bicycle Co.) earlier that day in their own Pullman car, coming down from a show in Winnipeg the night before.Charles Lillibridge of Fargo recalls that the weather that day wasn't exactly welcoming."There was a heavy snowfall and there was no traffic," he told The Forum in a Neighbors column in June. "They carried all the instruments, music and sound equipment from the Great Northern depot to the Crystal Ballroom behind Wimmer's Jewelry store so they could play that night."In the liner notes for a bootleg version of the concert, "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D.," Eddie Lambert writes that the band "seemed a little tired after the long journey."[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116707","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"985","title":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]]'A hot night' in NovemberTowers and Burris already had permission to record from Ellington's management and the Crystal Ballroom's owner, Ralph E. "Doc" Chinn, but when they asked the bandleader, he was reluctant."Duke said, 'Gee, I don't see why you'd want to do that. Our trumpets are in really bad shape,' " Towers told National Public Radio in 1980.Trumpeter Cootie Williams had just left the group after 11 years to play with Benny Goodman. When Towers and Burris learned this, they were disappointed, but that feeling didn't last. Williams' replacement, Ray Nance, was making his debut with Ellington that night in Fargo and would be a suitable replacement for the next 23 years."When you listen to the recordings, you can tell the trumpets aren't up to scratch, but they're pretty good," Towers said in the 1980 NPR interview.That night's lineup also featured Ellington's main sideman, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and bassist Jimmy Blanton. The latter two were so significant to the sound that the lineup was referred to as the Blanton-Webster band."The band he had gave him all the big hits through the '30s. He still had the magic with all of these people," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington fan living in Fargo. "After this concert, they took a long break and never really got back together as that band."The setlist included the group's premiere of "Star Dust" as well as standards like "Caravan," and "Sepia Panorama," the outfit's theme song until "Take the 'A' Train" came along two months later."We weren't really used to recording music. We were used to recording voices, speeches, interviews," Towers told NPR. "When the band hit, we adjusted our levels and hoped for the best."And they got it. During breaks Towers and Burris played the tunes back for the band, which seemed impressed."One of the stories is that the band listened to these records long into the night," Tschida says. "This was really cool and this was really good music. The quality of music was top shelf. These guys were really right on. It was a hot night."Over the years, Webster would ask for copies of that night, "a sure sign of his own regard for this particular recording," Lambert wrote in the liner notes.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116708","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","class":"media-image","height":"893","title":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","width":"1200"}}]]One for the agesWhile even the band appreciated the recordings, the amateur engineers had promised they would never release what they captured in the Crystal Ballroom that night. The raw material would stay with them, with copies occasionally going to the musicians or to a friend.Through the years, word started to spread and so did bootleg recordings. In the late 1960s, bootlegs started appearing in Sweden. Even the Fargo Public Library acquired copies in 1976. One copy of "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D." remains in the library's North Dakota collection, but does not circulate.A few years after Ellington died in 1974, his family decided to officially release "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940, Live." In 1980, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band."I couldn't believe it. I couldn't see this 40-year-old recording competing with the top bands in the land right now," Towers told NPR shortly after the win. "It just took the wind out of my sails."Critics praise the album as a riveting document of one of the best big bands of all time. In 2013, New Yorker critic at large Adam Gopnik called the Ellington recording "his finest." Ellington's friend and scholar - he delivered the eulogy at the bandleader's funeral - noted, "There are few live recordings (of Ellington) any better than this.""Although it must have been pretty routine for this band, this sounds (sic) a really outstanding evening's music making by another standard," Lambert wrote in the album notes. "Dick Burris and Jack Towers certainly did the world a favour when they took their recording machine into the Crystal Ballroom, Fargo North Dakota. For even the Duke Ellington band never sounded like this in the recording studios-not even in 1940!"Burris died in 1971 and never got to see the fruits of his labor be fully appreciated.Towers died in 2010 and in his obituary in the New York Times, Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, called the recording "a milestone in the Ellington recorded literature."The acetate discs are now part of the Smithsonian Institution."We weren't thinking of anything beyond getting something we'd have a good time with, something to play for our own amazement and enjoyment," Towers told the Washington City Paper in 2001. "But I'll always remember that when we were driving home, ol' Dick said, 'Boy, we probably don't even realize what we've got here.' "FARGO – It was 75 years ago Saturday that Duke Ellington taught Fargo how to swing. Four decades later, an amateur recording from that cold night shared Fargo's lesson with the world.Stashed away in a basement for years before being officially released, the recording is now considered an important look of Ellington and his band at a pivotal period and one of the most significant live jazz recordings of all time."It was essential Ellington for the era," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington enthusiast, who says the recordings were called "The Holy Grail of jazz.""This was the pinnacle of his brand of jazz. This album says it all," the Fargo man says.A first time for everythingOn Nov. 7, 1940, Jack Towers was a week shy of his 26th birthday. He got to celebrate early when he and his friend Dick Burris got permission to record Ellington's show that night at the Crystal Ballroom, on the northwest corner of Broadway and First Avenue South."We had no thoughts other than just the thrill of being there, recording, and having something we could play for our own amazement," Towers told Martin C. Fredricks in a story that ran in The Forum in 1999. "We had no thoughts whatsoever of recording anything that anybody would be listening to 40 or 50 or 60 years down the line."[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116704","attributes":{"alt":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"810","title":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]]The two men were as excited to be recording their idol that night as they were nervous about not necessarily knowing what they were doing. Burris worked with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, in the radio station, and Towers was his counterpart at South Dakota State University.They dragged in a portable turntable that cut the recording into a 33 1/3-rpm acetate-covered aluminum disc measuring 16 inches in diameter. The discs held 15 minutes of music per side, so the amateur engineers would sometimes be forced to swap out the full discs for new ones mid-song. They walked away with nearly three hours of music and over 40 songs played in front of about 700 fans.They used just three microphones but only had about 30 feet of cable, so they had to set up the recording turntable by Ellington's piano.Ellington and his band pulled into the Great Northern Depot (now the Great Northern Bicycle Co.) earlier that day in their own Pullman car, coming down from a show in Winnipeg the night before.Charles Lillibridge of Fargo recalls that the weather that day wasn't exactly welcoming."There was a heavy snowfall and there was no traffic," he told The Forum in a Neighbors column in June. "They carried all the instruments, music and sound equipment from the Great Northern depot to the Crystal Ballroom behind Wimmer's Jewelry store so they could play that night."In the liner notes for a bootleg version of the concert, "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D.," Eddie Lambert writes that the band "seemed a little tired after the long journey."
'A hot night' in NovemberTowers and Burris already had permission to record from Ellington's management and the Crystal Ballroom's owner, Ralph E. "Doc" Chinn, but when they asked the bandleader, he was reluctant."Duke said, 'Gee, I don't see why you'd want to do that. Our trumpets are in really bad shape,' " Towers told National Public Radio in 1980.Trumpeter Cootie Williams had just left the group after 11 years to play with Benny Goodman. When Towers and Burris learned this, they were disappointed, but that feeling didn't last. Williams' replacement, Ray Nance, was making his debut with Ellington that night in Fargo and would be a suitable replacement for the next 23 years."When you listen to the recordings, you can tell the trumpets aren't up to scratch, but they're pretty good," Towers said in the 1980 NPR interview.That night's lineup also featured Ellington's main sideman, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and bassist Jimmy Blanton. The latter two were so significant to the sound that the lineup was referred to as the Blanton-Webster band."The band he had gave him all the big hits through the '30s. He still had the magic with all of these people," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington fan living in Fargo. "After this concert, they took a long break and never really got back together as that band."The setlist included the group's premiere of "Star Dust" as well as standards like "Caravan," and "Sepia Panorama," the outfit's theme song until "Take the 'A' Train" came along two months later."We weren't really used to recording music. We were used to recording voices, speeches, interviews," Towers told NPR. "When the band hit, we adjusted our levels and hoped for the best."And they got it. During breaks Towers and Burris played the tunes back for the band, which seemed impressed."One of the stories is that the band listened to these records long into the night," Tschida says. "This was really cool and this was really good music. The quality of music was top shelf. These guys were really right on. It was a hot night."Over the years, Webster would ask for copies of that night, "a sure sign of his own regard for this particular recording," Lambert wrote in the liner notes.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116708","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","class":"media-image","height":"893","title":"Duke Ellington's big band, photographed by Jack Towers, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of the NDSU Archives.","width":"1200"}}]]One for the agesWhile even the band appreciated the recordings, the amateur engineers had promised they would never release what they captured in the Crystal Ballroom that night. The raw material would stay with them, with copies occasionally going to the musicians or to a friend.Through the years, word started to spread and so did bootleg recordings. In the late 1960s, bootlegs started appearing in Sweden. Even the Fargo Public Library acquired copies in 1976. One copy of "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D." remains in the library's North Dakota collection, but does not circulate.A few years after Ellington died in 1974, his family decided to officially release "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940, Live." In 1980, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band."I couldn't believe it. I couldn't see this 40-year-old recording competing with the top bands in the land right now," Towers told NPR shortly after the win. "It just took the wind out of my sails."Critics praise the album as a riveting document of one of the best big bands of all time. In 2013, New Yorker critic at large Adam Gopnik called the Ellington recording "his finest." Ellington's friend and scholar - he delivered the eulogy at the bandleader's funeral - noted, "There are few live recordings (of Ellington) any better than this.""Although it must have been pretty routine for this band, this sounds (sic) a really outstanding evening's music making by another standard," Lambert wrote in the album notes. "Dick Burris and Jack Towers certainly did the world a favour when they took their recording machine into the Crystal Ballroom, Fargo North Dakota. For even the Duke Ellington band never sounded like this in the recording studios-not even in 1940!"Burris died in 1971 and never got to see the fruits of his labor be fully appreciated.Towers died in 2010 and in his obituary in the New York Times, Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, called the recording "a milestone in the Ellington recorded literature."The acetate discs are now part of the Smithsonian Institution."We weren't thinking of anything beyond getting something we'd have a good time with, something to play for our own amazement and enjoyment," Towers told the Washington City Paper in 2001. "But I'll always remember that when we were driving home, ol' Dick said, 'Boy, we probably don't even realize what we've got here.' "FARGO – It was 75 years ago Saturday that Duke Ellington taught Fargo how to swing. Four decades later, an amateur recording from that cold night shared Fargo's lesson with the world.Stashed away in a basement for years before being officially released, the recording is now considered an important look of Ellington and his band at a pivotal period and one of the most significant live jazz recordings of all time."It was essential Ellington for the era," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington enthusiast, who says the recordings were called "The Holy Grail of jazz.""This was the pinnacle of his brand of jazz. This album says it all," the Fargo man says.A first time for everythingOn Nov. 7, 1940, Jack Towers was a week shy of his 26th birthday. He got to celebrate early when he and his friend Dick Burris got permission to record Ellington's show that night at the Crystal Ballroom, on the northwest corner of Broadway and First Avenue South."We had no thoughts other than just the thrill of being there, recording, and having something we could play for our own amazement," Towers told Martin C. Fredricks in a story that ran in The Forum in 1999. "We had no thoughts whatsoever of recording anything that anybody would be listening to 40 or 50 or 60 years down the line."[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116704","attributes":{"alt":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"810","title":"The old Fargo Armory on Broadway and First Avenue, South, which housed the Crystal Ballroom. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]]The two men were as excited to be recording their idol that night as they were nervous about not necessarily knowing what they were doing. Burris worked with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, in the radio station, and Towers was his counterpart at South Dakota State University.They dragged in a portable turntable that cut the recording into a 33 1/3-rpm acetate-covered aluminum disc measuring 16 inches in diameter. The discs held 15 minutes of music per side, so the amateur engineers would sometimes be forced to swap out the full discs for new ones mid-song. They walked away with nearly three hours of music and over 40 songs played in front of about 700 fans.They used just three microphones but only had about 30 feet of cable, so they had to set up the recording turntable by Ellington's piano.Ellington and his band pulled into the Great Northern Depot (now the Great Northern Bicycle Co.) earlier that day in their own Pullman car, coming down from a show in Winnipeg the night before.Charles Lillibridge of Fargo recalls that the weather that day wasn't exactly welcoming."There was a heavy snowfall and there was no traffic," he told The Forum in a Neighbors column in June. "They carried all the instruments, music and sound equipment from the Great Northern depot to the Crystal Ballroom behind Wimmer's Jewelry store so they could play that night."In the liner notes for a bootleg version of the concert, "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D.," Eddie Lambert writes that the band "seemed a little tired after the long journey."[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"2116707","attributes":{"alt":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","class":"media-image","height":"985","title":"Duke Ellington signs autographs at Fargo's Crystal Ballroom, Nov. 7, 1940. Photo courtesy of NDSU archives.","width":"1200"}}]]'A hot night' in NovemberTowers and Burris already had permission to record from Ellington's management and the Crystal Ballroom's owner, Ralph E. "Doc" Chinn, but when they asked the bandleader, he was reluctant."Duke said, 'Gee, I don't see why you'd want to do that. Our trumpets are in really bad shape,' " Towers told National Public Radio in 1980.Trumpeter Cootie Williams had just left the group after 11 years to play with Benny Goodman. When Towers and Burris learned this, they were disappointed, but that feeling didn't last. Williams' replacement, Ray Nance, was making his debut with Ellington that night in Fargo and would be a suitable replacement for the next 23 years."When you listen to the recordings, you can tell the trumpets aren't up to scratch, but they're pretty good," Towers said in the 1980 NPR interview.That night's lineup also featured Ellington's main sideman, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, tenor saxophonist Ben Webster and bassist Jimmy Blanton. The latter two were so significant to the sound that the lineup was referred to as the Blanton-Webster band."The band he had gave him all the big hits through the '30s. He still had the magic with all of these people," says Steve Tschida, an Ellington fan living in Fargo. "After this concert, they took a long break and never really got back together as that band."The setlist included the group's premiere of "Star Dust" as well as standards like "Caravan," and "Sepia Panorama," the outfit's theme song until "Take the 'A' Train" came along two months later."We weren't really used to recording music. We were used to recording voices, speeches, interviews," Towers told NPR. "When the band hit, we adjusted our levels and hoped for the best."And they got it. During breaks Towers and Burris played the tunes back for the band, which seemed impressed."One of the stories is that the band listened to these records long into the night," Tschida says. "This was really cool and this was really good music. The quality of music was top shelf. These guys were really right on. It was a hot night."Over the years, Webster would ask for copies of that night, "a sure sign of his own regard for this particular recording," Lambert wrote in the liner notes.
One for the agesWhile even the band appreciated the recordings, the amateur engineers had promised they would never release what they captured in the Crystal Ballroom that night. The raw material would stay with them, with copies occasionally going to the musicians or to a friend.Through the years, word started to spread and so did bootleg recordings. In the late 1960s, bootlegs started appearing in Sweden. Even the Fargo Public Library acquired copies in 1976. One copy of "The Duke 1940: 'Live' from the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, N.D." remains in the library's North Dakota collection, but does not circulate.A few years after Ellington died in 1974, his family decided to officially release "Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940, Live." In 1980, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band."I couldn't believe it. I couldn't see this 40-year-old recording competing with the top bands in the land right now," Towers told NPR shortly after the win. "It just took the wind out of my sails."Critics praise the album as a riveting document of one of the best big bands of all time. In 2013, New Yorker critic at large Adam Gopnik called the Ellington recording "his finest." Ellington's friend and scholar - he delivered the eulogy at the bandleader's funeral - noted, "There are few live recordings (of Ellington) any better than this.""Although it must have been pretty routine for this band, this sounds (sic) a really outstanding evening's music making by another standard," Lambert wrote in the album notes. "Dick Burris and Jack Towers certainly did the world a favour when they took their recording machine into the Crystal Ballroom, Fargo North Dakota. For even the Duke Ellington band never sounded like this in the recording studios-not even in 1940!"Burris died in 1971 and never got to see the fruits of his labor be fully appreciated.Towers died in 2010 and in his obituary in the New York Times, Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, called the recording "a milestone in the Ellington recorded literature."The acetate discs are now part of the Smithsonian Institution."We weren't thinking of anything beyond getting something we'd have a good time with, something to play for our own amazement and enjoyment," Towers told the Washington City Paper in 2001. "But I'll always remember that when we were driving home, ol' Dick said, 'Boy, we probably don't even realize what we've got here.' "
