We are in 1958 in some venue somewhere. The conditions are always about the same
as in Sidekick's Philosophy #1. In four
years from now, the conditions will still be about the same also. The marvelous
orchestra in which Paul GONSALVES and Russell PROCOPE have the honor to play will
then (1962) have the opportunity to perform in a semi-promotional motion picture
titled GOODYEAR JAZZ CONCERT: DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA. A certain number of
shots will then be extracted from that movie and circulated for advertising. One of
these shots shows the orchestra on the film set-up, in the mist of a performance.
Everybody is very elegantly dressed in white suits (except the Duke, who is in black).
The attention is quickly caught by that enumerative listing of the musicians
present, one usually sees underneath such group photographs. Under that specific
picture, it reads as follows:
Above: Ellington, Jimmy Hamilton (cl), and Harold Baker (tp) in front. In
the back (l.-r.): Sam Woodyard (dm), Aaron Bell (b), Paul Gonsalves (obscured),
Ed Mullen (tp), Johnny Hodges (as), Chuck Connors (tb), Bill Berry (tp),
Lawrence Brown (tb), Russell Procope (obscured), Cat Anderson, Ray Nance (tp),
Leon Cox (tb), Harry Carney (bar)
In other words, on that crucial picture, Paul GONSALVES and Russell PROCOPE, the
two protagonists of the current philosophical dialogues, are obscured.
Of course it could simply mean that the shot was considered good, was kept, and
was edited despite the fact that these two sidemen where not visible on it,
being hidden by the other musicians. But one could also argue that that (quite
minor) fact has a more universal significance. What if Paul GONSALVES and
Russell PROCOPE are obscured per se, i.e. simply because they are the
lowly successors and/or accompanists of more renowned musicians, such as Ben
WEBSTER, Barney BIGARD, Johnny HODGES?. What if these more renowned musicians
are themselves nothing other than the modest, dependent, and transitory creatures
of an eminent director who is the major figure of so-called Mainstream Jazz? What
if that eminent director himself, despite his importance and originality, eventually
lost the vivid elements of his creativity by 1947, but continued to pile up
compositions and concerts until his death in 1974? Consequently, what if this
musical genius, Duke ELLINGTON, is unavoidably considered today as just
one figure in one of the multiple streams of that complex style of music
called Jazz? And what if Jazz itself is a strictly 20th century faded
musical mode of expression, slowly dying out, just as the millennium itself, and
already totally outdated in the raging furry of the cascade of contemporary music?
What if Music itself is just one among the countless fields of activities in which
human existence is engaged? What if human existence is just a limited, tiny and
minuscule feature of the polymorphic movement of the totality of the Cosmos? What
if the number of cosmos is infinite, in that huge Universe? Wouldn't we have here
some very serious reasons for infinitesimal sidekicks
such as Paul GONSALVES and Russell PROCOPE to end up obscured in, let say,
the broader picture? Whatever the answer, that does not stop them, back on that
evening of 1958 somewhere on a stage of the Western World, from philosophizing
freely and casually as they usually do, at what they ironically call ragtime,
namely that precious and transcendent moment when they ostentatiously rag their
instruments before the beginning of the gig.
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