Sound & Story of Duke Ellington's Musical “Jump for Joy” from WFIU

[Jump for Joy: The Genius of Duke Ellington; Tko Collectors (2002)]

“Night Lights” is the blog of WFIU, Public Radio at Indiana University:

The inspiration came from a late-night party, a convergence of Hollywood glamour and nascent civil-rights activism with one of America’s greatest jazz orchestras. In the summer of 1941, as Americans warily regarded a world war that seemed to be edging ever closer to their shores, Duke Ellington staged what he would later call “the first ’social significance’ show,” Jump for Joy. Jump for Joy was an all-black musical revue that Ellington said “would take Uncle Tom out of the theater and say things that would make the audience think.” It featured the Ellington orchestra in its so-called “Blanton-Webster” years, playing at the peak of its powers, and up-and-coming African-American performers such as the actress Dorothy Dandridge, the blues singer Big Joe Turner, and the comedian Wonderful Smith. The poet Langston Hughes contributed a sketch entitled “Mad Scene From Woolworth’s,” and Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn took a significant hand in scoring the show. Full Post