Duke Ellington's East St. Louis Toddle-O Revisited

“East St. Louis Toodle-O” is probably the only Ellington composition which displays Ellington's mode of reworking and modernizing a work over the course of forty-five years, largely through a process of accommodating the individual characters of the different stylists he had at his disposal at different moments in time. In its first two arrangements, the composition reflects Ellington's rise to success in an exemplary fashion. The first arrangement (recorded for the first time on Vocalion) reveals how “East St. Louis” was instrumental for Ellington in shaping a unique musical style that would later be exploited by Irving Mills as “jungle music.” It is also the first Ellington composition in which he had proven himself to be a serious contender within the highly competitive Manhattan “hot jazz” scene. “East St. Louis” may well be one of the few compositions (along with “Black and Tan Fantasy” and “Immigration Blues”) that allowed him and his band to cease their engagements at the Kentucky Club and move uptown to Harlem. The second arrangement (Victor) is a testament to Ellington's music during the early days of his tenure at the Cotton Club. The third arrangement (Diva and Velvet Tone) reflects the band's expanding, growing proficiency. After Bubber Miley's discharge—the soloist of “East St. Louis”—and with the steady enlargement of the orchestra, Ellington was faced with the need to write a new arrangement, reflecting the taste and style of the early 1930s. With the beginning of the new decade, “East St. Louis” was primarily used as the band's signature tune, in its abbreviated form. The fourth arrangement under the title “The New East St. Louis Toodle-O,” recorded in 1937 on Mill's Master Records label, echoes the innovative features of the swing idiom. In the fifth arrangement, presented at the Carnegie Hall concert in 1947, Ellington displays solid skill in adapting the composition to the prerequisites of the post-bebop and pre-cool jazz era. Finally in the sixth arrangement (Bethlehem Records, 1956), Ellington presents “East St. Louis” through a distant, ironic filter, as a self-reflective retrospective of his early work. From 1956 to the end of his career, “East St. Louis” played a marginal role in the band's repertoire.