Duke Ellington
“A Piece of Contemporary Music”
FZ: Now, boys and girls . . . Yes, of course. [...]. Alright. We were rehearsing downstairs in the—they have a little dungeon down there where they keep the uh, the help and, uh, some of our rehearsal might have accidently leaked up through the air conditioning system during the prelude to our program. What we were doing was experimenting around with combinations of woodwind instruments, you know, because we wanted to give a world premiere of a piece of contemporary music here tonight but the only fitting . .
Howard: Albert Ayler, ladies and gentlemen!
FZ: Oh . . . this is gonna be so wretched . . . Now, some of these fellows know how to play the instruments and some of them don't. Guess who's who. Ha ha ha . . . They'll pass among you and you can vote on them
: "Caravan"!
: Aynsley Dunbar, ladies and gentlemen!
Howard: Now let's get him out here
FZ: [...] Dick Barber, ladies and gentlemen!
: Go on, Dick
FZ: The name of this song is "The Return Of The Hunchback Duke."
: [...]
FZ: "The Return Of The Hunchback Duke" is a combination of various things from old records. There's some stuff from Burnt Weeny Sandwich, mostly from side two, "Little House I Used To Live In," and it ends with "Cruising For Burgers" from the Uncle Meat record. Oh, you already know how it goes, we won't even play it
Howard: Sing along, won't you
FZ: Ready?
: Yeah
FZ: One, two, three, one, two . .