Discover Jump for Joy

[maiki]

Continuing the discussion from Just Squeeze Me (But Please Don't Tease Me):

@maiki

In 1941 Duke Ellington’s Orchestra was in Los Angeles, and, according to biographer James Lincoln Collier in Duke Ellington , during a jam session at the home of Hollywood songwriter Sid Kuller, the idea for a Negro revue was born. The idea was to celebrate the banishment of Jim Crow and Uncle Tom by eliminating all stereotypes from the show.

In Reminiscing in Tempo: A Portrait of Duke Ellington author Stuart Nicholson quotes Ellington as saying, “Fifteen Hollywood writers and I did Jump for Joy .” The show opened on July 10, 1941, at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles. The material was clever, the performances by such stars as Dorothy Dandridge, Ivie Anderson, Herb Jeffries, and Joe Turner (his first time out of Kansas City) were sophisticated, and the wonderful Duke Ellington Orchestra was in the pit. The songs included “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good,” “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Rocks in My Bed,” and an instrumental, “Subtle Slough,” which Ellington played on stage and which became “Just Squeeze Me, Don’t Tease Me” when Lee Gaines added the lyric.

Despite the show’s quality it closed after only 12 weeks and 101 performances. According to David Hajdu in his biography of Billy Strayhorn, Lush Life , black audiences loved it, but white critics didn’t: “They didn’t know what to make of it.” James Lincoln Collier further explains, “…The mass of Americans were simply not ready for a show of ‘social significance,’ as the phrase went, promoting the idea that blacks were as good as anybody else.”

I’d very much like to read this show. Let’s find out more about it!