Skillipoop
Duke Ellington and Shakespeare
1964
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Duke Ellington once defined the slang term “skillipoop” as “like the word ‘jive,’” adding that it’s “trying to make what you’re doing look better than what you’re supposed to be doing.'” And he titled this song such.
As of this performance, it had been a year since the Stratford Shakespeare Festival – of Stratford, Ontario – commissioned Ellington to compose it, which was among “incidental music” for their first production of “Timon of Athens.”
Thelonious Monk