Duke Ellington and Stephane Grappelli

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Although Duke Ellington and Stephane Grappelli were certainly aware of each other and the violinist played some of Duke’s songs for decades, they rarely ever performed together.

Grappelli was part of the 1963 album Duke Ellington’s Jazz Violin session along with Svend Asmussen and Ray Nance, but otherwise he never recorded with Ellington.

So this film clip is a bit of a surprise, featuring the two as a duo for a telecast in Jan. 1973.

Ellington and Grappelli perform a medley consisting of “Solitude,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” “I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart” and “It Don’t Mean A Thing.”

It never happened again, making this a unique and historic encounter.

-Scott Yanow

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