Iowa Public Television

Betty Jean (BJ) Furgerson's Memories

I met Duke Ellington in early winter 1947 or 1948 at a party given for the Ellington band following a concert at the U of Iowa.

Early that fall the band had given a concert at ISTC (UNI). Because they had several open dates, they stayed on campus. They had met all of my family but me. I was in Iowa City.

Ellington and some band members remembered that when I brought the subject up.

This was the beginning of my family going to hear them whenever they played dances and concerts in the eastern half of Iowa. We also went to Chicago every June and December when they played their usual two-week runs at the Blue Note.

Whenever they played in Cedar Falls or Waterloo, we always had them at our house for dinner. I learned they came to those dinners because we only had family members other than band members. They knew they did not have to be on stage and/or talk or be the entertainment. They could relax!

We always fixed soul food - fried chicken and/or roast beef or pork, greens - mustard or collards, corn bread, macaroni and cheese, baked potatoes, soft and alcoholic drinks, coffee and tea. For Ellington we always fixed broiled steak, baked potato and salad. We had learned he had developed the habit of eating those dishes in the days of segregation (whether he was eating breakfast, lunch or dinner). Because of difficulty in finding places to eat in those days he knew it might be his only meal of the day unless they were in a city where African Americans had restaurants.

Harry Carney who joined the band when he was 16, was a member of the band the greatest number of years. Harry liked to drive and Ellington preferred the peace and lack of strain that went with not riding on the bus with the band. This arrangement made it possible for Ellington to write, think and not bother with hassles. Later - in the early 60's - Mercer Ellington became his father's road manager and he took a great deal of pressure off his father.

We learned from Harry, John Sanders, Clark Terry, Jimmie Woode, Jimmie Hamilton, Russell Procope and other band members that when Ellington mentioned Iowa in interviews, he was often thinking of our family.

We also were sent itineraries from his office in New York so we always knew where the band was.

Ellington was highly individualist. He read the bible everyday - easy to do when you are staying in hotels/motels. Because of his upbringing and his growing consciousness of morality, he wrote his sacred concerts. One night after a concert at Drake - the band had flown into Detroit from Europe and came by chartered bus to Des Moines. Ellington asked my brother, Lee, if we could take him where they could rent a car. After the concert as the bus and band when to Kansas City for the next engagement, we went to D.M. airport, picked up a car and then went to Frankie's and Johnnie's so they could get dinner. It was Ellington's birthday! But he spent the evening talking about the sacred concert he was currently working on, the concepts he had based on the biblical verses, etc.

Billy Strayhorn died in the late 60's - before I went to graduate school because I was able to attend the benefit concert at Lincoln Center given to raise money for a Strayhorn Scholarship at Julliard. Something in this period seemed to spur Ellington's creativity!

Ellington was a genius. I last saw him at a concert he played in Iowa about 6 months before he died. He had not been well for a time and limited who could see him following a concert. Also, his best friend and doctor, Arthur Logan, had been murdered in N.C. a year or less before. I felt Ellington would not live much longer.

The concert was in Rockford, Iowa! I fried 7 chickens, baked several spice cakes and pound cakes, buttered some loaves of bread and fixed celery & carrot sticks. We - my mom, Clark Terry, who had been visiting us at the time, and I took the food to them. They went to Ames after this concert so I knew they would see Penny and Lee. Lee told me they were so grateful because there was no restaurant open.

God really blessed me by making it possible for me to know a truly great and unique person.

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