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Frank Leigh Dearie heard a seriously good musician talking on the radio some years back. His Picadilly lover was in the room too. Mr. Piccadilly recorded the incident in his diary thus:
Said musician was talking about watching both Count Basie and Duke
Ellington with their bands. He said that he'd seen Basie wave his arms wide
at the end of a number and heard the band hit an amazing, unbelievably
complex chord in response; he'd been astounded at the _clarity_ of it – he
could tell exactly what note each and every single member of the (big) band
was playing. This was impressive shit as you may imagine.
Then he saw Ellington. The Duke flicked his little fingers at the band. And
our musician heard a glorious, unique sound – and this was a chord he could
not begin to disentangle; he had no idea who was playing what (let alone why) but the effect was simply transendence."
Frank objected to the spelling error, but he thought everything else was just fine.
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