In 1939, two cooperative extension service workers and former South Dakota State College students, Jack Towers and Richard Burris, sought permission from the William Morris Agency representing Duke Ellington to record an upcoming concert in Fargo, North Dakota.[2] Permission was granted to the two Ellington fans provided they receive permission from Ellington and the venue's manager before the show.[2]
The show was held on 7 November 1940 at the Crystal Ballroom on the second floor of the Fargo City Auditorium at the corner of First Avenue South and Broadway.[2] (The building was demolished in 1962).[2] The concert was a dance, a normal venue for jazz bands at that time but an unusual setting for a live recording, most of which would have been made of concerts, nightclubs, or radio broadcasts.[3] The Crystal Ballroom featured a glass ball two feet in diameter hanging from the ceiling that reflected the dancehall's lights.[2]
Recording
The original recording of At Fargo was effectively an amateur,[4] bootleg recording, albeit approved.[2] The recording equipment included a Presto portable turntable that cut the recording into 16-inch, 331⁄3-rpmacetate-covered aluminum disks.[2][5][6] The recording turntable was set up next to Ellington's piano.[2] Five and one-half of six disks with a recording capacity of 15 minutes per side were used in the recording. A Fargo radio station, KVOX (now KVXR), broadcast part of the show live.[2]
Trumpeter Ray Nance had recently joined the band after Cootie Williams had left to play with Benny Goodman[3][4] and, the night of the concert, Ellington told Towers that his trumpet section was in "rough shape".[5] The concert included the first performance of "Star Dust" by the band as a whole.[2] After the show, Towers and Burris played parts of the recording for Ellington and his bandmates.[5]
Jack Towers later said, "When Dick and I recorded this Fargo performance, we did it just for the excitement and pleasure of it all. We had no idea that people all over the world would be listening to it 60 years later."[7]
Jack Towers was interviewed in 1980 for NPR's Morning Edition, following receiving the Grammy Award.[8]
Later history
Burris and Towers had promised the William Morris Agency not to use the live recording for commercial purposes and it was heard only from the original disks until the 1960s. Towers dubbed a tape for an acquaintance and subsequent copies eventually appeared as a bootleg in Europe.[2]
Towers was in charge of radio broadcasting at the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1952 to 1974 but remastering recordings remained a hobby and became a career after his retirement.[5]
In the 1970s, Towers made a reproduction of the recording from areas of the groove that were less worn.[2] In 1978, Towers' master of At Fargo was finally officially released by Book-of-the-Month Records as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.[2]
The album was released on three LP records by Book-of-the Month Records as Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940. The record sides were sequenced for use with a record changer (1/6, 2/5, 3/4). This version was also issued with different cover art as Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live by Jazz Heritage. Since the album was released in 1978, it has been reissued in varying combinations with different album covers.
In 1990, the first digital release of the concert (on two CDs) was by Vintage Jazz.[9] On 23 July 1996, these discs were released again as Fargo 1940 on Jazz Classics. On 3 April 2001, another CD release with additional tracks was made on Storyville as The Duke at Fargo, 1940: Special 60th Anniversary Edition.[4] Both CDs of this release were also included in Storyville's 2006 eight-CD box set, The Duke Box as discs two & three. In 2002, a two-CD release similar to the Storyville one was made on Definitive as the Complete Legendary Fargo Concert.[10]
Allmusic.com reviewer Scott Yanow posits that "there was no better orchestra at the time, and rarely since".[9]JazzTimes writer Harvey Siders says, "the real star, of course, is the band, with its organized chaos, its sophistication, its jungle heat, its ability to respond to the improvisational genius of Duke".[13] A Storyville Records reviewer argues "the Fargo performance still resonates as one of the greatest concert recordings in all of jazz, on a par with Benny Goodman at Carnegie, Coltrane at the Vanguard, or Ellington at Newport in 1956".[14]The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album four stars, its maximum rating, plus a special "crown" rating.[12]
From right: Lawrence Brown, Harry Carney, Juan Tizol, Tricky Sam Nanton, Sonny Greer, Ben Webster, Wallace Jones, Ray Nance, Otto Hardwick, Rex Stewart, Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard; photograph taken at the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, North Dakota, November 7, 1940, by Jack Towers
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