Music is everywhere this time of year: familiar carols, seasonal favorites and traditional songs of Christmas. Among the melodies are invariably selections from Tchaikovsky, especially his Nutcracker Suite—a series of dances he wrote in 1892 for a ballet to be called The Nutcracker, but first performed as a series of musical numbers, a suite.
Flash forward almost seven decades. Duke Ellington’s big-band style had fallen on hard times, usurped after the war by smaller bebop combos and, later, rock music. But in 1956, Duke was born again—“That was his words,” said Marcus Shelby, a composer, educator and bandleader—when the Duke Ellington Orchestra played at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival and overwhelmed the audience.
That rousing performance led to a new recording contract with Columbia Records, first with Ellington at Newport, and later a string of “suites” co-authored with Billie Strayhorn, his creative partner since the 1930s. Among them was The Nutcracker Suite, credited to Ellington, Strayhorn and Tchaikovsky, released in 1960.
Now widely known as The Harlem Nutcracker, it was one of several suites Ellington and Strayhorn wrote for Columbia, as well as film scores and other work. “One of the things that he and Columbia Records talked about was him and Billy Strayhorn doing a sort of Nutcracker Suite” just in time for the Christmas 1960 record-selling season, Shelby said.
Their jazzy rendition was a hit, and a seasonal concert staple was born. Certainly part of the success was due to the universal familiarity with the melodies—“The March,” the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, “Waltz of the Flowers”—but in a different musical context.
“Most people know these popular themes in Tchaikovsky, because you know, they shove it down our throat every Christmas, right?” Shelby said. “And so you know these themes. And so most people immediately can relate to the music.
“But then when you hear the saxophone playing it,” he added, “or the drummers using their hands to create this mood or the plunger [mute] trumpet; then you’re like, ‘Wow!’”
Holiday Suites
Shelby has written several musical suites of his own, usually on more political or social themes: About Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman, and A Prison Oratorio, among others. But for this concert, Shelby is not in his educator, grandstanding mode—he’s leaving that to the music, and Healdsburg Jazz’s longstanding poet in residence, Enid Pickett.
“She’s written a nice opus about The Nutcracker Suite,” Shelby said. “I don’t talk a lot because we have her set up certain things, [with] short poems that kind of segue [between] certain sections.”
The Nutcracker Suite—or to give it its full title for this concert, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Harlem Nutcracker Suite—runs about 40 minutes, from the original score the two composers created in 1960. Though it is the Dec. 21 concert centerpiece, it’s not the only music performed that Sunday night.
Before and After
The Healdsburg Jazz Youth Ensemble, composed of high-school musicians from the music nonprofit’s performing arts camp, will open the evening show with two songs before The Harlem Nutcracker gets underway.
The concluding piece of music picks up where Ellington leaves off, a series of holiday music from around the world arranged by Shelby and vocalist Tiffany Austin, a key voice in much of his recent work. Included is material from Japan, South Africa and the United States, rearranged for a quintet instead of an orchestra, as a “Holidays in Healdsburg” performance.
One of the songs will be a piece that Shelby and Austin co-wrote, “Kwanzaa Time,” for the Black cultural celebration during the week following Christmas. A toy drive will also be included with the night’s performance, co-sponsored by Healdsburg Jazz and the Raven Performing Arts Theater.
But there’s no doubt The Harlem Nutcracker will be the centerpiece of the concert, if not the season. “I’ve played this piece so many times, I’ve listened to it even more and I never get tired of it. Even if we only play it during the holidays; but I tell you, you could play this music anytime of the year,” enthused Shelby.
“It swings so hard. It’s so well written. The orchestration is so beautiful and it’s sublime. It’s such a wonderful suite of music,” he added. He acknowledged that he has played it frequently—most recently with the New World Ballet at Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park, just last week.
And the night after the Raven concert, the Marcus Shelby Orchestra will give a repeat performance for SFJazz in San Francisco, again featuring Tiffany Austin. It’s become an annual concert that Shelby and his orchestra never weary of performing.
“Every musician loves it, whether they play it a lot or not, young or old,” he said. “I never get tired of it.”
Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Harlem Nutcracker Suite’ will be performed once only on Saturday, Dec. 21, 7pm at the Raven Theater, 115 North St. Tickets $25 to $100 at healdsburgjazz.org.
