Jazz Reviews : Yokoyama Faithful to Duke With Mercer Ellington

Imagine an Ellington orchestra in which the artist at the piano is neither black nor American, and not even male. That is how it was Friday in Beckman Auditorium at CalTech when the petite Shizuko Yokoyama, at the keyboard in Mercer Ellington’s band, played her amazingly faithful replication of the Duke’s original introductory chorus to “Rockin’ in Rhythm.”

Just back from a five-week tour of Japan, the orchestra gave a generally splendid account of itself in a program that balanced old chestnuts (often in new arrangements) and less familiar material.

It was variously stimulating and unsettling to hear famous solos assigned to musicians who were infants or unborn when the Duke Ellington orchestra was in its original glory.

After intermission, Mercer turned to some of his own music. Two movements from his new suite “Music Is My Mistress” displayed his personal skill without leaning too much on the orchestral devices of his father.

If, to quote an Ellington title, things ain’t what they used to be, it could well be that this is precisely what Mercer had in mind and, it is safe to assume, the way Duke himself would have wanted it.