Duke Ellington in Isfahan (short documentary | 2021)

Synopsis


This short documentary by writer and archivist Ehsan Khoshbakht tells the story of Duke Ellington's concert tour of the Middle East in 1963 and the development of one of the most beautiful jazz standards.



Credits:

Cast: Duke Ellington, Alyn Shipton

Writer, director, producer: Ehsan Khoshbakht
Editor: Babak Salek
Animation: Niyaz Saghari
Featuring: Alyn Shipton




Director's statement:

"This film was made in a very short time, reflecting the nature of the TV programme for which it was produced. Although it was a quickie, my association with the subject began seven years earlier when I did some research on Duke Ellington's famous tour of 1963, which led to a post on my jazz blog, Take the "A" Train. With the help of the BBC archive, I was able to illustrate that incredible journey. The original idea, however, was to approach people in every country where Ellington had performed during the tour (some of them now deadly zones of conflict) to shoot a scene for me, as a collective meditation on the Near East that the Duke recorded in his Far East Suite. That didn't happen but I still managed to document this fascinating episode in the best way I could."

Statement by Alyn Shipton:

"I have had a fascination about US State Department jazz tours for many years after my research for my biography of Dizzy Gillespie. The 1963 Ellington tour is doubly fascinating, not just for the venues played, but for its curtailment owing to President Kennedy’s assassination and the curtailment of Ellington’s concerts. But what survives is a treasure."

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