Alert the Ducal Detectives

Here is the first outing for an---up until then--- otherwise never-recorded Duke Ellington composition "Champagne Oasis." It was retrofitted with lyrics by Johnny Burke to become "A Hundred Dreams From Now." Sung by Jane Harvey. Although the label doesn't say so, this is obviously the Ellington band as "directed by Billy Strayhorn." Recorded circa 1959. Jane also recalls, from around the same period, recording at least part of an album in Chicago with the band, Ellington and Strayhorn all on board for the occasion. She recalls: singing "Just a-Sittin' and a-Rockin," doing a duet with Ray Nance, and also a version of Duke's "The Sky Fell Down," to which she added her own lyrics. But Harvey has no knowledge of whatever happened to the results of the sessions. Not exactly the Ellington equivalent of von Stroheim's complete Greed; still, it would be nice if those tapes were to surface. The flipside of this Signature label single # 12007 is "I'm Gonna Go Fishin'"