There used to be chat round Sandy Bell’s and in trad circles to the effect that Duke Ellington once claimed that there are only two kinds of music that swing: American jazz and Scottish dance music. Everybody liked that but there was some haziness about the origin of the quote. I think this might be it, from an interview in the Sunday Post in July 1933.
“There is an inherent feeling for wild music in Scottish nature, and there is a definite relationship between the rhythms of reels and the Highland fling and the music I play.”
He was due to play the Glasgow Empire the night after the interview came out, so he may have been hedging his bets…
From David Francis on Facebook.