Night in Tunisia

[mhatta]

Since Sarah Vaughan’s Continental recording (as “Interlude”) was made on December 31, 1944, this one might be slightly earlier. Dizzy is also featured on it. It appears Boyd Raeburn first performed it during a live show in New York on January 17, 1945, and Dizzy was there as well. Tristano recorded “Interlude” in New York in October 1946, which was quite early in its adoption. It’s unclear where Tristano first heard “Interlude”—perhaps he heard Raeburn in NY, or maybe he was already friends with Dizzy at the time.
Interestingly, Stan Kenton was performing a song titled “Interlude” around the same time. However, when I listened to the March 1947 recording included in the Mosaic box set, it turned out to be a different song with the same title, unrelated to “A Night In Tunisia.” This might be a distant reason why Dizzy changed the song’s title and, in later years, didn’t have very favorable things to say about Kenton.

[medjuck]

1 hour ago, Chuck Nessa said:

January 26,1945

So the Sarah Vaughn was the month before. (December 31st, 1944. At least that's what it says on the Smithsonian double Lp "Dizzy Gillespie: the Development of an American Artist, 1940-1946". 

[JSngry]

However, this one is given as 12-31-1944:

 

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

So the Sarah Vaughn was the month before. (December 31st, 1944. At least that's what it says on the Smithsonian double Lp "Dizzy Gillespie: the Development of an American Artist, 1940-1946". 

I look at it like the Sarah was the be but of the song and the Raeburn was the debut of the full composition. Dizzy was present for both,fwiw 

Perhaps overlooked today is what a hustler Dizzy was in those very early days of bebop.

[Big Beat Steve]

A few factual odds'n'sods to add to this discussion:

a) The label shot of the double-billed "Night in Tunisia (Interlude)" on Electrola (EG 7778) is no indicator of any transitional period where both titles may have coexisted. This German pressing visibly was released nowhere near the actual recording or U.S. release date of this version of "Night In Tunisia". The next one up in the Electriola catalog was "Cubana Be / Cubana Bop" by the Gillespie band on Electrola EG 7779 originally recorded on 22 December 1947 (about 22 months later!) - of which I have a copy in my collection, incidentally. So Electrola visibly released a batch of Gillespie recordings in 1948. It is quite possible that they simply added the "Interlude" part because they were aware of this original titling and wanted to get this as correct as possible. (Yes, European labels in those days - when they had a lot of catching up to do jazzwise - often had knowledgeable consultants in their offices. Which may also be the reason why they even gave the recording dates on the labels, for example.) Another indicator is the note "Empf. d. GJC" in a corner of the label which means "Recommendation by the German Jazz Federation". I.e. this coupling was one of the records the German Jazz Federation had found valuable enough to recommend to its members and jazz listeners in general and therefore apparently urged a label to release a German pressing for easier availability on the home market. A process that of course took its time, hence the somewhat delayed release ...
At any rate, this mention of "Interlude" had nothing to do with how this was being handled in the USA at the same time. 

b) Re- the first recorded evidence of "Night In Tunisia/Interlude" by the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra:
The "Boyd Raeburn" album of 1944-46 broadcast performances on IAJRC 48 lists a recording of "Night In Tunisia" (listed as such) among a batch of tunes from airshots of 27 March and 3 April 1944 at the Hotel Lincoln (NYC).  The liner notes do not dwell on this "first" (but just mention that Gillespie "sold his chart on 'Night In Tunisia' "), but this would place this performance about 8 months PRIOR to the Sarah Vaughn recording. 
Which begs the question: Do we trust the knowledge of the IAJRC people (liner notes by Jack McKinney, dated 1986) or don't we and did they get the date wrong? (Which can happen, after all ...)
BTW, some more indicators: According to Bruyninckx, the Raeburn band recorded "Night In Tunisia" for V-Disc (matrix VP 689, disc 275) on 11 May 1944, though I have a doubt about this recording date. My copy of the "V-Disc Catalogue" book Vol. 1 (1-500) by Wante/De Block has a handwritten note by its previous owner next to this track that reads "NYC, Dec. 24, 1944". It seems this is the date given on the back cover of the V-Disc big band LP on (Japanese) DAN VC-5026, and this STILL would place it BEFORE the Sarah Vaughn recording. 
So the Mosaic box should have some info on this too.
Also acc. to Bruyninckx, another on-location recording of "Night In Tunisia" by the Raeburn band (Liederkranz Hall, 13 June 1944) is on Circle LP 22. 

b) Just to get this straightened out - the Tristano recordings of "Interlude" were made for KEYNOTE (the Harry Lim label), not "Keystone".   

 

 

Edited yesterday at 10:49 AM by Big Beat Steve

[John L]

There is a small group live recording by Dizzy Gillespie of Night in Tunisia supposedly from January 1944, with Budd Johnson, George Wallington, Oscar Pettiford, and Max Roach.  

Edited 22 hours ago by John L

[Big Beat Steve]

31 minutes ago, John L said:

There is a small group live recording by Dizzy Gillespie of Night in Tunisia supposedly from January 1944, with Budd Johnson, George Wallington, Oscar Pettiford, and Max Roach.  

Just searched - you are right! It's on "Dizzy Gillespie Vol. 4 - 1943-44" (Masters of Jazz MJCD 86) - by sheer coincidence and chance one of the very few Masters of Jazzes I own. A live recording from the Onyx Club.

Fidelity is ultra-ultra low (audibly an exceedingly worn acetate) but it IS interesting. Pity the beginning is missing.

Now if the Gillespie combo already had this tune in their live set lists in Jan. 1944 it is all the more probable that the spring, 1944, dates of the Boyd Raeburn live recordings on the IAJRC and Circle LPs are correct. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Big Beat Steve

[John L]

It is a great recording, particularly when Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach go at it together.  Historic!

[gmonahan]

Right. KeyNOTE, not Keystone. My head must have been somewhere in the rafters of a medieval Cathedral on that one. I figured the Electrola issue was simply a quick European issue of the American Victor recording. I stand corrected. Still seems to me the tune must have changed titles sometime in '45.

[Big Beat Steve]

The Electrola issue WAS a European issue of the American Victor recording, but not "quick". Not nearly, as this case shows. In fact, it was even later than you and I would have assumed. I would have thought the much later "Cubano Be Cubano Bop" pressing (of an original recorded in late 1947, 22 months after "Night In Tunisia") hit the market relatively quickly in 1948. But not so. Out of curiosity, I checked Discogs for what (numerically) must have been the next Electrola release (EG 7780) after the two Gillespies, and to my amazement this was a German cover version of "Blue Tango" by Leroy Anderson that was a chart topper in the USA in early 1952! So the two Dizzy Gillespie 78s cannot have been released too long before that period. (The Electrola releases AFTER EG 7780 according to Discogs featured unimportant German popular orchestra music that is not likely to figure in any discography and therefore cannot be dated accurately.)

In general, even though the delays of EG 7778 and EG 7779 may be extreme, it is far from so that releases outside the USA always followed the U.S. original release fairly quickly or with fairly regular delays during that period. It depended on the licensing labels, their "response times" or marketing considerations (cashing in on overseas hits etc.). 

And yes, the name of the tune had changed by 1945. Since the other surviving early recordings of that tune (various live recordings) that predate the Sarah Vaughn recording of 1944 all were released for the first time MUCH later than 1944/45 it is obvious they were assigned the commonly used title of that tune in hindsight for those later releases. 
However, referring to V-Disc 275 of September 1944, the actual V-Disc pressed in 1944 displays the "Night In Tunisia" title:

https://www.discogs.com/release/7805779-Tony-Pastor-And-His-Orchestra-Boyd-Raeburn-And-His-Orchestra-Schicklegrüber-A-Night-In-Tunisia

So my conclusion would be that this title had come into common use by that time - in 1944.

(BTW, just for info, that "Schicklegruber" title refers to the maiden name of the mother of none other than Adolf Hitler! A name often used in mockery when referring to that "person".)