Skin Deep

Drummer Louie Bellson recalls how: "(Duke Ellington) was one of the few bandleaders who allowed me to bring in my own arrangements. They had to ask me three times because I thought, how am I going to bring in music alongside that written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn? Juan Tizol said to me, 'You bring it in, he wants to hear some of your stuff.' So after coaxing me three or four times, I brought in The Hawk Talks and Skin Deep and he recorded them right away."

 

"That recording of Skin Deep to me was nothing but a guy playing drums, but I guess I got lucky. I drove drummers crazy with that because they thought that was me clapping my hands. It was not me. Al Foster, the great jazz drummer, said to me, 'Lou, I drove myself crazy trying to figure out how you did that.' I told him it was really easy, nothing to it because that's the band doing the clapping and they did it so well it sounds like one guy. But I didn't tell most drummers, instead, I let them go ahead and break their necks trying to do this!"

 

"When we recorded that in 1951 you didn't have stereo, it was hi-fi and Duke had already recorded The Hawk Talks but he was a little bit wary about recording Skin Deep because he wanted the listener to pick up on all the fast drum beats I was creating on the snare drum and the tom-toms. He didn't want that muddled sound. Finally, we were on the West Coast and this man, Bert Porter, who had Ampex Hi-Fi, recorded one of our concerts and when Duke heard the playback he said, 'Okay, everybody back down to that venue, we're going to record Skin Deep."

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From Bands, Booze and Broads by Sheila Tracy