Tales of Tony, Part 15
“Cool and Groovy: A Tiny Tale of Tony and Duke”
Tony’s absolute heroes were Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong - it was a major point of pride to him that he was able to work with all three of them. They were more than musical icons to him, they were role models. He was always eager to learn from them - for someone who was forced, by the economic circumstances of the Great Depression, to drop out of high school at a very early age, he placed a high value on education. Eventually, one of the crowning achievements of his career was his role in the founding of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, in Tony’s home neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. One thing that Ruby Braff, who played cornet for many years with Tony, observed was that Tony never stopped learning; he was always trying to discover something new.
Tony and Duke Ellington had first worked together in 1958, at the Bal Masque, at the Americana Hotel in Miami Beach, a celebrated venue which inspired a classic Ellington album. In 1965, they began to collaborate more regularly, and toured extensively together that Spring.
At some point, they wrote a song together; Tony’s memories of this occasion are more or less confirmed by a contract included in the ultimate Ellington research resource, The Duke - Where and When (painstakingly compiled by the indefatigable David Palmquist). Ellington was a legendarily prolific composer; anytime anybody had a good idea for a song, a melody, or a lyric, or even a title, Duke was eager to work with them, and as a result, he accumulated one of the largest catalogs of virtually any composer in history.
Once when Tony and Duke were hanging out together, Duke asked Tony if he ever had an idea for a song. Tony told him that there actually was a tune in his head that he had been humming, but, not being a songwriter himself, he didn’t know what to do with it. He hummed it for Duke, who was delighted, and said, “that sounds vaguely like something Cootie is working on,” meaning the band’s great trumpeter Cootie Williams. So, Ellington took the two melodies, one by Tony and one by Cootie, and merged them together into a song.
The contract states that in February 1968, Ellington’s firm, Tempo Music was set to publish a tune called “Put-Tin,” with the credit and royalties to be split evenly - 33 ⅓ % each - between Ellington, Williams, and Bennett. (There are more specific details on the Where and When entry for February 1, 1968.) At some point, someone attached a note to the contract stating that words were going to be added to the song and that it would now be known as “Be Cool and Groovy For Me.” Tony remembered that Duke himself wrote the lyrics, as he occasionally did (most famously on “Love You Madly”).
As “Put-Tin,” the song is well known among Ellingtonians; the band played it on one of their most famous later live albums, The Yale Concert - taped live at that university on January 28th, a few days before the contract was signed. That is the most famous performance of “Put-Tin,” as a growling trumpeter feature for co-author Cootie Wiliams.
As far as the vocal version, “Be Cool and Groovy For Me,” is concerned, Duke did record it in a studio, but that version apparently has only been issued on a rather rare CD. “Cool and Groovy” also became a regular feature for the band’s principal male singer, Tony (sometimes spelled “Toney”) Watkins, who had started out as a band boy, in 1969 into early 1970.
Despite what it says on the contract, none of the credits I have seen for “Put-Tin” mentions Tony or Cootie; the credit on the Yale Concert CD on Fantasy Records goes to Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (who had died roughly seven months before the song was recorded). For the longest time, Tony himself never sang it; instead, he more or less made “Love Scene” into his own personal slice of Ellingtonia. (But more on that tomorrow.)
Finally, Tony did lay down a version, with Ralph Burns arranging and conducting, for Tony’s centennial tribute to Duke, Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot and Cool. That 1999 performance did not make the final album, however, and we had to wait until it was included as one of the many bonus tracks on the massive Complete Tony Bennett package of 2011. (And on that CD, the song is credited to Ellington alone. Go figure.)
It’s a very ‘60s kind of a song, with a funky backbeat atypical of Elling and lyrics that mix hipster slang with psychedelic imagery, and Tony’s version has an excellent guitar solo by Gray Sargent, who had recently joined Tony’s touring group and would stay with it for the rest of Tony’s career. I can understand why Tony felt it wouldn’t quite fit on the original Ellington album, but I’m very glad to have it just the same; it is indeed cool and groovy.
The lyrics:
If you wanna make a hit with me
Like the ultra-aristocracy
If you want to be the bee to be
Be cool and groovy and for me
If you care to, you can A B C
If you’re pretty, you may X Y Z
When you’re lucky and get 1 2 3
Be cool and groovy and for me
You jump the high fly trip up
Uptown to my playground
Hip city ditty whip up
See-saw the merry-go-round
If you wanna be a down gone kid
Knew your funny and soul-kick bid
Just be careful not to flip your lid
Be cool and groovy and for me
~~~♫♫♫~~~
If you think that this is something new
I can tell you just the thing to do
Kind of crazy like it’s too cuckoo
Be cool and groovy and for me
We jump the high fly trip up
Uptown to my playground
Hip city ditty whip up
See-saw the merry-go-round
Don’t be sorry cause you wish you had
There’s a reason why you should be glad
If and when you ever hit my pad
Be cool and groovy and for me
Be cool and groovy and for me
Be cool and groovy and for me
Disclaimer: These are my memories of these incidents, nothing more, nothing less. I apologize in advance in case they may not line up precisely with anyone else’s account of what transpired on those occasions.
Four Episodes of Sing! Sing! Sing on KSDS (88.3 San Diego) spotlighting the life and legacy of Tony Bennett:
SSS 59 2023-08-12 Tales of Tony
SSS 58 2023-08-05 Tony Bennett sings the George & Ira Gershwin Songbook
SSS 57 2023-07-29 Tony Bennett - Van Heusen, Burke, Cahn, Styne, Sondheim, Comden & Green
SSS 5 2022-07-30 Tony Bennett @ 96: The Johnny Mercer Songbook
SLOUCHING TOWARDS BIRDLAND is a subStack newsletter by Will Friedwald. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription, for which I am asking either $5 a month or $50 per year. Thank you for considering. Word up, peace out, go forth and sin no more!
Note to friends: a lot of you respond to my SubStack posts here directly to me via eMail. It’s actually a lot more beneficial to me if you go to the SubStack web page and put your responses down as a “comment.” This helps me “drive traffic” and all that other social media stuff. If you look a tiny bit down from this text, you will see three buttons, one of which is “comment.” Just hit that one, hey. Thanks!
Cool and Groovy.