by ©Tony Scott

I knew Duke Ellington well and played in his band, touring the East part of USA
I left him and had to go back to my jazz on the clarinet. It was that simple, and he understood the feeling I had very well. These guys created their sounds, and when I heard them when I was young I didn't quite understand the blood, sweat and tears that went into their sounds. You know, Duke, was still doing one-nighters at the age of 74!

I went to the new big club BAND BOX where Duke was playing, my friend Musa Kaleem - tenorist at Minton's Playhouse, said that he tried out for the band but could not read music at well.
He told me to see Frenchy, Duke's manager. I went to see him and the same night I took over the tenor chair, Paul Gonsalves' tenor chair, who went to Tommy Dorsey's band. It was Ben Webster's chair in the 1950's. A real thrill for me. Then an alto sax player left, Hilton Jefferson, who had replaced the great Johnny Hodges. When Paul finally came back, Duke put me on the alto chair, and it was a great experience for me, playing a fantastic song called Sophisticated Lady, one of Duke's most beautiful songs. It got me hung on the song, and then... It was a rough life, always on the road, you know, and if there were drugs and liquor, man, you've got to excuse them. Besides being black, it was difficult to find hotels and even sit down in a restaurant unless it was in the black part of town. It was ridiculous. It was really disgusting. The black players knew which hotels and restaurants they could sleep and eat at, but let me tell you this, it wasn't in the white part of town. Terrible racial prejudice... it made me sick to my stomach. Some of the black families also had rooms for the Black musicians travelling through. That kind of thing, you know. Duke and the others always told me to tell everybody I was Ethiopean. You weren't supposed to sign into a black hotel if you were white. It was really ridiculous. So all I would say is that I was Ethiopean. Damn ridiculous. (Tony Scott)
(From 1982 August 1,2 Daily American -Weekend Notebook p.5 Images of a past era in Jazz)

From: Tony Scott Discography by ©Cinzia Scott
1953, February 4 - USA NYC WMGM Radio Concert from Band Box
DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA
- NN song solos: Tony Scott (NN instrument)

1953, February 9 - USA, NYC WMGM Radio Concert from Band Box
DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA
1) - Jam with them solos: Tony Scott(ts)
2) - I can get started solos: Tony Scott (fl)
3) - I got it bad

1953, February 15 - USA, NYC Apollo Theatre TV Live Concert for NBC Television
DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA
NN songs.

1953, February 25 - USA, NYC Apollo Theatre TV Live Concert For NBC Television
DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA
Tony Scott ( fl) Ray Nance vocal, and trp:
1) - I can get started with you

by ©Tony Scott:

Duke had that ability to evade issues. If you had to face the issues he faced you'd be a raving maniac. He had 17 men continually pulling in different directions, and the three months I was with the band it didn't swing. They were looking for a drummer and I almost put in Philly Joe Jones but he didn't make it, he got hung up, and detained involuntarily in Philadelphia, because of mistaken identity by the narcotics squad. Philly threw his drugs out of the window. He was put in jail for his needle marks. Ellington could make everything into a purple ice-cream soda. he had all these guys grumbling.

He was sitting in front of the bus, imagine these eight-hour trips, sun comes up he'd be the first one the sun hits his eyes.
Part of his genius, if not 90 per cent was travelling. I did three months of it and I had a tic in my eye. Duke and his band, it was like being around a man and wife who're always nagging at each other but stay together. They owed him and he owed them, and they couldn't really settle the bill. When I first started with them I couldn't find numbers.
Quentin Jackson called out numbers for me because when Duke started a number he never announced it. They all knew them. Quentin. Clark Terry and Britt Woodman were the only ones who were nice.
They told me 'When we go South, be an Ethiopian.' we'd stop at a place to eat, counter service, and we'd order hot dogs hot dogs hot dogs. I said, 'I'm not gonna eat a hot dog. I'll wait till we stop at a restaurant and eat' I get on the bus and say, 'Hey, when we stop and eat?' and somebody says, 'That was it, man' Hot dogs! Now these are jazz musicians that you hear hitting high notes and strong solos and all, and you say WOW -what ENERGY! and they 're doing it on hot dogs, right. I say, 'That was it?' and Jimmy Hamilton says- 'Yeah, man, it's every livin' ass for himself down here.'

So I run into the white section and grab me two apples and a chocolate bar, run into the bus. Jimmy Hamilton sees the apples - 'Hey, gimme an apple, man' - and I say, 'Man, it's every livin' ass for himself down here.' I learned quick.
I got in an argument on the bus with Mingus one time. He says, 'You white people are always telling us how to talk.' I turned round and said, 'I'm darker than you are, Mingus.' Mingus is about my colour, I'm Sicilian and he had a lotta white blood in there more than I had. He was trying to prove he was a black man, and I took his negritude away. he came up behind me - I had Bebop glasses on - and he strangled me, one hand around by throat and one over my eyes.
Britt and Clark pulled him off. Britt wouldn't look at him after that, and Mingus said, 'Man, I must've stepped on my dick.
My best friend won't look at me.' I was there when Mingus had that big to-do with Juan Tizol - it's in Beneath The Underdog. Juan with a machete, Mingus with a fire-axe. Duke had to fire him. Duke said to Mingus 'Look, Juan Tizol is an old problem. Why don't you resign? You're a new problem.'
©Tony Scott: Lady, Bird and Me