At the start of Duke Ellington’s album, The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse: A Suite in Eight Parts, Ellington himself speaks for a couple of minutes about the whole world “going Oriental.” Apparently, Marshall McLuhan said something to that effect (read full incomprehensible statement here) and while McLuhan had some good points buried in his “going Oriental” statement (mainly because he threw every idea he had about Indochina at the wall and by happenstance, some of it stuck) none of it really matters to the music that follows. Still, Ellington delivers his monologue sincerely and intones that he and his band mates have, in their travels, “noticed this to be true” (that everyone is going Oriental, that is – were The Vapors inspired by this too? Do we have McLuhan to blame for Turning Japanese?). Ellington’s enunciation is so precise and eloquent I don’t even care what he’s says, I just like listening to how he says it. He speaks as if he’s teaching someone how to pronounce the words properly in English and the result is, in it’s own way, a kind of Ellington a capella lead-in.
Fantomas Cinema 