"Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" is a jazz composition written in 1937 by Duke Ellington and recorded for the first time on May 15, 1937 by the Duke Ellington Orchestra with Wallace Jones, Cootie Williams (trumpet), Rex Stewart (cornet), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Johnny Hodges, Otto Hardwick (alto saxophone), Laurence Brown, Joe Nanton (trombone), Harry Carney (clarinet, baritone saxophone), Sonny Greer (drums), Wellmann Braud (bass), Freddie Guy (guitar), and Duke Ellington (piano).
[1] The 1956 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival revitalized Ellington's career, making newspaper headlines when seated audience members chaotically began rising to dance and stand on their chairs during Paul Gonsalves's tenor saxophone solo.
There are issued recordings of him playing "I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)", "Carnegie Blues", "Rocks in My Bed" and "Transblucency" between these two pieces.
In what has since become jazz folklore, Gonsalves almost created a riot as he played a tenor sax solo for 27 choruses that aroused the normally seated crowd into a frenzy of dancing, standing on chairs, and rushing the stage.
A woman with platinum blond hair in a black evening dress, named Elaine Anderson,[5] jumped from her box seat to start dancing, and she is often credited with initiating the crowd's ensuing uproar as Gonsalves continued his solo.