‘Live at Newport’: the Duke Ellington performance that gave Thom Yorke “goosebumps”
Thom Yorke has always been an outlier in the indie community. For starters, the sounds of Radiohead stand apart with unwavering grittiness and melancholy, more so than most of their contemporaries. And all of this seems to come from an acute knack for instinctual emotionality and disillusionment with the past and the present. As he once said: “The music business was waiting to die in its current form about twenty years ago.”
This sense of isolation has always been Yorke’s main appeal as a songwriter and vocalist. No matter the subject he sings about, he always does so with a detached iciness, like he has lived all of his stories a thousand times until he has become marred by numbness. It’s haunting, beautifully so, and intrinsically alternative like he was always destined to change the landscape of indie rock.
As someone who seems to have a firm grip on mastering the art of gritty realness and timeless resonance, Yorke appears to be the best-placed person to comment on the musical landscape. After all, he has witnessed its transition through eras, each marked by similar shortcomings—commercialism, empty fads, unexpected echoes of bygone times, and relentless debates about what “art” truly means in today’s world.
And yet, the one thing he remains attached to, no matter how much the industry tries to quash its impact, is the wonderful world of jazz music. Yorke previously talked up the legend that is Ella Fitzgerald, saying she was someone he was “obsessed” with, a fixation enhanced by a specific performance in the 1960s when she performed alongside Duke Ellington. “Her technical singing is fucking insane,” he said, adding, “She’s belting the crap out of it. She’s so loud, and she doesn’t miss one note.”
Elsewhere, he divulged his appreciation for her comrade, Ellington, who once delivered a drum segment so powerful he was left speechless. “As we’re on this jazz tip,” he said during an interview with BBC Radio 1, “there’s this Duke Ellington tune. I’ve been getting into Duke Ellington. It was actually Flea who turned me onto Duke Ellington, bizarrely. And there’s this Live at Newport record, and there’s this one tune, ‘Skin Deep’, which is a classic, but he gives the drummer some.”
He also said the song gave him “goosebumps,” specifically highlighting one section “with the breakdown.” He recalled that when the crowd reacted, it felt electrifying—especially because he could hear and feel them losing control in their excitement. “They can’t keep them quiet in between the tunes,” he continued, “so when it breaks down, they go nuts. So, just listen to the solo and how it develops. And there’s some rythms in this solo that are just so modern, man, it’s crazy.”
As someone deeply passionate about the lesser-known corners of the music industry and the legendary names others tend to forget, Yorke’s admiration for Ellington makes complete sense. While his music stands independently from the jazz greats, it’s clear that they emerge in his work in more subtle ways, lurking beneath the surface in his affinity for complex instrumentation and melodies that stick with you forever.
