Aaron Bell,
March 1960 while playing bass in the Billy Taylor Trio at the Hickory House on 52d Street Dr. Bell looked up and saw Ellington in the audience. A few days later Ellington called and asked Dr. Bell to substitute one night in the orchestra at a Yale University concert and then was asked to join Ellington permanently beginning with a 12-week engagement at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. He stepped into some big shoes. Two of Dr. Bell's bass-playing predecessors in the Ellington Orchestra Jimmy Blanton and Oscar Pettiford were regarded as legends and the person he replaced Jimmie Woode was a popular musician who had been with Ellington for five years.
