Duke Ellington Ellington In Order Volume 4(2023)[24 44]

Duke Ellington was still touring in 1971, though his orchestra had lost many of his star soloists due to death or retirement, with the passing of Johnny Hodges being the greatest loss. The first ten tracks here initially appeared on the Polish bootleg LP Last Time, which utilized poorly edited excerpts of a radio broadcast of his Warsaw concert, resulting in losing the pacing of a typical show by the bandleader. At least this Gambit reissue identifies the songs correctly…

Blues in Orbit lacks the intellectual cache of the suites and concept pieces that loomed large in Ellington's recordings of this period, but it's an album worth tracking down, if only to hear the band run through a lighter side of its sound - indeed, it captures the essence of a late-night recording date that was as much a loose jam as a formal studio date, balancing the spontaneity of the former and the technical polish of the latter. Ellington and company were just back from a European tour when the bulk of this album was recorded at one after-midnight session in New York on December 2, 1959 - the arrangements had to be hastily written out when the copyist failed to appear for the gig…

The classic 1962 album Duke Ellington & John Coltrane showcased the rising jazz saxophone innovator performing alongside the long-established piano institution…

As usual with the Classics series, the music on this CD is released complete and in chronological order, covering the music originally released by several record labels but without including alternate takes. In the case of Duke Ellington, because he would frequently record the same song slightly rearranged on several occasions for different companies, there are multiple versions of some titles on this CD, but the alternate versions that he made for the labels have been left out. During the very important period covered by this disc, the Duke Ellington Orchestra (having recently found their sound) was hired by the Cotton Club as the house band and they hit the big time…