For Duke

This album is dedicated to Duke Ellington, and it features Duke Ellington tunes - but overall the set is a very personal moment from pianist Masaru Imada - maybe one of his strongest dates of the 70s! The music opens up with that beautifully creative Japanese piano trio approach of the 70s - lots of new ideas and new styles brimming forth throughout, but always in a way that's respectful of tradition while pushing things forward - swinging back to familiar modes one minute, then soaring forth with a personal spirit the next. Masaru's trio-mates here are a great match - the excellent Isoo Fukui on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums.

Max Ionata & Dado Moroni - Two for Duke (2012) { {Jando Music VVJ 077}
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© 2012 Jando Music / Millesuone / Via Veneto Jazz | VVJ 077
Jazz / Post Bop / Saxophone / Piano

Two For Duke is a incredibly organic take on eleven Ellington classics as Ionata and Moroni do their own riff on these timeless classics with Ionata's warm rich tone breathing new lyrical life into what could be a musical land mine for some performers of far lesser talent. Moroni's warm and at times blues infused harmonic development is a spot on match for this release. Literally a perfect partnership.

The Essential George Duke is a double-disc, 31-track set documenting George Duke's years with Epic between 1977 and 1984 that netted an astonishing 11 albums, and the third Stanley Clarke/Duke project disc recorded in 1990. These were the years that Duke – never a jazz purist anyway – decided to take a tough swing at the R&B charts. He succeeded.

This is an eight-CD set more for Duke Ellington fanatics than for general listeners. Originally, some of the music came out as a two-LP set (Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur) and a single album (Ellington's Soul Call), but the great majority of the material was previously unreleased when this box came out in 1998.