Duke+ellington

Duke Ellington has been hailed as the greatest single talent to have emerged in the history of Jazz. His working life spanned half a century during which he was always at the forefront of the development of Big-Band Jazz. This album traces his evolution from the Jazz Age to the Swing Era in a series of new digital stereo transfers from the original direct-cut 78 pm masters, making possible a cleaner insight into both the subtlety and force of his unique contribution to the development of Jazz.

Duke Ellington was the most important composer in the history of jazz as well as being a bandleader who held his large group together continuously for almost 50 years. The two aspects of his career were related; Ellington used his band as a musical laboratory for his new compositions and shaped his writing specifically to showcase the talents of his bandmembers, many of whom remained with him for long periods. Ellington also wrote film scores and stage musicals, and several of his instrumental works were adapted into songs that became standards. In addition to touring year in and year out, he recorded extensively, resulting in a gigantic body of work that was still being assessed a quarter century after his death.

Duke Ellington - Early Ellington: The Complete Brunswick and Vocalion Recordings 1926-1931 (1994) [3CD Set] {Decca Jazz}
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© 1994 Decca Jazz / MCA / GRP | GRD-3-640
Jazz / Big Band / Early Jazz / Swing

Duke Ellington recorded for Brunswick from 1926 to 1931, the period in which his great talent and great orchestra first flowered, whether the band was recording under his own name or such pseudonyms as the Washingtonians or the Jungle Band. The earliest recordings are highlighted by the presence of trumpeter Bubber Miley and trombonist "Tricky Sam" Nanton, whose brilliant work with plunger mutes for vocal effects did much to define the early sound–which, in turn, rapidly evolved and expanded with the additions of Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, and Cootie Williams. While the band's repertoire included many blues and popular songs, its distinctive identity emerges from early renditions of such trademark pieces as "East St. Louis Toodle-O," "Black and Tan Fantasy," "The Mooche," and "Mood Indigo." By the end of the period covered in this set, Ellington's ambitious later suites–some of them CD-length–are portended in the elegant extended composition "Creole Rhapsody," his clearly superior contribution to the symphonic jazz movement.

Only one famous "hit" on this compilation - a lovely "Sophisticated Lady" from 1970 featuring the marvelous Harry Carney on baritone sax. The rest of the collection is a delightful mixed bag of short pieces recorded from '69 to '71, and a discographically unique extended 20 minute suite from 1959. Standouts among the short tunes are a two of Duke's rock-and-roll-riff-and-blow tunes, "Bateau" and "Mendoza."

Duke Ellington originally wrote the 50-minute Black, Brown and Beige in 1943 for a Carnegie Hall concert, where critics dismissed it as overreaching for a jazz composer. Over the next 15 years, he periodically resurrected it for performances of excerpts or, as in the case of his 1958 Columbia album, transmuting it into what was essentially a new work. Columbia's Black, Brown and Beige was one of the most extraordinary products of Ellington's second stay with the label, growing out of his 1956 Newport triumph, and it was received somewhat more readily than the original 1943 "Black, Brown and Beige"…

Duke Ellington was at the height of his popularity during the 1940s; at the same time, he was enjoying a creative peak and fronting one of the finest organizations he'd ever assembled, including trumpeters Cootie Williams, Ray Nance, and later Rex Stewart and Harold "Shorty" Baker, trombonists Lawrence Brown, Tricky Sam Nanton, and Tommy Dorsey, saxophonists Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster, Jimmy Blanton and Oscar Pettiford on bass, and drummers Sonny Greer and Sid Catlett. The material here includes Ellington's famous versions of "Take the 'A' Train," "Caravan," "The 'C' Jam Blues," "Mood Indigo," and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)."

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.

Topping off a wealth of full-band recordings, the various stars of Ellington's great outfit recorded many combo sides under their own names. And while not on the same sophisticated level of classic Ellingtonia, the late-'30s material cut by Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, and Rex Stewart is packed with tasty solo work and some of the finest examples of early small-group swing. These later examples from 1958-1959 feature Hodges backed by both Ellington and Billy Strayhorn on piano and such non-Duke luminaries as Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Harry "Sweets" Edison, and Jo Jones. Like its companion album, Back to Back, Side by Side has a loose, jam session feel, with all the soloists stretching out. Hodges is in top form throughout, while Edison and Webster man their spots just fine. Highlights include the sveltely swinging "Going Up" and Hodges' bluesy closer, "You Need to Rock." A must for fans of vintage combo swing.

Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Duke Ellington Song Book (1957) {3CD Set Verve Master Edition 559 248-2 rel 1999}
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© 1957, 1999 Verve / PolyGram | 559 248-2 | Verve Master Edition Series
Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Standards

This release comes in a cardboard box which houses a 4-panel Digisleeve and a 66-page booklet. Ella Fitzgerald's outstanding songbook series has become an institution unto itself. This 1957 effort is distinguished from Fitzgerald's other songbooks in that it is the only album in which the composer whose work she is singing actively participates. In fact, these recordings are packed with some of the key figures in 20th century jazz. As if Ella and Duke weren't enough, Ellington's arranger/composer Billy Strayhorn, guest musicians Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson, and brilliant record producer Norman Granz all have a hand in the proceedings.