Duke Ellington ... And His Mother Called

…And His Mother Called Him Bill is a studio album by Duke Ellington recorded in the wake of the 1967 death of his long-time collaborator, Billy Strayhorn. It won the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 1968. Ellington recorded the album as a tribute to Billy Strayhorn, who died of cancer in May 1967. Strayhorn was a composer, arranger, and one of Ellington's closest friends.

By 1967, the heyday of the big band was over. Rock and Roll ruled as the popular music of the day, and the financial challenges of keeping a large ensemble together for recording - and especially touring - were huge. But Duke Ellington - one of American's finest bandleaders, pianists, and composers - was more than just a genius in the field of music. He also succeeded as a business man, keeping his orchestra not only busy on the road, but also creating his finest art - what he called "American Music" - in the 1960s and 70s.
Big Bands Live: Duke Ellington Orchestra, is the second release from the Jazzhaus music label's "Big Bands Live" series, and it captures the group in top form in a previously unreleased 1967 concert recording in Stuttgart, Germany…

Sarah Vaughan, Art Farmer, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and more.
As an informal soundtrack for his revealing biography of Billy Strayhorn, Lush Life, David Hajdu selected and annotated the tracks for this rambling dig through the PolyGram archives. In doing so, Hajdu ranges far afield in date and idiom, yet the overall impression is amazingly consistent of Strayhorn as an elegant yet haunted musical figure whose work has a strikingly individual and timeless signature. Strayhorn himself is typically lodged in the background, appearing on two lovely Johnny Hodges tracks, "Your Love Has Faded" and "Three and Six," a Louie Bellson rarity, "Far-Eastern Weekend," and Ben Webster's "Chelsea Bridge" in various roles arranging, conducting, and playing piano…

Singer/actress Lena Horne's primary occupation was nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. In conjunction with her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 and brought her three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989; she appeared in 16 feature films and several shorts between 1938 and 1978; she performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony-winning one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, in 1981-1982; and she sang and acted on radio and television.

A towering musical figure of the 20th century, saxophonist John Coltrane reset the parameters of jazz during his decade as a leader.

Born Kitty Jean Bilbrew in 1923, White grew up in a musical family, her mother and father being vaudevillian performers. White was a well-trained vocalist with perfect pitch. She was also a good music reader, which allowed her to find studio work. After recording a couple of albums for EmArcy, White even appeared in a number of movies during the early 1950s, including King Creole (with Elvis Presley), Last Train from Gun Hill and The Old Man and the Sea.