DUKE ELLINGTON REISSUES
Masterpieces by Ellington, Ellington
Uptown, Festival Sessions
Masterpieces by Ellington
Duke Ellington’s career spanned most
of the history of jazz in the previous century. He was the
bridge between contrapuntal New Orleans jazz and more modern
large ensemble jazz, and though he never was faddish, his
compositions touched, at various times, on bebop, symphonic
jazz, hard bop, gospel, cool jazz, and even some of the
more avant garde experiments of the late 1960s. He managed
to keep his large band on the road and on record throughout
the 50s, 60s, and until his death in 1974, utilizing some
of his own funding to do so. No other artist save for Louis
Armstrong has had as long a career or remained as influential
for so long.
During that lengthy career, it was inevitable
that Ellington work for a number of record labels, and even
with today’s industry consolidation, there are many
different owners of pieces of the Ellington puzzle. RCA
chose to use Ellington’s 100th birthday in 1999 to
release the incredible 24-disc (and its 3-disc essential
version) Centennial Collection. That collection
included all of the maestro’s work for RCA, including
the work of the legendary Blanton-Webster band. Columbia,
now part of Sony Music, did release some items that year,
but has, until now, had a lot of prime Ellington sitting
in their vaults gathering dust. This year they appear to
be getting serious about Ellington reissues. Early 2004
saw the release of Festival Sessions, Ellington Masterpieces,
and Ellington Uptown. Now that summer is upon us,
we have Blues In Orbit, Piano in the Foreground,
and Piano in the Background. Though some of these
releases are better than others, there is no question that
all of these albums are large pieces of Duke’s music
at the time, and all deserve the remastering they get here.
Masterpieces by Ellington was originally recorded
in December of 1950. The original vinyl release was designed
to take advantage of the advent of the LP, which allowed
for longer compositions than the previous 78 rpm format.
Ellington had already bumped up against the time constraint
of the 78 rpm format, recording suites that took both sides
of a recording or sometimes more than one record. Even so,
the listener could not hear the pieces uninterrupted since
he or she would have to flip the disc or change records.
The LP changed that, and on this recording several Ellington,
well, masterpieces, are given sweeping new concert arrangements
that reveal not only the beauty and durability of the original
compositions, but also the incredible talent available to
Ellington in his band and the great subtlety of which that
band was capable. The original recording consisted of four
tracks—“Mood Indigo,” “Sophisticated
Lady,” “The Tattooed Bride,” and “Solitude.”
These already gorgeous compositions were given more modern
treatments which emphasized their harmonic complexity. Two
of the pieces—“Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated
Lady” feature the vocalizations of Yvonne Lanauze.
“The Tattooed Bride” was a bold, relatively
new Ellington composition, debuted in 1948 at Carnegie Hall.
Altogether they provide a program of music that takes everything
Ellington had done up until that time—the sophisticated
‘jungle music’ of his Cotton Club years, the
bluesy jazz of the Blanton-Webster years, the ambition of
his concert hall suites and the beauty of the simple popular
song form—and rolls it into one giant, American statement.
In addition, this recording marked the end
of the road for three longstanding Ellington band members:
altoist Johnny Hodges and trombonist Lawrence Brown (both
of whom later returned to the Ellington ensemble) and drummer
Sonny Greer. No doubt there were those who doubted that
Duke would be able to recover from the loss of such talent,
particularly Hodges, whose sound had become an identifying
element within the band. Not that Ellington’s band
was lacking for talent, even without these three. The band
on Masterpieces includes Cat Anderson, Ray Nance, Quentin
Jackson, Mercer Ellington, Russell Procope, Jimmy Hamilton,
Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney, and Wendell Marsh. All of
these musicians acquit themselves well, of course. Procope
turns in some of his remarkable clarinet work on “Mood
Indigo” and Carney’s trademark baritone sax
sound can be heard on ensemble passages of that same piece.
It’s interesting to hear the clarinet figure so prominently
on “Mood Indigo” in light of Barney Bigard’s
claim, in 1976, that he wrote the major portion of the piece.
Certainly the clarinet has the right balance of brightness
and smoky sultriness to lend the composition its lush, late-night
quality. Harold “Shorty” Baker and Lawrence
Brown are heard to great effect on “Sophisticated
Lady,” as is Harry Carney’s exquisite bass clarinet.
“The Tattooed Bride,” with its
enigmatic title, is a vehicle for Jimmy Hamilton, though
it also features Cat Anderson, Brown, Baker, Procope, and
Carney. It’s the most aggressive and swinging number
on the album, though it does have its quieter moments as
well. Ellington was likely going to continue to write longer
and more intricate pieces of music regardless of the technology
available for recording them, and “The Tattooed Bride”
provides ample evidence of this. “Solitude”
receives a gorgeous eight-plus minute reading as well, with
the solo spotlight falling on Carney, Brown, Nance, Hamilton,
Jackson, Gonsalves, and Ellington himself. Written in 1934,
the work here receives a definitive statement, with some
of its bluesier qualities emphasized by many of the soloists.
Rounding out this reissue are three tunes
recorded after the original LP was recorded. “Vagabonds”
and “Smada” were recorded in December of 1951.
“Vagabonds” was a Juan Tizol composition arranged
by Ellington. Tizol had returned to the Ellington band following
the departures of the previous year, and brought with him
altoist Willie Smith and drummer Louis Bellson from the
Harry James Band in what came to be known as the Great James
Robbery. The final tune here, “Rock Skippin’
at the Blue Note” was penned by Billy Strayhorn before
a gig at Chicago’s Blue Note after he and drummer
Bellson had spent the afternoon walking along the shore
of Lake Michigan.
