Archive for the ‘Duke Ellington’ Category
Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges Play The Blues "Back To Back" (1959, Polygram Records)
These distinctive small-group sessions, featuring Duke Ellington as pianist in a blues context, are part of a group of recordings issued under the titles Back to Back and Side by Side, and further reissued under the name of Blues Summit. There should be no confusion about the high quality of music that came out of these sessions. From the jazz world, it would be difficult to find more profound soloists on traditional blues numbers than the Duke or his longtime collaborator Johnny Hodges, who does some of the most soulful playing of his career here. Also hitting a very high standard for himself is trumpeter Harry Edison and, while musicians are being patted on the back, Joe Jones & Al Hall in the rhythm section should be given a hand. The songs all have titles that end in “Blues,” with the oddball having “Love” in the title not once but twice. (It’s “Loveless Love,” what else?) But these songs are just vehicles for playing the blues, a formula that has produced great music many times, and certainly did every time this particular pianist was leading the group.
1. Wabash Blues
2. Basin Street Blues
3. Beale Street Blues
4. Weary Blues
5. St. Louis Blues, The
6. Loveless Love
7. Royal Garden Blues
Personnel:
Duke Ellington (piano)
Johnny Hodges (alto saxophone)
Harry “Sweets” Edison (trumpet)
Les Spann (guitar)
Al Hall (bass)
Jo Jones (drums)
Recorded at Columbia Studios, New York, New York, February 20, 1959. Originally released on Verve (6055)
Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong – "The complete Sessions" (1990 – Blue Note Records)
As hard as it might be to fathom, a full-scale union of two of the greatest artists in the jazz pantheon came about only once. On two days in April of 1961 Pops and Duke got together to record the seventeen numbers assembled here. While is might have been appealing to have put Armstrong in front of the full Ellington assemblage, it was decided to go with a small “swingtet”, as it were, with trombonist Trummy Young and clarinet Barney Bigard added to Ellington’s piano trio.
All of the tunes come from the Ellington book, with Armstrong fitting into the scene without a bit of strain. He cuts loose with more than a fair share of rousing trumpet spots, while vocalizing on some numbers in his own inimitable style. Familiar cuts abound, although a spontaneous composition came about at the session titled “The Beautiful American” and Duke would also pull out the exotic “Azalea,” a number claimed to have been penned for Pops many years earlier.
Besides the excellent sound quality provided via a new remastering job, this deluxe edition includes two discs housed in a slipcover. The first one consists of the master takes, with the second sporting conversations, false starts and incomplete takes associated with ten of the original seventeen tracks. While nothing all the revelatory occurs on this second disc, you might want to check it out a few times after hearing the master takes. The camaraderie apparent between the two men is obvious, capping off what has to be a solid entry in both artists’ esteemed catalogs.
17. Azalea
Across Rhythm 