(The) Duke Ellington Album
Is it possible to fuse jazz and classical? The answer can be no stronger than ‘maybe’, but there are still some great arrangements here
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: /2000
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 79
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 557014-2
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Take the 'A' Train |
Billy Strayhorn, Composer
Billy Strayhorn, Composer Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
You're The One |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lena Horne, Singer Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Sophisticated Lady |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Harlem |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Isfahan |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Ad lib on Nippon |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
That Do-Wah Thing |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Something To Live For |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lena Horne, Singer Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Come Sunday |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Solitude |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Maybe |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lena Horne, Singer Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Thing's Ain't What They Used To Be |
Duke Ellington, Composer
Bobby Watson, Alto saxophone City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clark Terry, Trumpet Duke Ellington, Composer Geri Allen, Piano Joe Lovano, Tenor saxophone Joshua Redman, Tenor saxophone Lewis Nash, Drum kit Peter Washington, Double bass Regina Carter, Violin Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Author: Edward Seckerson
The title takes some getting beyond. ‘Classic Ellington’. Sounds like something you might buy from TV – ‘Not Available in the Shops’. Then again, these are ‘classic’ tracks, some of which it now transpires Ellington had envisaged in ‘classic’ or ‘symphonic’ arrangements. The man he confided in over the project was none other than Luther Henderson, the arranger here. It seems that The Duke had imagined orchestral settings of his work with jazz soloists where the orchestra – and I’m quoting Simon Rattle here – ‘was a living, organic, equal partner rather than a magnificent back-up’. On that basis, has Luther Henderson fulfilled his dreams?
I’m not so sure. I’m even less sure why Ellington should have sought in any way to ‘reinvent’ those original big-band arrangements – masterworks like the Far East Suite andBlack, Brown & Beige. The idea that they could be improved upon or rather, perhaps, in some way elevated by the process of jazz/symphonic fusion is hard to grasp. They are perfection – in conception, execution, in their richly imagined colorations, harmonic and otherwise. But we must bow to The Duke’s far-reaching aspirations and concede that if anyone was finally to make one big happy family of the jazz band and symphony orchestra it would be him. Harlem, Ellington’s wildly emotive symphonic poem, naturally outgrew the big band and seemed to pick up extra players on its way uptown. But that was an organic process, it seemed to grow bigger and more symphonic of its own volition. We’ll come back to it shortly.
For now, though, weTake the ‘A’ Train, and straight away I’m thinking that all those strings are sure to prove a major drag on our journey time. With the best will in the world, ‘orchestral’ strings are difficult to integrate into a jazz context, particularly once you start upping the tempo. Different trains, different tracks. They move differently, they articulate differently, and for all Luther Henderson and Rattle’s best efforts, they are still a dead weight around the fabulous jazz combo at the heart of this album. Into overdrive they go, those rangy sax and trumpet breaks (trumpeter Clark Terry was a member of the Ellington Band in the 1950s), and once they’re in jamming mode, you know where you are and why you’re here. But who are these other people who’ve crashed the party a little too anxious to have a good time? That Do-Wah Thing is similarly cramped. We’re not talking ‘organic equal partner’ here, we’re talking ‘magnificent back-up’. There’s a friction, an incongruity, between styles. And like the song says, ‘it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing’.
The ‘formality’ of the orchestral sound and style – particularly with regard to the strings – sits rather better with numbers like ‘Come Sunday’ (fromBlack, Brown & Beige), a kind of lullaby-hymn, rural Americana urbanised, and ‘Isfahan’ (from the Far East Suite), with its cool vibes, glinting harp and curvacious cor anglais joining hands with its saxophone counterpart across the old jazz-classical divides. Then there’s Sophisticated Lady, where Henderson really uses his ears and his heart and gives the oboe first bite of the plangent old standard. He’s done a great job on these numbers. And there’s another bonus – Lena Horne proving, with a song like Maybe, that great jazz singers don’t grow old, just older, and that you don’t need a 21-year-old’s vocal chords to make a lyric real for us.
So, I guess my overall impression is of a group of masterful jazzers roaming free through this rather structured symphonic wonderworld, happy to be there but not quite sure why. Except in Harlem, of course, where the days are hot and the nights are hotter. Now this was the shape of integrated symphonic jazz as Ellington heard it. A sizzle-cymbal, a dirty wha-wha trombone, a trumpet’s primal scream. A solo clarinet plays it cool, brings down the temperature. But the night is no longer so young and before you know it a hang-dog trombone who maybe once celebrated the birth of the blues is in at the death of the Harlem night. Who knows whose funeral brings us to this stunning climax, but it’s one hell of a good reason for buying the album. As for the rest – there are still fissures in the fusion. Maybe it needs time, maybe it is not to be. But I guess The Duke will have thanked Henderson and Rattle for trying.'
I’m not so sure. I’m even less sure why Ellington should have sought in any way to ‘reinvent’ those original big-band arrangements – masterworks like the Far East Suite and
For now, though, we
The ‘formality’ of the orchestral sound and style – particularly with regard to the strings – sits rather better with numbers like ‘Come Sunday’ (from
So, I guess my overall impression is of a group of masterful jazzers roaming free through this rather structured symphonic wonderworld, happy to be there but not quite sure why. Except in Harlem, of course, where the days are hot and the nights are hotter. Now this was the shape of integrated symphonic jazz as Ellington heard it. A sizzle-cymbal, a dirty wha-wha trombone, a trumpet’s primal scream. A solo clarinet plays it cool, brings down the temperature. But the night is no longer so young and before you know it a hang-dog trombone who maybe once celebrated the birth of the blues is in at the death of the Harlem night. Who knows whose funeral brings us to this stunning climax, but it’s one hell of a good reason for buying the album. As for the rest – there are still fissures in the fusion. Maybe it needs time, maybe it is not to be. But I guess The Duke will have thanked Henderson and Rattle for trying.'
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