Customer Reviews

Blues in Orbit (Reis)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

What an excellent session by the Duke. I don't know why this isn't considered one of the classic Duke Ellington records. I picked it up because it was on sale and was blown away. All of the songs are excellent, "Pie Eye Blues" and "Sentimental Lady" are my favorites. But pick any track at random, they're all great.

This is a pretty loose session, true, but by no means is it sloppy. If anything, the looseness makes these great tunes even more engaging. The Duke's playing is, of course, superb, but there are also excellent solo turns from Ray Nance and Johnny Hodges.

This is a re-release on which the bonus tracks are really a bonus. I'm not really interested in alternate takes - I'm not a musician or an archivist, just a music fan. But there are three tracks that were not on the original album and they're great. These are not throwaways, they're as good as the 11 originals.

Finally, I'm amazed at how far remastering has come. The sound is incredible. Put this on when someone's over and they'll never guess this was recorded in the 50's.

The only reason this 1959 album doesn't come up in conversations about Duke's best albums is simply because Duke's catalogue is so enormous and literally every thing he did is classic or near classic. In other words if Duke had recorded only a dozen lp's in his lifetime- this lp would be praised to the high heaven's- and in a lot of circles today it is highly praised as one of his best. I've been listening to this cd in my Buick Park Avenue all week long and can't get enough of "C Jam Blues " and "Three J's Blues " and " In A Mellow Tone ". The original liner notes are intriguing as well and sets a great visual for really enjoying this classic album. The liner notes state that these are after midnight sessions recorded over two nights starting on December 2, 1959 in New York at Columbia Record's studio on East 30th St. and Dukes late nite dinner has arrived at 2am- a sizzling steak, a pot of coffee with lemons in it,portions of american cheese, and grapefruits. If you're just getting into jazz- I highly recommend this album as a great way to initiate your collection. My favorite track on this lp is "C Jam Blues"- I just can't get enough of Ray Nance's violin work on this track- it literally blows me away every time I listen to it. Jazz and Blues lovers everywhere- listen to me- get this lp in your collection pronto. I actually own the original vinyl album of this cd on Columbia -of course it does not include the great bonus tracks found on this cd. As for me- who knows when this cd will be taken out of my cd player in my Buick Park Avenue- maybe never. Duke, If you're listening up there in heaven - you truly were the 20th centuries Beethoven.

If you think playing the blues is easy, well you need to listen harder. The 12 bar blues may seem easy and repetitive and straightforward, any kid after a 2 hour class may be able to play some blues, but it takes a life to learn to play it with feeling, with meaning. Duke and his men are able to find that in this album. If this material seems simple at first look, how come there are no Ellingtons on Hodges around anymore? Why there are no albums like 'Blues in Orbit' anymore? Because this is not kid stuff, this is not easy stuff, this is not simple stuff. Putting down this album as 'not adventurous' just because it has the word 'blues' in the title is not knowing what the blues is about, and how complex is to the play the blues right. This album is one of the best in Ellington career, and most certainly a indispensable purchase.

This album is a Classic! i had the 33LP of this but my ex cracked it in half one night after i came home and was playing it "to loud!" for her, it was not Dukes fault she had to wake up in three hours! it was not Jimmy Hamilton's Fault she had a business meeting coming up that day! and it was not Woodman's fault our bedroom was downstairs directly from the listening room! nope in fact if my memory serves me rite my ex got to decorate the house while i got the upstairs to myself, hey good Jazz and Blues such as this LP brought one can not...not do some foot tapping on the hardwood floors above sleeping beauty. the horn sections and passages in this recording are seriously amazing (plus she hated the sound of horn)! the Trumpet's slow charlie brown like ways in Sweet & Pungent drove her bananas! the stand up bass in Blues In Blueprint rattled threw her spine!

i ordered the Cd of this recording afterwards and while the sound quality was not up to par as the vinyl it was a bit harder for her to find while i was at work (which she did a week later and destroyed it). i then bought the mp3 album which sounded as good as the cd but then the ex sold my ipod..lucky i have a backup.

There's nothing particularly adventurous about this album, which finds Ellington and a somewhat stripped-down version of his orchestra playing straightforward arrangements of what is for the most part rather simple material -- including tunes that were already established classics of the jazz canon ("In a Mellotone," "C-Jam Blues"), as well as lesser-known and more recent compositions. However, the musicians are all in excellent form, playing with great precision in the ensemble passages while nonetheless swinging very hard on the uptempo numbers and managing to invest each piece with a feeling of relaxed spontaneity -- a quality that is often less conspicuous in Ellington's more ambitious works from this period. The individual soloists, particularly the great Johnny Hodges, also turn in some riveting improvisations, and the emphasis on blues and pieces that are informed by a blues sensibility imparts a nice sense of stylistic unity. The result is an album that, while perhaps not quite on par with Ellington's greatest recordings from the early 1940's, and certainly not as formally complex as some of his later works, is extremely rewarding on its own terms.

Sometimes I think the best response to the question posed by one of Duke's compositions, "What Am I Here For?" is simply: "To listen to the music of Duke Ellington." Whenever I pick up another recording by his band--whether a pre-Strayhorn edition dating back to the Cotton Club days or the Strayhorn-Blanton-Webster edition of the band or the Paul Gonsalves band of Duke's last 20 years--I'm lost to virtually all other music. No one represents the entire history of the art form as well as its prehistory (addressed by James Baldwin in "Sonny's Blues") better than Duke; no one achieves a more democratic, ideal balance between compositional brilliance and individual expressiveness; no sound is more heavenly (i.e. in a non-terrestrial orbit) than that of Duke's brass, woodwind section, or simply the solo voice of Johnny Hodges). But this might be considered a noteworthy achievement if for no other reason than the common meeting ground it stakes out--the elemental 12-bar blues form--for the average listener and the genius of Ellington.

Ellingtonian blues music makes everything else seem shallow, evanescent, unworthy of a listener's precious time--in that sense it surpasses the mundane and reaches the universal regions of the human spirit. There's reassuring recognition and familiarity on each track along with continual surprise--even on the alternate takes. The program begins with a blues sermon preached by a tenor player who sounds more like Ben Webster than Paul Gonsalves. The program notes suggest it's the tenor of Jimmy Hamilton, who sounds superb on the instrument on this date. He's answered by perhaps as tight a trio of trombone plungers as has ever been assembled, comprising Booty Wood, the incredible Britt Woodman, and Quentin Jackson (modernist Matthew Gee rounds out the section, which was without Lawrence Brown on this occasion). And not least of all there's Duke's piano--an assimilation of the styles that had preceded him, from James P., Fatha, Fats, and Willie the Lion, to those--Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver--who absorbed some of the sparks created by Duke's ever evocative, seminal playing, which I now realize was as responsible for what happened at Newport in 1956 during those 28 immortal choruses as was Paul Gonsalves himself.

This one is going for prices that make it possible to pick up 5-6 for the price of one and to give them to anyone who will listen. Or use the spare change to grab up "Such Sweet Thunder " (almost as good as reading Shakespeare), "Ellington Uptown" (the best version of "A Train" ever recorded plus Louis Bellson playing his own "Skin Deep") and "Three Suites" (the biggest bargain in recorded music, with Duke's brilliant revision of Tchaikovsky merely one of three masterworks).

Well the Jimmy Hamilton intro is worth the price of the Cd but if you are a layman with little experience with Duke this is a great Cd to get as your first you will tap and shake and smile into the wee hours of the morning.

How can this not be a famous classic! It's accessible, it's jumpin', it's inventive, it's super fun. It's a treat for the ears and the brain. It is NOT crazy braying horns or musicians run amuk or decent ideas played to death. It's not one tiny bit dated. Makes you smile and tap your toes, snap your fingers. What more do you want from recorded music?

THE SONGS RECORDED FOR THIS ALBUM WERE MADE IN 1958 & 1959. DUKE ELLINGTON IS A MASTER AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME FOR THIS RELEASE. GREAT ARRANGMENTS, RECORDING QUALITY, AND MUSICIANSHIP, PARTICULARLY ELLINGTON BAND MAINSTAYS RAY NANCE (TRUMPET) AND JOHNNY HODGES(SAX)AND, OF COURSE, THE DUKE HIMSELF. NO NEED TO GO INTO A SONG BY SONG ANALYSIS, 'CAUSE THEY ALL STAND OUT. NOT A BAD CUT ON THE ALBUM. PICK UP ANY OF THE ALBUMS BY DUKE ELLINGTON RECORDED IN THE 1950'S AND YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

This is not a well-known work by Ellington, but it is superb. Further, it showcases just how versatile Duke Ellington was as a composer and arranger, and, just how talented his band was, since they are stepping outside their usual style of playing.

I've owned this album on a reel-to-reel tape, an LP, cassette tape, and now CD - that's how long I've been enamored of this work of art. Be in the know - all the right crowd and no crowding is the situation here, and you can be part of it.