Customer Reviews

Bubber Miley Era: 1924-1929

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This collection of early Duke Ellington sides is like a chic musical time machine back to another age -- the Jazz Age. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's innocently sexy and yet sadly knowing early short stories, ("Flappers and Philosophers" and "Tales of the Jazz Age") this music brings back memories of Flappers and Sheikhs, Art Deco furnishings, sophisticated college girls with bobbed hair and Egyptian jewelry drinking from flasks and dancing on table tops. Indeed, when the Ellington band swings it's impossible not to picture the feminine side of Flaming Youth dressed to the nines in sequins and pearls and depicted forever in exquisite John Held Jr. drawings.

But the music -- what about the music? It's hot jazz, but with a lot of Ellington's delicate and imaginative piano work thrown in. Fast numbers like "Tiger Rag" and "Flaming Youth" were obviously dance tunes, designed to make apple-cheeked flappers dance till the cows came home (or until some dark and very good looking "Sheikh" carried them off to a waiting roadster for some innocent necking and petting!)

But then again, several of the quieter songs, like "Swampy River" and "I Must Have That Man" are positively oozing with sweetly languid melancholy and delicately expressed romantic yearning. No doubt the mood of these songs was more suited to solitary listening -- picture a lovelorn flapper in pajamas, lounging on satin cushions, painting her nails and waiting for the phone to jingle. Or perhaps just watching the rain fall against the window after an especially late night, remembering the night before, and rather sleepily reminiscing about the boy who got away.

Duke Ellington's main appeal was to white audiences, but one of his great achievements was to inject even his most "popular" tunes with authentic African feeling. "Saturday Night Function," the last tune on this CD, has the sound of an old time Negro spiritual, while "Diga Diga Doo" trades in the glamor and exoticism of voodoo rites and African magic. It's not hard to imagine that one or two of the apple-cheeked, golden-haired flappers who danced so passionately to this sizzling jazz music found themselves almost unconsciously changing their assumptions about the "place" of black folks in American life.

When you think of the music of Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, what comes to mind first? Songs like "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)", and "Take The A Train". But this music predates all of that stuff. This was the music that Duke Ellington played up at The Cotton Club in Harlem during the Roaring Twenties, the age of hot jazz, flappers, and prohibition. Bubber Miley was the featured trumpet player with the band at the time, and boy can he play! This music sounds exactly the way it pout down on wax for old 78 RPM records, so there is no digital remastering, but the recordings are good for the time and do not sound scratchy so they must have come from the masters.

Boy oh boy, do I get tired of stupids b!tching about the sound on old recordings and giving them poor ratings. Just because it is not crystal clear does not mean you should give it a rating worthy of something by My Chemical Faggot Romance! Anyway,this period is often called the "jungle" period of the Duke because of the wild muted trumpet sound of the era that this cd calls it. Bubber Miley was largely influenced by the criminally unrecognized King Oliver(1885-1938) who was also the mentor and "idol" to Louis Armstrong(1901-1971). He had to leave Duke because of his problems with alcohol in 1929 and Duke wouldn't have a trumpeter as wild as Bubber until Cat Anderson. This cd is essential Duke and has some of the best jazz of the twenties. Duke was one of the few who survived into the thirties but those who did not were some of the best such as Fletcher Henderson(1897-1952), Joe "King" Oliver(1885-1938), and the self proclaimed "King of Jazz" Paul Whiteman(1890-1967).

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington

1899-1974

I had high hopes for this album when I bought it, but unfortunately, like much of the music from this era, it's nearly unlistenable due to the poor sound quality. That said, the songs/musicians here are of such great quality that occassionally their genius rises through the murk. Still, I would only recommend buying this set if you're a Duke collector, or if you don't mind listening to something that sounds like it's playing on a 80 yr old phonograph.