Customer Reviews

Duke In Blue

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I RECENTLY SAW "E" PLAY A MOSTLY SOLO SET AT SNUG HARBOR IN NEW ORLEANS. A LOT OF THESE SONGS WERE IN THAT SET, AND IT IS GOOD TO HAVE A RECORDING OF THEM. EVEN WHEN DUKE WAS ALIVE, SOLO PIANO PERFORMANCES BY HIM WERE RARE. "E" IS ONE OF FEW MUSICIANS WHO CAN GIVE US THIS TYPE OF REPRESENTATION OF DUKE'S MUSIC. WE ARE VERY LUCKY TO HAVE THIS IMMENSE TALENT AVAILABLE. I HOPE YOU GET ACHANCE TO ENJOY THIS DISK.

Last year, a select few jazz musicians and vocalists celebrated the centennial of the Edward Kennedy `Duke' Ellington's birth with their own interpretations of the composer and pianist's catalogue. This one, courtesy of the Marsalis family patriarch, is one of the best. Marsalis (who admits he once thought of Ellington as a senior citizen back when he himself was a Bebop absorbed teenager enamored of so-called `hip' jazz players like Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk) goes it alone on the ivories for this collection of decidely alternative choices from Duke's repetoire. That the flavour of New Orleans courses through the song selection on Duke In Blue is hardly surprising considering Marsalis' roots in that city. But he avoids the trap of being staid and overly faithful of Duke's sheet music; sprinkling just the right amount of spice on the uptempo tracks, including a steaming broil of The Mooche, an exceptionally zesty slice of improvisation (Caravan) and a finger-sizzling rendition of Squatty Roo. The ballads (Prelude To A Kiss, Sophisticated Lady, Mood Indigo) are spared radical reinvention but they do provide Marsalis the chance to showcase the soft and delicately expressive side of his piano playing. While the up and down mood and sparse instrumentation of Duke In Blue might throw some people off, Marsalis' tribute is an unpretentious and distinctive as it gets.

Ellis Marsalis : Duke in Blue

1. The Mooche
2. Prelude To A Kiss
3. Squatty Roo
4. Sophisticated Lady
5. Just Squeeze Me (But Don't Tease Me)
6. Mood Indigo
7. Caravan
8. Come Sunday
9. Creole Love Call
10. Reflections In D
11. Drop Me Off In Harlem
12. Melancholia
13. Medley: I'm Beginning To See The Light - Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me - In A Mellow Tone
14. Duke In Blue

Only the sound samples of 1-11 are given here (with the correct sound)
but wrongly labelled with compositions by Thelonious Monk.

I have listened to a bunch of Duke Ellington tribute recordings, and I have found most of them to be eminently forgettable. This one by Ellis Marsalis is an exception. Although the first few times I played this solo piano recording, I kept wishing for a drum and bass to join in, I was eventually won over by Marsalis's straightforward but always expressive playing, which ranges over a variety of styles to capture the colorful music that Duke Ellington made famous, and then concludes with the title cut, composed by Marsalis.

Forget those splashy big-band Ellington tribute albums--Duke in Blue honors the music and the man with nobility, grace, and swing. The sound of the piano is typical of a decent commercial studio job--the piano tends to get broken into parts, but not terribly so. Such recordings will likely sound better on wide-dispersion systems than they will on more nearfield-oriented systems.