Customer Reviews

Duke Box

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's increasingly difficult to get a good sampling of Duke Ellington's music from any source other than a "collector's" label. The Duke Box offers a great sampling of Ellingtonia, for $9 a disc. The sound is always at least adequate and sometimes excellent. The Fargo performances, 2.5 hours on discs 2 and 3 are incredible -- clear, vibrant sound and incredible musicianship. They're among the very best Ellington recordings. Thank you, Storyville!

Reasonable sound, price and content - reviewers here have been a bit unfair IMO. You get the famous and essential Fargo 1940 concert, radio broadcasts, a Carnegie Hall concert not covered by the Presige series, and a good booklet (even though they could have used a better editor in places). The mastering favors elimination of hiss (at the expense of the middle range) too heavily in some places, but not nearly as bad as some other releases in the Ellington canon. Some listeners might be distracted by the presence of radio announcers in places, but for me that heightens the historical perpective and makes the set that much more enjoyable.

Two of the recordings are excellent and representative of Duke's live performances. The Fargo recordings are outstanding. The other material is superfulous, and at times the fidelity suffers. The Concert at Carnagie Hall was quite good from a historical perspective.

I would recommend that Blue Note issue the Fargo recordings as a solo album at a lower price. True lovers of Duke and the big band sounds might find the box album a good buy. I am a collector, and a lot of this stuff I have on other disks. I would recommend other albums--- the Blanton recordings, with the phenomenal bass of Jimmy Blanton. Also, the live Newport Jazz Festival recordings (2-cds) are very good.

The packaging is well done. Transcription to new media excellent. The end result is less than priceless.

The music is as flat as it was on 78's or AM radio. As technology has evolved are tastes change. By the standards of fifty years ago the recordings are very good but we've come to expect more, "The Duke" is a disappointment. Most of my listening to music is done on a high end CD player in my car. The player brings out the "tinny-ness" of recording technology of the past. It's not pleasant listening and it soon will end up parked on a shelf and forgotten. The "good old days" really were not.