Customer Reviews

Jazz Party

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
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This is one wild session. Recorded live in the studio (I'm guessing mid sixties) after the band had been on the road. A small coterie of Ellington nuts just happened to show up to hear one of Duke's most creative performances. Guest artists include Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Rushing, Ray Nance, Clark Terry along with regulars Cat Anderson, Johnny Hodges, etc. and nine, count them nine percussionists! Vibraphonists, xylophonists, marimbaists and a glockenspiel.

The first side of this album is played as a suite each tune blending with the next.

Underrated clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton wails on "Red Shoes" adding that great personal touch Duke's groups are known for. The sax section lays down a groove for "Butter" Jackson's and Ray Nance's raw plunger solos, a style rarely used these days. The finale to the suite is called "Ready, Go!" and features the indefatigable Paul Gonsalves in one of the stellar performances of his career.

Dizzy delivers a fine muted then open solo on "Upper Manhattan Medical Group", and Johnny Hodges takes on "All Of Me" next and nails it beautifully. The most avant garde selection follows. "Tymperturbably Blue" features (what else) nine tympani with a commanding ensemble puntuating this furtive and dark melody with occasional stabs from the screaming trumpet section.

Pianist Jimmy Jones plays an adroit intro to "Hello Little Girl" a blues for which Jimmy Rushing is well suited. Dizzy plays on this and drummer Sam Woodyard propels Rushing with well placed bass drum "bombs".

This CD has a lot to offer the "intellectual" jazz listener, but if hearing this session doesn't want to make you get up and dance around the living room I recomend therapy. A desert island pick for sure.

There are scores of Ellington CD's listed by Amazon, but most of them are compilations and many have not been reviewed much. It's hard for the newcomer to know the best values, the best sound, the important tunes in the best versions. "Jazz Party" is a studio date from the latter stage of the Ellington Orchestra's career. Recorded in early 1959, this album pleased Duke and his producer Irving Townsend, and it is quite likely to please you, too. The only really famous Ellington standard on here is "Satin Doll" and this version is not as good as the one you'll find on the CD "Compact Jazz--Duke Ellington and Friends." I recommend that collection highly. "Jazz Party" is valuable for its own sake, however in several ways. First, there is the 20-minute "Toot Suite" which features fine solos by several of the Ellington regulars. Next, there are two percussion-laden tunes with guest artists from classical orchestras. Third, Dizzy Gillespie brings his upswept trumpet to two numbers. Fourth, the great Johnny Hodges solos on sax on "All of Me" and it is short but sweet. Finally, guest Jimmy Rushing does a gravelly vocal on "Hello Little Girl." This CD re-release gives us nearly 50 minutes of good large group jazz in an amazing variety of styles. If you already like Ellington, you'll enjoy this one a lot. If you are not very familiar with his recordings, this will start off your collection at a nice price, although you will definitely want to own additional releases. I advise listening to it a couple of times with the earphones on first. There is a lot going on here, and the greatest touches are easier to discern if you give the disc undivided and intimate attention at first. Since this was a stereo session from '59, the sound quality is excellent throughout.

Duke and his orchestra are joined in this 1959 session by jazz luminaries Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Rushing and Jimmy Jones as well as an elaborate percussion section including xylophone, vibraphone and marimba.

Lest you worry that the orchstra doesn't get it's fair share of time, the centerpiece of the album is one of Duke's better suites, "Toot Suite" and all the solos on this piece are handled by regulars including Britt Woodman, Russell Procope, Quincy Jackson and Paul Gonsalves. Paul's solo on the last part of the suite, "Ready Go!", is somewhat reminiscent of his famous performance at Newport a few years earlier. Later on, Johnny Hodges does his thing on "All of Me".

The percussion section is featured on a couple of tracks, Malletoba Spank and Tymperturbably Blue, which are as exotic and delightful as their names. Dizzy's contributions come on Strayhorn's UMMG and on the final track, "Hello, Little Girl". The latter also feature Rushing's vocals. Needless to say, Dizzy is fantastic.

My only gripe is that for some reason, "Toot Suite" is tracked as one title, though clearly it is four (at least) separate pieces. I'd like to be able to select some of the pieces individually, but oh, well. I have no other complaints with the CD, which features nice stereo sound.

Other reviewers have said it already, so I'll try to be breef. This is a great CD; ideal present for those who like diversity and innovativeness in jazz.

First of all, Ellington's "Toot Suite" can be interpreted as some sort of synthesis of the greatest part of history (and pre-history) of jazz, with ancient call and response model, Quentin Jackson's hyper expressive plunger trombone, a whole lot of swingin' going on and the fiercfull drive of Paul Gonsalves' bop-based tenor sax (other contributors - Russelll Procope, Britt Woodman, Shorty Rogers, etc.)...
Then there's the intriguing collaboration with New York's finest classical music percussionists ("Malletoba Spunk" and "Tymperturbably blue"), the classical ellingtonian interpretation of "All of me" starring Johnny Hodges, the essence of ellegant and sophisticated swing...

But, there are two recordings of this party that would elevate even the lousiest album into 5 stars category:

The first such recording is "U.M.M.G." in which great Dizzy Gillespie (a big band fan himself) works extremely well with the orchestra as a featured solloist (with short but more than elloquent solos and responses by Carney, Hamilton and other Ellingtonians). Dizzy plays both muted and open trumpet and, well, shines like a diamond in this inspiring company, under Duke's wise orchestral guidance.

The second recording is, as you may have already heard, a blues "Hello Little Girl" that puts together the "Basieish" base of the blues in the form of Jimmy Rushing's powerful voice, the "third streamish" verbosity of mister Jimmy Jones (taking Ellington's chair) and, of course, Gillespie's fanciful and yet again introspective blues flight on trumpet.... The ballance on this recording is far from perfect, but it doesn't bother me - it gives the feeling of live performance, improvisation, creative chaos that jazz is all about...

I actually own the LP, not the CD of this album, but I had listened the CD and I see no reason for you to miss it....

Wow!

We all know Duke was a genius, as documented by many scholars far more eloquent than I, so let's talk about something else. This recording was made in 1959, which is amazing when one listens to the sparkling clarity and quality of the technical production. This album deserves a permanant place in history as a truly great audio engineering tour de force, using equipment and methods that, uncomplicated as they were by today's standards, got the job done. Sometimes less is more.

I first fell in love with the opening track of this album (Malletoba Spank) before I knew what it was. Sometime in the late 60's, WLIB radio in NYC used the third theme of the piece as a news "sounder" for the 5:00PM report. As a boy of 9, I had to tune in every day just to hear the captivating percussive theme, and dance with abandon- to the great amusement of my big sister.

30 years later, I heard it on WKCR, and finally learned its origins. I bought the album the next day.

Helpful hint- your first audition should be through a pair of very good headphones, driven by an amp with sufficient headroom to handle the exuberant dynamics.

Really- go and buy it. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed by this album!

Duke has everybody playing along with him: Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Johnny Hodges, Cat Anderson, Johnny Rushing, you name it.

This album has blew me away since it became the first album I ever listen to. Definitely I luv every song that it experience me.

This album has a blend that must-have big band lovers are waiting 4, xylophones, marimbas, vibes, percussion, brass, winds, etc.

The song I like is Malletoba Spank b/c of the arrangement and the big band sound playing real high and low I mean it's full of flavor. Others I like are Satin Doll, U.M.M.G., All of Me and the most song that interests me which is my favorite Toot Suite, Pts. 1,2 & 3. I love all the movements they did since "Black, Brown & Beige" which I like. I may go cop that as it after I pick up Jazz Party which I've been awaiting for a long time now.

I recommend this who likes the sound of big bands or else grew up around jazz.

The 21-minute second track is simply amazing. It's worth the price of the album alone. And the rest is equally good. Wow. This really took my soul to new places.

This is a Columbia Ellington date just before the label, apparently totally unexpectedly, ended its relation with Duke Ellington, who then went to Sinatra's Reprise label, where he was not given the welcome of which he seemed clearly deserving (Sinatra would record with him only once--in 1968--on a date that is among the least "Ellingtonian" of all of Duke's recordings). "Jazz Party," on the other hand, has the sound, the textures, even the thematic symmetry of some of Duke's better suites. "Satin Doll" was not included on the original LP, which included liner notes that tended to obfuscate the circumstances of the recording as much as illuminate them. Billy Strayhorn's "U.M.M.G." is credited to Duke, and rather than individual tracks as such, applause fills in the space between the tunes, which feel like "movements" rather than autonomous compositions (one of compositions--"Red Carpet"--is in fact a 3-part suite).

As usual, even more remarkable than the numerous notable individual contributions--by Diz, Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Hamilton, Britt Woodman, Johnny Hodges, Ray Nance, and Paul Gonsalves--is the guiding hand of Ellington that's unmistakable on each selection if not musical note on the album. After reading about the "manufactured" crowd noise, applause, etc. of the original "Duke at Newport '56" LP, it's hard not to question whether the applause on this album was all inserted after the fact and whether what promised to be a casual "jam session" wasn't a carefully planned musical canvas by Duke--from the opening fusillade of tympani and various percussion instruments to the closing statement by Mr. 5 by 5 on "Hello, Little Girl," whose 1930s-rooted choruses don't seem out of character with either Ellington's arrangement or the inspired, inflammatory soloing of Dizzy.

This is a date that deserves the careful kind of researching and remastering that went into the "Ellington at Newport" reissue, though an investment of comparable time, energies and expense is unlikely to take place any time soon. In the meantime, it's virtually indispensable, if only for the two tracks on which Diz shines. After the swing era, and beginning with the sound and fury of the beboppers, much of the nuance and color of instrumental voices--the reason that Duke once said, "Swing is business; jazz is art"--became secondary to blazing technique and advanced, alternate harmonies. Yet if there was one modernist who acquired and maintained an unmistakable, immediately identifiable, voice on his instrument, it was Dizzy Gillespie. No one plays with more humor, exuberance, and unforced eloquence and excitement. Duke, who could accompany with the percussive fervor of a Horace Silver, mostly stays out of the way during Diz' solos, as does Jimmy Jones, perhaps the most impressive "non-soloing" pianist of them all. He's a pianist whose softly voiced chords provide greater satisfaction than the Bud Powell-like lines of hundreds of his contemporaries. And again, Gonsalves plays notes that defy analysis let alone imitation. (It seems that a book transcribing his solos is long overdue.)

But it's Diz who comes closest to out-matching Duke on this particular occasion--a musician-player who simply refused to take himself more seriously than the game of music that he played with such relish. Given many of the lesser recordings that Gillespie appeared on after 1960, one almost wishes he had taken up residence alongside Clark Terry in the Ellington family. More than Duke's encounters with Mingus and Coltrane, the meeting between Duke and Diz had to be the one made in heaven. No doubt there are those times when even the ultimate Producer and his first- chair trumpet player, Gabe, are so heavily booked that it's necessary to send suitable replacements.

I've owned this since the original LP; one of the few indispensables.

The other reviewers covered the ground well, so I'll just try to complement their coverage. The Tymperturbably Blue and Malletoba Spank aren't like any other Ellington (or anyone else's) work I know; the second half of Controversial Suite on Ellington Uptown probably being closest. Ellington; urbane, witty, and fun.

In Hello Little Girl, Dizzy Gillespie who played in the big bands prebop, and Jimmy Rushing, one of the Basie band's magnificent Chicago blues shouters, and the Ellington Orchestra, the last and the greatest of the big bands, came together with a delicacy and force that drew it's power from across the entire big band era. A summation of the era and a joyous tour de force that has rewarded many listenings.

This was the first jazz album I ever bought - I was about 19-20, and for some reason my family never had jazz albums. Not that they didn't like it, but we didn't usually listen to jazz.
Well, I couldn't have picked up a better album to start - the music in this record is sheer magic and even now, 20 years later, I am taken to a dream world when I listen to the first notes of Satin Doll.
This is definitely a must-have.