Customer Reviews

Live at the Blue Note

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I honestly have to say that 'Newport '56 [Complete]', 'The Great Summit' (Armstrong/Ellington) and 'Live at the Blue Note' rank among my top three favorite Ellington Releases.

I ran across this double CD set while drudging through page after page of Ellingtonia here on Amazon. I figured it looked like a good bet. I WAS MORE THAN RIGHT. This recording captures Ellington and band in the famous Blue Note club in Chicago, in a 3-set gig (6pm, 10pm and Midnight) on August 9, 1959. Ive never heard Duke so intimate and personable with his audience. In this case a club setting with perhaps just a few hundred patrons. The band is at their prime, still spinning from the riotous Newport concerts of recent. Duke invites Billy Strayhorn to join him at the piano on several tunes, and later on in the evening, a few numbers into the final set, Duke welcomes June Christy and Stan Kenton who are among the patronage.

This CD contains the complete recorded show, albeit with a few omissions as there were a small number of tunes which were not captured that evening. This is one of the most enjoyable listens i have had in quite sometime. The audio is very good quality HiFi stereo taken from a 3-track master. Total running time is about 135 minutes (2 CD's)

With the enormous stockpile of great Ellington material and recordings out there, it is quite an accomplishment to have a "gig" such as this stand so clearly above much of that stockpile.

This *IS* one of the best. The Blue Note existed in chicago until 1960, when the be-bop and rock craze forced the owners to close the doors for good. Wouldnt it be great to live to see Jazz come back and give us nights like this again?

I've always had a fondness for live Ellington recordings. Duke's interplay with the audience between numbers allows some of his personality to intrude on the proceedings, and, as everybody knows by now, Duke Ellington was one of the smoothest charmers to ever wear a pair of socks! Duke is in particularly good form here, even if he gets so carried away with his own blarney that at one point he actually blows an introduction.
Let's clear up an error right away. These sessions originate from 1958, not 1952 as stated in the heading. You can tell by the guys in the band (Sam Woodyard, for example, did not join Duke until 1955, and there was no PLAYBOY magazine, let alone a jazz festival sponsored by it, in 1952.). As for the music...
Billy Strayhorn does an infrequent star-turn, opening up with some very tasty piano chorouses on "Take the A Train." Johnny Hodges is a salty, sexy gas on "Flirtibird." "Mood Indigo" is a standout, with marvelous solos from Russell Procope, Shorty Baker, and an astounding piano solo by Duke which starts out on the 2nd degree of the key he's in and modulates, modulates, modulates for 3 chorouses, until landing right on the dominant in the turnaround of the 3rd chorous. Quips Duke to the audience: "I've been waiting all night to do that!" "Satin Doll" gets a similar treatment from Duke, with him calling out chords to the bass player so he doesn't get lost (!!!).
"A Disarming Visit by June Christy and Stan Kenton" is Dukish verbal interplay at its most extremely elegant.
Like most of Duke's dates in the 50's, the newer material comes off better than the stuff from the 40's, like "C-Jam Blues" and "In a Mellotone," which are no better than perfunctory. But the medley of 20's hits ("Black and Tan Fantasy," "Creole Love Call" and "The Mooche") is so perfectly arranged and executed it will leave you breathless!
Want more? How about the four-handed duets by Duke and Billy on "Drawing Room Blues" and "Tonk"? It's all good-humored fun and quite musical, too!
On the balance, this is one of the better live sets of Ellington out there, and the one which reveals Duke at his SMOOTHEST. Check it out!

one the best things about digging into duke ellington's discography is that it is soooo vast. so many recordings on the market! what a feast for the ears awaits one when they enter ellington's world of jazz. personally, i have around forty ellington discs, and not a one do i regret owning. some of his recordings, like: "early ellington," "okeh ellington," "the blanton-webster years," the 1943 "carnegie hall concerts," "black, brown, and beige," "ellington at newport," and "the far east suite" are no-brainers. once you start investigating jazz, these are the ones that you hear about as essential. you can't really miss out on them, if you make any effort to read up on the music. but, because there are so many, some fine ellington albums can fall through the cracks. many great ones you shouldn't miss, but could. the 1959 release "live at the blue note" is one of those. an excellent recording of many ellington favorites played live with an exciting and fresh feel about them. johnny hodges alto sax playing is particularly wonderful here. this is a set of big band magic not to be missed. an underappreciated work in ellington's discography, if you ask me.

A very good companion to the Newport '56 CD (essential). This is a more intimate setting at the Blue Note Chicago in 1959. The band rollicks, but not as fully as at say Carnegie Hall or the Newport Festival. The sound quality is top notch, hard to believe you're listening to a live recording over 40 years old. Several tunes from "Anatomy of a Murder" and some standards; mainly featuring Johnny Hodges. If you're a Duke fan, this is certainly among the best of the live shows out there.

Of the many live recordings of Duke's orchestra, this has to stand as the finest because it puts the greatest edition of Duke's band (that which remained relatively stable between 1956-67) and puts them in the intimacy of a nightclub rather than in a concert hall or festival setting. They perform a widely varied programme spread out over three complete sets, and live Ellington doesn't get much sweeter than the opening of the third set, recorded round about midnight. With the sounds of ice cubes tinkling in glasses and the crowd murmering, Duke sits at the piano and picks out a preamble to "Mood Indigo" in a beautiful solo performance as the band takes the stand. When the horns join in the familiar theme in a velvety ensemble, it's the loveliest sound to be heard in all of jazz. I get tingles even thinking of it. The sound quality of this recording is highly detailed, although the balance and stereo placement can seem a bit odd now and then as the entire band was apparently recorded through two overhead mikes hanging above the bandstand. This small quibble aside, the music goes down like a fine wine. If you could own only three or four Ellington CDs, this should definitely be one of them.

Joe Zawinul's / Manhattan Transfer's "Birdland" has lyrics about walking down the stairs of that legendary "hole." It's a shame no one penned a similar song about walking up the stairs of the lofty (in more than one sense of the word) Blue Note in Chicago. Thankfully, EMI Records (one of the big 4, a company including Capitol and Blue Note), has set out to preserve this night as it went down--all 3 sets--and it's a remarkable document of Ellington as well as of on-location recording as it can, and should, be done. (Often, the professional engineers mic everyone so closely than the "live" performance is indistinguishable from the polished studio version.)

I caught Duke Ellington whenever he was within driving or, before I'd passed a driver's license test, rail distance, and I stopped at the Blue Note (which had an "under-age bull-pen") every time I went through Chicago on my way home from Rock Island, Illinois for a Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Spring Break. This recording brings together the best of both worlds from my personal past. The liner notes indicate that Frank Holzfiend's Blue Note was Duke's favorite club--"The Metropolitan Opera House of Jazz," he called it--and its owner was clearly beloved by all musicians who played there.

The band is on fire during its sets on this particular night, perhaps extra motivated by the SRO crowd, including musical giants such as Stan Kenton and June Christy. I don't recall being there the night of this recording, but I do remember this particular stand, which is when Duke had two drummers in the band, Sam Woodyard and Jimmy Johnson. (When Elvin Jones left Coltrane in 1965, he flew to Europe to join the Ellington band, but left band just as quickly. Woodyard had been highly displeased with Duke's temporary two-drummer arrangements, as he made all too clear to me, and not only Sam but Elvin was unhappy with sharing drum chair duties with a doppelganger. As Elvin himself later told me, Coltrane had relegated him to the same role when he added Idris Muhammed to the quartet, one of the main reasons, according to Elvin, that he left Coltrane in the first place).

Nevertheless, the band on this occasion comprises Duke's very best personnel (Clark Terry, Gonsalves, Hodges, Cat Anderson, the astounding trombonist Britt Woodman)--with the exception of the usual, unexceptional Ellington vocalist. In Duke's 50-plus-year career, there were only a handful of vocalists who did much more than fill time, giving the musicians a bit of a breather--the one who was truly worthy of Ellington and the band, among those who actually traveled with the band was, first and foremost, Ivie Anderson, followed closely by Betty Roche, Joya Sherrill, Al Hibbler, and Alice Babs.

The sound is alive, fresh, frequently bracing, but far from studio quality, especially in terms of balance. The drums and brass are extremely forward in the mix while the bass and piano are recessed as are the majority of solos. Still, the club's sound, or "sound stage," is beautifully captured, placing the listener down front and to the right side of the bandstand (where the drums were set up). For a live, on-location recording, this one is hard to beat--indeed it makes the room itself a very present and critical "character" among Duke's always colorful cast of players.

"Mood Indigo" is a highlight--an extended extemporaneous fantasia on the tune, as we can hear Duke calling out chords while the band responds as if completely tuned to his wavelength: a performance that's spontaneous and unpredictable, yet the musicians throughout are precisely on cue with each other and the conductor. Johnny Hodges performs the impossible--once again--the sort of tour de force on Strayhorn's "Passion Flower" that previously I had heard only on "Blue Rose" (an essential, underrated Ellington recording on Columbia, with Rosemary Clooney). And once again, before introducing "The Mooche," "Black and Tan Fantasy," and "Creole Love Call," Duke announces that these are tunes that "were in the book before I joined the band," and once again there isn't the least hint that the audience gets the joke! (I would expect at least the kind of "polite guffaw" that listeners extend to the performer even if it's only recognition of a failed attempt at humor.) Apparently, Duke's listeners assume that Al Jolson or John Phillip Sousa was leading the band before Duke came up from Washington D. C. and took over. (After all, some of us know the story about Benny Moten's Kansas City band and the kid from Red Bank, N.J., Count Basie, who took over the reins upon the leader's death.)

In sum, this recording exceeds expectations. There's nothing like quite like it in the Ellington recorded library or, for that matter, in the history of recordings. Three sparkling sets by America's Maestro under the most believable, honest yet inspired conditions possible. Before it's lost and forgotten, I hope someone has presence of mind to put it in the time capsule. On the other hand, it would not be the best representation of American culture circa 1960. Things were never this good.

When the last set was over--usually around 2 A.M.--I would simply make my way down the stairs of the upstairs club to the lower level, which housed the 24/7 Clark Theater (the Blue Note was on Chicago's Clark Street, just a couple of blocks west of the Loop) and do my best to sleep until it was time for the morning train to head north to Adams-Friendship, Wisconsin. I must have slept, since I don't remember a single movie among the non-stop triple features that were being screened--B pictures changed on a daily basis. On the other hand, I do remember being awakened on more than one occasion by hands groping in the region of my wallet. (Count me fortunate--I escaped with even my limited funds.)

This recording puts you right in the club. At times you can hear waiters scuffling around, dropping silverware, a pay phone ringing in the far corner, it's all there...and so is the band. The band's dynamics comes through perfectly with lots of intimate numbers (Haupe, Sophisticated Lady, Tenderly) and a few screamers too (El Gato). It's pretty simple, if you found this page, you NEED this for your collection! No ifs, ands or buts, put it in your shopping cart and you'll thank me later.

I wish I could report that this is a must-have disc for all Ellington fans, but the fact is you may want to take pause and consider carefully if you place a high value on sound quality.

It's obvious that only 2 mics were used to record this performance, with some members of the band up close, and some at a distance, including Duke's piano. This results in a very unbalanced recording that strongly favors percussion. Oddly enough, it's a very good recording in the sense that it gives you an excellent impression of space, but unfortunately this seems to exaggerate the distance of some of the players. Duke sounds far away.

This is a wonderful performance, and I would recommend this to any Ellington completest or anybody not normally critical of sound quality, but uncompromising audiophiles may be disappointed.

Intimate, you are there in sound, and the sound quality and musicianship are unsurpassed. One of my favorite CDs (really two CDs). If you love Ellington, or Jazz, or fine music in general this is a must have imho.