Customer Reviews

Masterpieces By Ellington

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Read the two prior reviews for details, and believe them when the writers say this CD is worth hearing and owning if you are a jazz fan in general or a lover of Duke in particular. However, I liked the 11-minute "Tattooed Bride" piece even better than the long treatments of Duke's '30's classic songs, "Mood Indigo", "Sophisticated Lady" and "Solitude." The three short bonus tracks, laid down in the same era, are also lively. Sound quality is excellent throughout. While the players varied slightly for the three minor tracks, Johnny Hodges is here on sax, Russell Procope on sax and clarinet, Paul Gonsalves on sax, and Billy Strayhorn as well as Duke on piano. Sonny Greer is the drummer for the original LP selections, and Louis Bellson for the bonus selections. Great songs, great players, great composer, great conductor, great remastering combine to make this one a winner.

This album gave Ellington and his men their first chance to "stretch out" some old works to the length afforded by the new LP format. Duke revisits three of his classic miniatures from the thirties ("Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated Lady," and "Solitude"), transforming each into a large-scale tone poem (e.g., this complex performance of "Mood Indigo" runs to 15:26). He also introduces an important new classic with "The Tattooed Bride," one his most successful extended pieces. This music can take some time to grow on you, but its textural sophistication, somewhat reminiscent at times of Ravel's orchestrations, rewards limitless re-listening. Yvonne Lanauze's fine, world-weary, somewhat mannered vocals on the first two tracks are used principally to introduce further variations in color. (It just wouldn't really be accurate to view these as "vocal performances.") The recordings no doubt benefit greatly from contributions by band members who would soon leave the fold, including trombonist Lawrence Brown (simply awesome at the end of "Solitude"!), drummer Sonny Greer, and the incomparable alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges. That makes this milestone album both a beginning (new format) and an ending (last appearance, at least for a while, of key band members). Nonetheless, the real stars, as usual, are Ellington and the ensemble, and if one soloist truly stands out, it's virtuoso clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton (esp. on "Tattooed Bride", almost a clarinet concerto of sorts).

This CD reissue includes three shorter pieces recorded in 1951, including the first appearance of the classic "Smada" (a reverse spelling of the last name of DJ Joe Adams) as well as the thrilling "Vagabonds". The sound quality is truly excellent for this period, with vastly more presence than Ellington's classic 40s recordings. This is a must-have for fans of Ellington and of great American music.

This CD contains the best studio performance of "Mood Indigo" ever. I have more than 20 years of jazz listening experience, and I quite familiar with Duke Ellington's works, but i never realized that a big band can play with such a delicacy and absolutely magical musical touch. I purchased the CD yesterday, but I could not move on before I listened to the "Mood Indigo" 3 times. This is 15-minutes performance, but you just do not realize it when you listen to it. It seems like one-minute piece. I would buy the CD if it only had this one tune. The sound is very clear and reach. The 3 following original tracks are excellent too. "Tattooed Bride" starts very promising with wonderful piano-bass-drums intro, but later it becomes a little too sharp and loud, but it may be just my first impression. Bonus tracks are very pleasant, especially first two.

When Ellington went into the studio in 1950 to record the longer tracks on this disc, his orchestra was a bridge between its late-1940's configuration (the 5-man trumpet section) and its mid-1950's personnel. The sax section had settled into the form it would have for most of the ensuing two decades (old-timers Hodges and Carney and newcomers Procope, Hamilton and Gonsalves); the trombone section had long-timer Lawrence Brown as well as Tyree Glenn and newcomer Quentin Jackson; and the drummer was still Sonny Greer, who had anchored the rhythm section since the beginning. Greer would retire at the end of the year, Hodges would defect for two years, Brown and Glenn would leave; Louis Bellson and Cat Anderson would join up and Ellington would begin to re-form. Ellington's orchestra from 1953 on would be a great, swinging and sensitive one, but it would not make the same lush sound that this one did.

The arrangements and orchestrations all bear the hallmarks of Ellington's collaboration with Billy Strayhorn in the late 1940's: they are lush, symphonic, impressionistic, and densely (and adventurously) harmonic. "Mood Indigo", in particular, is a 15-minute tone-poem with shifting colors and key relationships as Ellington and Strayhorn bring the melody through a wide variety of guises, from Glenn's wah-wah trombone solo to Shorty Baker's lyrical waltz to orchestral and piano passages which do homage to the influence which Ravel and Stravinsky had on both of them. Great solos abound here and on the other tracks, most notably from Hodges, Brown, Hamilton, Gonsalves, Carney, trumpeters Baker and Ray Nance, and (most probably) Billy Strayhorn on piano, especially in "Mood Indigo"

"The Tattooed Bride" is the only new piece from the original "Masterpieces by Ellington" LP, and it is a beauty. The others of the original tracks -- "Sophistocated Lady" and "Solitude" -- are not laid out as inventively in their harmonics or structure. Of the group, "Solitude" is perhaps the weakest, but this is a relative term. The original "Masterpieces" contained only those four tracks. The additional three tracks are fillers from the same period, mostly penned by Strayhorn and recorded after the major personnel shifts in 1951. What a shame Columbia decided not to include "Tone Parallel to Harlem," another major work recorded at the same time. That would have rounded out the collection.

Ellington would go on to pen many more extended, symphonic works, but none would have quite the multicolored, impressionistic tone-pallate that these do. And Strayhorn's presence would not be as pronounced in those future works as it is here: the orchestration and harmonies in particular bear his mark. These are masterpieces indeed: great works of art by two of our greatest composers/orchestrators, and played by one of the greatest orchestras in Afro-American music.

Whether you are considering this disc because you like Ellington, or because you've heard great things about him as a composer and arranger, or whether you stumbled upon this by accident -- buy this CD. It will not replace the other Ellington necessaries (recordings by the Blanton/Webster orchestra in the 1930's and early 1940's, "Such Sweet Thunder," "A Drum is a Woman" and other masterworks by the great mid-to-late 1950's group, the "Far East Suite," "New Orleans Suite" and others from his later period), but if you have an appreciation for good music, you will not be disappointed.

My first jazz concert was the Duke in 1968. I have since become a lover of most jazz forms, including big bands. This album is unique.

Duke's tonal pallette is varied, exotic and beautiful. The "colors" that he gets on this album are amazing. Listening to these arrangements is like walking through a huge mansion that you've never seen before. Each new room is a surprise, with some new beauty inside.

The interesting thing about these lengthy treatments is that he doesn't just repeat a part of a chart and let a new guy solo; each new section stands on its own and is designed to highlight a new soloist.

As great as the "concert length" arrangements of the old classics are, the highlight is "The Tatooed Bride". The solo work by Johnny Hodges, Russell Procope, and others is sensuous, and the arrangement is as good as it gets.

I have other Duke Ellington albums, but this is my favorite. The new LP format really does "unleash" the Duke and inspires him to a new pinnacle.

This album represents jazz at a pinnacle. Ellington's mastery over form and content is outstanding and the vocal's are just beautiful. Then of course you have the muscianship, this makes the performances perhaps some of the most wonderful to listen to in all jazz. The sound recording is perfectly clear and if you put on the headphones one can be transported to a time and place when the sound of music was truly something to behold, thus this is Jazz at its finest. Ellington was a genius and this recording displays it. Music to dance to music to relax to and music to be thrilled by! Simply a must for any music lover.

Within are indeed Ellington masterpieces that altered musical history by stretching forth these classics into the totally new longer territory of the 33 1/3 LP taking advantage of the length and modernizing techniques now afforded him in the recording studio..moody,melancholy,laid back with the right energy sustaining the CD as a masterpiece the quality of Duke and his orchestra reworking these classics are timeless as was far ahead of it's time.
The shortest of the 4 initial cuts is over 8 minutes and the longest over 15 minutes.. combined with the 3 bonus tracks and lovely packaging this is indeed a great CD that is of historical importance. Solitude,Sophisticated Lady,Mood Indigo in longer orchestrated forms is truly a blessing as is the great music Duke gave us.

To my ears, inflating the three 3 minute masterpieces "Mood Indigo", "Solitude" and "Sophisticated Lady" to 8-15 minute "concert" renditions rendtions a lot of the life out of the pieces. One has to admire the symphonic effects and careful arrangements, but as a wise man once said: "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing". These lumbering, bomber-sized versions, while powerful, have a hard time getting off the ground. "The Tattooed Bride", built from the ground up to be an extended piece, is far more enjoyable and definitely the highlight of the CD. The three short bonus tracks seem a throw away, of pricipal interest in showing just how much the band loses without Johnny Hodges on alto and Lawrence Brown on trombone.

Hey, it is The Duke, and therefore worthwhile. The 3 stars is against the colllective body of Ellingtonia. I have gotten a lot more enjoyment out of Three Suites for the more symphonic side of the best band ever, and ya get 25 minutes more Ellington (plus Grieg, Tchaikovsky) in the bargain.